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February-April 2012
Jeff’s house didn’t become the default hangout for the reasons his and Evan’s and Daniel’s (and Jessie’s, Jessa’s, Nick’s, Ryan’s…) parents assumed. Not having legitimate adults around didn’t turn it into some sort of opium den or sex parlor. There weren’t wild parties or strangers showing up all hours of the night. Like Jeff would ever let that stuff happen around his brother.
It was just that, especially with no Sparky around, it was too lonely for Alex and Jeff on their own.
Mostly too lonely for Jeff. Or, sometimes too much for Jeff when Alex wouldn’t stop it with the boombox. And too overwhelming for Jeff when something would break around the house, and Alex couldn’t understand why Mom and Dad weren’t helping them. Frankly, Jeff needed a lot of help that his relatives weren’t giving him, and having his friends over made everything seem slightly less awful.
He would’ve thought by this point they’d proven themselves responsible, but as it was, Vin’s parents were more likely to believe that he’d gone there to have a drunken orgy than to clean. “We were scream singing in the kitchen while emptying moldy Tupperware,” was somehow more implausible than, “We ate way too much weed, got dizzy, and threw up,” which was ridiculous. That only happened once and in Evan’s basement, thank you very much.
Well. Okay. But they didn’t know about that, and he still didn’t understand why they thought they’d be getting up to any of that now.
Aside from the heartbreaking fact that they'd lost yet another friend, everyone was busy dealing with their own stuff. Evan and Steph were nesting in their new apartment, Daniel had a new job, and Alex was spending more time with his own friends outside of the house. Meaning, when Vin and Jeff weren’t at school or work, they were frequently left to their own devices. Not that that was a problem for them.
Especially when it meant Vin could really take his time saying goodbye to Jeff, let Jeff push his hair back and pull his face close while Vin tugged at his bottom lip and chased after his mouth, could use their time alone to leave more marks under the collars of their shirts and dig their fingers into one another’s hips, like they weren’t going to see each other in a few hours.
Even after he pulled himself away, Vin stalled for more time, stood by the door playing with Jeff’s hands, and tried to find one more thing to say. He reminded him that he’d definitely get Alex, so Jeff could work his early morning shift, said he’d check on Evan and Steph when he got home. He told Jeff he loved him, that he’d see him tomorrow.
He babbled so long that Jeff squeezed his hands and pushed him out the door.
“Go home,” he said, but he still followed Vin out on the porch and pulled him close one more time to peck his temple, got a mouthful of hair for his trouble. “Ugh, you caveman. Get out of here.”
He went, waving as he pulled out onto the street.
Steph texted him as he turned into his driveway, before he had the chance to overthink what he was going to say. She saved him the trouble and told him flat out shit’s not great. He read, sitting in his car, that Evan had been miserable all day, blaming himself over and over. He’d broken down getting his suit out, talking about her blood on him and how if he could have run faster, she’d still be here. He’d scratched at himself where he was supposed to have scars and wouldn’t stop until Steph jerked his hand away.
He shut the car door as she told him Evan had only just settled down and was resting with his head in her lap.
-While i still have one
-And how are you feeling?
-Fucking sad and pretty gross :x wanna stop getting sick soon
As he walked inside, his mom interrupted his response, stopping him to ask, “What’s wrong with your hair?”
Thinking she was complaining about how shaggy he let it get, he said, “It’s…long?”
“It looks like someone dragged their hands through it,” she said, and he tried not to wince.
He told her, feeling himself turn red, “Then it’s from me driving with the window down.”
She huffed and pushed some of it back in place. “In February? Are you getting sick?”
“Um, maybe,” he said, hedging, giving himself an excuse for his flushed face and a reason to escape. “I should probably lay down. Since I have to get Alex tomorrow, too.”
She let him alone without anymore comments about his wild hair or growing blush, and he finished his text to Steph, offering to buy her more ginger (“Sure thanks dad :p lol”) and telling her he’d be there early for her and Evan (“<3”). He went to his room and checked that all the pieces of his suit were laid out, that his phone was charging, that his camera had an empty memory card. He got into bed and sent one more goodnight text to Jeff, promising that he and Alex would be waiting for him at the graveyard.
In the end, he made Jeff wait on him, didn’t show up until long after the sun had gone down, and the mourners went home.
The driveway was full by the time he made it back, and they had the whole house lit up, like it was supposed to be a beacon to guide him back. It hadn’t helped.
Hard to see the light behind the tar smeared on the car’s windows.
In his panic, it’d taken him forever to find his way out of the woods. The world looked normal, but the paths looped strangely around themselves, seeming to lead him back in on himself. His body gulped in air faster than he could handle, and his mind couldn’t work to straighten them out. Every time he stopped to pick the next trail, shapes moved between the dark, thin trunks, and he couldn’t tell if they were pushing him out or pulling him back.
With the sun in his eyes, he picked any path that looked like it would take him north or west and drove so fast the trees and anyone in them blurred together.
His phone was worthless—broken, covered in whatever that black shit was—and stars had come out by the time he found a gas station with an empty alcove where the payphone used to be and a cashier who wouldn’t let him touch the one behind the counter. He tried to explain he was in trouble, needed to call his family. They told him to stop getting the floor dirty.
He hung around waiting for someone who’d let him use their cell, but hardly anyone was stopping for gas, and no one that did had been interested in helping him. Instead, he sat in his car, letting out dry sobs at his footage, clutching at useless wads of paper towel. He stayed there until the employee came outside, telling him he’d bothered too many patrons, and he needed to leave.
He quit rubbing the filth into his suit and left.
Vin halfheartedly scuffed his feet across the lawn, tired enough to not really care about tracking it into the house, and guessed at what he was going to walk into.
A deathly quiet living room? He got that right. His parents and his friends waiting for him? A given with all the cars parked out front. His dog, howling low, scratching at his legs before running off, tail and ears drooping? Depressing. And expected.
His mom got to her feet, glaring, and bit out, “Why didn’t you answer your phone? Where have you been?”
“We, uh,” he said, stuffing hands in his pockets and looking at the floor, “Alex and I, we got…lost.”
“You got lost driving to Trenton?” She stared at him, followed him as he ducked his face to avoid making eye contact. “Did you wreck the car? Are you hurt?” she asked, suddenly softhearted, reaching towards him.
He backed away and said, “No, the car’s fine.”
Her face went cold again. “Are you doing drugs?”
“No!” he shouted, still avoiding eye contact, which didn’t support his denial. He was terrified, though, that he’d start crying if she could see him straight on, that he’d break down and beg for help they couldn’t give, and the police would show up to accuse them of playing games.
“You disappear for the whole day,” she counted off. “You’re not hurt. You’re not giving us any explanation. What am I supposed to think?”
“I don’t know,” he mumbled.
“So what’s that on your clothes?” She pointed at his cuffs and shoes. “Heroin?”
“No, Mom, what—if I was doing heroin, why would I have it all over my clothes?”
“Then what do you have all over your clothes?”
He couldn’t answer, and her eyebrows drew together hard. “Fine,” she said and walked past him, heading to the stairs. “I just want to help you, but who am I?”
His dad grunted, said, “At least you shaved,” and followed her.
Evan, Stephanie, and Jeff were waiting silently, looking sick. He figured it was probably grief over Jessie that had Evan looking in a bad way and actual nausea running through Steph, but Jeff, staring up at him, wringing his hands—
“Where’s Alex?”
Fear.
He watched the tar fall in flakes off his shoes, then said in a low voice, in case his parents came back, “We—we ended up in the pine barrens.” He pulled his hands out of his pockets and moved towards Jeff, but stopped short, reluctant to touch him with the sludge hanging on him. “He was gone when I woke up. I’m sorry. There’s video—”
Jeff dug his nails into his palms, stood up, and walked out.
Jeff started the car with a blank face and insisted he needed to be alone, while Vin held its door open. Jeff promised he’d be okay and that he’d call, and Vin felt like he didn’t have a choice except to let him go. Now, he was letting himself into Jeff’s house after a day of no one hearing from him.
He wouldn’t answer Vin’s calls or texts, wouldn’t answer Steph on any of their social media, wouldn’t answer the door for Evan. He'd even missed his shift at the hospital, and as his emergency contact, Jeff’s manager thought Vin should have some answers. He did not.
The sound of the door opening was heightened in the silence. Jeff had tried to make the house live again, Vin and Evan taking over when he just couldn’t anymore, but overnight, it’d turned back into a tomb. It was like he hadn’t come home at all, and stale air and desolation had made themselves at home instead.
Vin found him on his parents’ bed, dead-eyed and unnaturally still. He’d barely acknowledged their room even existed after they passed, and Vin didn’t know what it meant to find him there, didn’t know how bad off he had to be to climb into their empty bed. He looked at his boyfriend curled up between ghosts, and all he could think to say was, “Hey.”
“Hey.”
He settled himself aside Jeff’s back, enough space between them that he could trail his knuckles down his spine, and asked, “What have you been doing?”
For a long while, he didn’t answer, and Vin stayed where he was until his posture became less strained, and Jeff rested his back against Vin’s hands. He said, “I’m getting rid of the house,” as Vin wrapped his arm around his chest.
“Okay,” Vin said, not knowing if he was serious, but not particularly caring about the damn house. “But have you eaten?” he asked, laying his palm in the center of Jeff’s chest. “Drank something?”
Jeff laid there unresponsive, and he finally let himself press his forehead into the back of his neck. “I don’t think you should be here alone.” He pulled Jeff against his chest and squeezed his eyes shut, trying not to cry onto his neck. “Please, come home with me.”
Jeff had been serious about selling the house, and Vin would support him if Jeff thought it would help him deal with it all.
They drove to his house whenever they weren’t in school or at work, loaded down with stacks of cardboard boxes and cleaning supplies. They filled bags with things to donate and things to sell and took their chances putting boxes in the doctor’s storage unit since it was still theirs for a few more years anyway. They set aside things that Evan and Steph might want for their place, and Jeff made a pile for the hypothetical apartment he was going to rent.
On the good days, they could forget the dead who’d walked through the house and stay there goofing around all night, sorting through the decades stashed away in the garage and hallway closets, then curling up on a sofa or in Jeff’s bed. On the bad days, they could only stand to be there for an hour or so before packing it in and going back to Vin’s house.
His parents were pretty understanding with them. They knew that Jeff needed time away from his sepulcher of a house, that he could only stare so long at his parents’ jewelry or Alex’s shoes before he needed to leave. They’d lost family members, too; they knew how hard it was to have to look at the sum total of a person’s life and decide how to distribute it. They weren’t heartless, but after a month of sporadically finding Jeff sleeping on their couches or in their son’s bed after Vin had gone for the day, they started hinting that maybe Jeff should spend some more time with Evan or Daniel.
They started spending more time at Jeff’s house instead. Pushing themselves to work for as long as they could, no longer sorting things to sell, just keep or toss. Jeff dragged boxes of Christmas decorations to the end of the driveway and stacked photo albums in storage tubs while Vin went through closets, throwing clothes into garbage bags and stuffing them into his car to drop off on the way to school.
All while Jeff became quieter. He got distant after asking his coworkers for the names of real estate agents, and his mood soured further taking furniture out of the house, and the bruises under his eyes got darker even though every time Vin woke up, Jeff was laying still next to him.
“Seriously? Should I be insulted? I’m not gonna fall over because I got up to open a door,” Steph said, balling up an afghan and throwing it at them.
It hit Jeff in the chest, and he only caught a corner; the rest spilled out of his hands, and he bent over to gather it up. “We just didn’t want to bother you.”
“Congrats,” she said, raising her palms and tilting her head. “It’s the one time I’m home and not sleeping.”
Vin sat down, resting against the arm of the couch, leaving room for Jeff to stretch out across the cushions and spread the blanket over his legs. He asked, “How was the ultrasound?” while Jeff laid against Vin’s side and pulled out his phone.
“Fine, looks healthy.” She flopped into the armchair and carried on, “All the usual parts where they’re supposed to be.”
“Oh, come on,” Vin groaned.
Jeff said, “Tell us about your baby’s genitals.”
Steph scrunched up her face. “Gross.”
“Yeah, he’s vile.” He dragged his hand through Jeff’s bangs, did it again in response to Jeff’s quiet you mad? “But, really, do you know what you’re having?”
She looked down and put a smirk over her nervousness. “A girl.”
“Hey! Great!”
“Yeah, names?” Jeff asked.
“I mean, it’s been a day, so no.” She put her hand over her mouth and paused. “Well, that’s not entirely true. Evan kind of wants her middle name to be Jessica, but I don’t think he’s sure.”
Vin didn’t know what to say, gave her a shrug. Jeff didn’t acknowledge her or Vin knocking him around with his shoulders, kept scrolling on his phone.
Steph asked, “What are you so focused on?”
“I need to find an apartment a poor college student can afford,” he said.
“There’s gonna be some one bedrooms opening up here.” She grinned. “You know, if you wanna be neighbors.”
“I don’t know if I can afford that. I’m still forecasting.”
“It’s pretty easy with two people,” she said, looking pointedly at Vin.
Vin frowned. “Okay, but neither of us works full-time.”
Jeff slipped lower on the couch, ending up with his head on Vin’s thigh, and hid his face behind his phone. “And I know you and Evan got cozy real quick, but we’re not.”
Vin snickered and said, “Dude, what do you call me practically living at your house?” then sighed. “It’d be nice to actually live together one day and not have to worry about what other people think.”
Jeff grunted, and Vin couldn’t tell if he was agreeing or not.
Steph laughed and made sorry attempts to muffle herself at Vin’s confused look. “It’s just, Evan’s mom won’t stop asking if we’ve set a date yet.” She put a hand to her head, said, “We can retreat, but we’re over there every weekend, and she won’t stop.”
“Oh well,” he lamented, “can’t blame a man for dreaming.”
Jeff sighed, put his phone in the pocket of his sweatshirt, and closed his eyes.
Steph quietly fell asleep in her chair, and Jeff sat up so Vin could lay down next to him, wrap an arm over him, and peer over his shoulder at apartment listings.
When Evan came home, he took one look at them on his sofa, huddled together in their hoodies and under blankets while Steph slept upright in shorts and a tank, and asked, “How close are you to listing it?”
Vin hadn’t meant for it to come out like that, like he was fed up with Jeff, didn’t mean for it to sound like he was angry at him. He was thinking more about the emails they would get about stop watching than about what Jeff was feeling and how he would take Vin’s tone. The last thing he wanted was to be a person Jeff needed to get away from, but when Vin turned to get the camera out of his face, Jeff got to his feet and left the room. He hadn’t even noticed until he saw Evan look towards the door.
He found Jeff sitting at the kitchen table, head in his hands, and when he heard Vin’s footsteps, he asked, “What’s all this attention gotten us?”
Vin startled him pulling the chair out and away from Jeff’s, made him jump at the legs scuffing the floor. “I’m sorry.”
“We shouldn’t have done this,” he said and laid his hands on the table, picked at the sleeves of his cardigan.
Vin asked, “Do you think it would have been different if we hadn’t started?”
He didn’t answer the question, said instead, “I think I’m done working on the house for a while,” then told Vin, “You should go home.”
Vin went back to Evan and told him they were done.
Vin figured he was a total asshole for asking Jeff to film after he’d made it clear he was done with the camera, and he didn’t blame Jeff for giving him the silent treatment. If Vin wasn’t going to listen to him, why should he bother to keep explaining himself? He’d obviously asked Jeff for too much right after their disagreement, so Jeff must have thought he was being used or felt disrespected or was just too tired to deal with Vin’s bullshit.
Not that he knew if Jeff actually felt that way, as he wouldn’t answer any of Vin’s apologetic, groveling messages, wouldn’t come to the door, and when Vin used his key to let himself into Jeff’s half-emptied house, he wasn’t there. Vin couldn’t even ask Evan and Steph for help. No one was answering their door, either, and all his attempts to contact them went unreturned.
His mom found him in the basement, flipping through photos with no plan to fix his mess, and asked, “Where’s Jeff?”
“With his relatives, I guess,” he said, trying for casual, but it sounded bitter even to him.
“Did you two fight?”
Vin sighed. “Yeah.”
“About?” she prodded, sitting next to him on the couch.
He started gathering the loose pictures together. “He got anxious all of a sudden about being filmed, and I thought he was over it.” He wrapped a rubber band around the stack, but it snapped, and pictures spilled over the floor.
She leaned over to help him clean, and he frantically swept the photos into a pile, grabbing them with his hands and pushing them with his feet. Giving him a look, she said, “He’s still having a rough time, isn’t he? I’m sure no one meant what they said.” She reached down and picked up a photo that had slid out of his reach.
Vin’s breathing stopped short as she looked at the picture, and his words came out hesitantly. “I don’t know.”
“Is this Evan? Who’s he with?” She passed the picture over and kept trying to figure out what was wrong. “Is Jeff okay?”
He shrugged, hoped she wouldn’t ask more about the photos. “I don’t know. He won’t answer me.”
“Is that unusual for him?” she asked, as he turned the picture over and looked at the words written on the back.
“No,” he said. “Not really.”
2 June 1993
James’s life was hardly ever quiet.
In college, he had roommates coming home all hours of the day and night, from classes and jobs, from the libraries and bars, and no one ever bothered keeping their voices down. His whole life his mother was singing or baby-talking at their dogs, early to late. Even the times when he would visit his dad’s home, the house would be filled with guests, his arms filled with Harry, and his ears filled with the question: “Why is this night different from all other nights?”, and he would think to himself, while he kept Harry entertained on his lap, because we get to be a family tonight.
When he met Em, her own apartment was quiet—peaceable neighbors who walked softly, only one roommate who spent most of her time elsewhere, insulated windows that blocked the noise of people walking to the park—but the home they made together was vibrant. If she wasn’t tapping pencils on the table in the echoing dining room, his clacking on the typewriter would be drifting up the basement stairs. When the record player wasn’t going, she’d share funny lines from novels, and he’d read her all the gross parts of his case reports. They were frequently yelling the answers to quiz shows and screaming laughing in the kitchen over the gelatin salads in the recipe book she got from the Sisterhood.
Then, they had a home filled with the warble of Evan waving instant film. Jeff reciting writing to make sure it sounded natural. Stephanie’s Hebrew lessons, Linnie’s spelling practice, and Vinny memorizing scripture. A house where there was always the hum of conversation over the rhythm of feet going up and down stairs. A house where someone was always coming or going and shouting hello or goodbye before closing the door too hard. A living, breathing home.
Fairmount—and every hospital he’d worked in since—was consistently loud. There were children constantly in the halls, being herded from one appointment to another, while doctors, nurses, and assistants discussed patients in the corridors. The PA system fired off endless announcements over ringing phones and outbursts from suffering children, and he’d had years of practice of letting the noise roll and break over him.
His life is, and always will be, messy and unpredictable, but rarely silent, so he doesn’t quite understand why the hum and buzz are so distracting today. It’s not like it’s the first anniversary he’s spent alone. Hell, the day they were married, he and Adam had to leave her and drive to sit with people he didn’t know, smoking and talking about research and grants, while she sat surrounded by the pieces of their old life.
Start as you mean to go on, he thinks. He shouldn’t have expected anything different.
It wasn’t a fair comparison, though; you couldn’t get much farther from Fairmount’s depressing conference rooms than a banquet hall.
The room was packed full of noise, ready to split at the seams and pour excited chatter and cheerful music out the doors. Squealing children were running in and out of the hall with their parents chasing after them, herding them back to the actual party games. There was even a reporter wandering around, stirring everyone up, and all the guests were eager to speculate for the article.
And all he wants to do is make his excuses, call Maryann, and toast their marriage alone, but the door opens again, and it’s not another one of Albert’s bored nephews trying to sneak away. Jack and Doris block his view before he has a chance to see who it is, and then Albert rushes over, pointing to him. James thought he’d been told of every available relative, but maybe there was a cousin they missed in all the activity.
He is absolutely not in the mood for anymore introductions or one more handshake or comment about the library. There is no energy in him to deflect another question about his research with talk of historical preservation, but he isn’t going to let himself be rude to any of Albert’s guests. James turns his face to school it into polite interest, and when their hand touches his shoulder, he turns back around into, his is certain, one of his nightmares.
But her face doesn’t deform, neither losing its smile nor having it sink into her skull. Her voice doesn’t turn into a hiss as she says his name. Her figure doesn’t twist out of its shape, and her nails don’t become claws as she draws him out of the chair.
“Em?” he asks.
His arms remain slack as she wraps hers around his neck. “Jim, what on earth have you been doing out here that this man is flying me to New Jersey?”
“His nieces—they were—Maryann?”
“I know I’m not supposed to be here,” she says, pulling him in tighter. “But how could I say no?”
James still has to work with these people. Albert’s nieces and their parents are meeting with him in a week. Jack’s going to see him again while he makes arrangements for the donation. He knows his weepy behavior and standoffish attitude haven’t gone over well with them tonight. He knows he’s really pushing it not even saying goodbye, but as long as no one stops them leaving, James doesn’t really care what they think about him.
The music’s still playing as they rush out of the hall, tears on their cheeks and arms draped across each other, spilling their laughter into the street.