Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The only good thing about this entire situation was how good Evan looked in a suit, Tommy mused as they climbed out of their Uber in front of the church steps. Tommy paused to admire his boyfriend’s long legs and broad shoulders, which probably wasn’t the most appropriate thing to be doing immediately before his grandmother’s funeral, but Tommy was only human.

“You good?” Evan asked, buttoning his suit jacket and smoothing his hands down his thighs.

“Nervous?” Tommy asked in order to avoid answering.

“Well, I am technically meeting your family today,” said Evan. He squared his shoulders and eyed the church as though it were a five-alarm fire.

“The goal is actually to avoid meeting them,” said Tommy, following Evan’s gaze. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d stepped foot inside a church. Probably his mother’s funeral, just before his eighteenth birthday. Just before he’d fled his father’s house into the arms of Uncle Sam. And what a shitshow that had been. “We go in, sit in the back, avoid eye contact, and leave as soon as it’s over.”

Almost before Tommy had finished speaking, a family voice called from behind him, “Thomas? Is that you?”

Tommy met Evan’s eyes, trying not to show his panic.

“What’s that thing they say about plans surviving contact with the enemy?” Evan asked with a shrug. “Do you need me to glare at her, because I absolutely will.”

“Down boy,” said Tommy. Some of the tightness in his chest eased as he pictured Evan as his own personal attack dog, fending off Tommy’s relative. “She’s fine.” He hoped. Tommy turned and tried to summon a smile. “Aunt Gina!” God, his voice sounded so fake even to himself. Gina was sure to notice. She was like that: a noticer of things you really didn’t want noticed, like how your gaze lingered too long on your best (male) friend when he wasn’t looking.

“I knew it was you!” Before Tommy could say anything else his cheeks were being held between two heavily-ringed hands, his face pulled down to the level of his five-foot-two aunt, and a kiss planted on each cheek bone. “You’re as big as a house. I’m going to break my neck just trying to look you in the eye.” Gina’s rose-scented perfume surrounded him in a pungent cloud. Good to see some things never changed.

Tommy was helpless to do anything against his tiny aunt, so he settled with simply patting her on the back until she saw fit to release him. At which point, he most definitely retreated a few steps to Evan’s side, fighting the urge to grab his boyfriend’s hand. Welp, any illusions Evan may have had about Tommy’s unwavering confidence were definitely dashed now. Not that Tommy didn’t feel like he could be vulnerable around Evan. In fact, he liked that he felt safe enough around Evan to shed some of his confidence, but that was usually at home, in the dark, in the timeless and worldless bubble of post-coital closeness.

“It’s good to see you Aunt Gina,” he said, and he even meant it. His father’s sister had always been kind to him whenever he’d seen her at Christmas and Easter and christenings. And she’d never said a word to his father about any suspicions she might have had about Tommy’s sexuality for which he’d always be eternally grateful.

“It’s been too long.” Gina continued her advance and grabbed one of his hands in her tiny, arthritic claw. The cold metal of her rings pressed into his too-hot flesh.

Tommy knew he was a big man but standing next to Gina made him feel positively goliath. “Yeah, I’ve been busy,” he said.

“For fifteen years?” Gina raised an eyebrow that was the spitting image of his Nonna’s – her mother’s – expression when he’d tried to get away with lying.

Tommy shrugged.

Gina pursed her lips and swept her eyes over him from toe to top of the head as though cataloguing every change he’d undergone in the intervening years: his height, his breadth, his brawn, the greys at his temple, the lines in the corners of his eyes. “You look like your mother,” she said at last with a decisive nod of her head. It was the highest praise Tommy could think to receive. “Now, who’s your friend?” Her piercing blue gaze swept to Evan, appraising him in much the same way she’d done to Tommy.

The tightness returned to Tommy’s belly as he looked to Evan who gave him a tiny nod as if to say that Tommy could say whatever he needed to in order to get through the day. It would have been easy to circumvent the truth. God, why was it easier to fly a helicopter into a hurricane than it was to simultaneously come out to his aunt and introduce her to his boyfriend?

Tommy took a breath. “Aunt Gina, this is my boyfriend, Evan Buckley.” He never took his eyes off Evan as he made the introduction, and he was rewarded with Evan’s beautiful smile stretching across his face. “Evan, this is Aunt Gina. My dad’s sister.” And then, Tommy held his breath. He didn’t want to look at Gina, didn’t want to see the same disgust he’d seen in his father’s face when he’d found Tommy’s collection of magazine cutouts reflected in her eyes.

“Don’t lump me in with the likes of your father,” said Gina dismissively before making a thoughtful sound as she no doubt x-rayed Evan with her Auntie powers. Tommy was still too scared to look at her. “Handsome.” Tommy snapped his gaze towards Gina just in time to see her nod. “I approve. You’ll have to bring him to dinner sometime. Your father won’t be invited.” And with that, she swept up the church steps and inside, leaving a trail of rose scent in her wake. Yeah, Tommy would rather face the hurricane again than get on her bad side.

“She seems nice,” said Evan, a bemused quirk to his eyebrow.

Tommy chuckled and put a hand to the small of Evan’s back as they followed his aunt up and into the dark wood and stained glass of the sanctuary. “Yeah, that’s Aunt Gina for you.”

They slipped into the back row and Tommy looked down at the order of service the usher had handed him when they entered. His Nonna’s picture stared up at him in black and white. She was younger than she’d ever been in Tommy’s lifetime – middle-aged – but she still had the toughness in her eye that Tommy had always admired: a fire that had seen her through a childhood of war, the challenges of immigrating to a new country, a miserable marriage. Tommy had never known how his Nonna had faced everything she had and still managed to find the good in everyone, the light in every dark day.

“Uh, I think the “avoid being noticed” part of the plan has failed,” Evan whispered in his ear.

Tommy glanced up from the program and immediately saw what Evan meant. People were staring at him, at them. Some were more subtle: a slight turn of the head and a sliding of eyes to gain a peripheral peek. Others, not so much.

His brothers, Michael and Anthony (Mikey and Tony) were looking at him openly. They looked so much older now. Last time he’d seen them, he’d been hopped up on pain meds, recovering in hospital awaiting news of his honourable discharge. They’d been teenagers then: tall and gangly, not quite sure what to do with the sudden excess of limb they’d gained in their most recent growth spurts. Actually, Tony had been maybe ten at oldest – a little kid. Now, his brothers were men. Maybe not as tall and broad as he was (Tommy had enough self-awareness to know that his physicality was somewhat of a ridiculous standard), but they were tall, filled out with far and muscle. Mikey had a slight receding hairline. Tony had more tattoos than Evan as far as Tommy could tell and that was with a suit on. He wondered what the story was with those tattoos across his knuckles and throat, but he wasn’t sure he had any right to ask. Not after he’d left them behind with their father and their father’s anger.

Yeah, Tommy knew that he wasn’t responsible for any of what their father had done. Therapy had taught him that, but seeing his younger brothers now conjured every guilty thought he’d ever had since they day he’d walked out of their lives for seemingly forever. There was a part of him that wanted to walk up to them and apologize. There was another that wanted to flee the church and never look back.

So, Tommy split the difference and stayed in his pew, the paper programs crinkling in his hand as he clenched his fist.

He looked away from his brothers and found himself staring at the one man he’d never wanted to see again.

Plan meet enemy, Tommy thought as he found the source of the most burning gaze: Jonathan Kinard.

Tommy’s father was glaring at him from the front of the church looking like he wanted to dive over the pews and sock Tommy in the jaw. The only thing holding Jonathan Kinard back was a dainty hand on his shoulder belonging to a woman young enough to be Tommy’s sister. Tommy vaguely remembered his Nonna telling him about his father’s second marriage, he just never imagined he’d ever see it firsthand. Those teenagers to his father’s side must have been the half-brother and half-sister he’d never met. Tommy didn’t know how he felt about that: being older brother to siblings he was old enough to have fathered. Tommy didn’t even remember their names.

And that made him feel guilty all over again.

Which was weird. Why should he feel guilty that he didn’t know the names of half-siblings he’d never met because his father had created such a toxic home environment that Tommy had fled the first chance he could? Guilty that he couldn’t save them from the man they all called father? It wasn’t his fault. He knew that. He just couldn’t bring himself to believe it.

“Hey.” Evan manually loosened Tommy’s fist and slipped his hand in place of the now ruined program. “We can always leave if it’s too much.”

Tommy shook his head. “I want to stay,” he said. He was in his forties, God damn it. He wasn’t going to keep letting his father drive him away. He was going to attend his grandmother’s funeral. He was going to say goodbye to her and make his peace with her passing and he wouldn’t let Jonathan Kinard take that away.

He gripped Evan’s hand throughout the service and pointedly did not let go when the officiant called the attendees forward to place springs of rosemary – for remembrance – on Nonna’s casket. Tommy felt the eyes on them as they took their turn. He tried not to let it get to him as he wiped his eyes with his free hand, not trusting himself to say anything aloud.

Once everyone had had a turn, the funeral home workers came up to the remove the casket to take Nonna for cremation. It wasn’t very catholic of her, but she’d once confided in Tommy that she hated the thought of being trapped in a box underground for God knew how long until the second coming. She’d much rather skip judgement day, thank you very much.

As soon as he could safely do so, Tommy all but fled the church, Evan on his heels. He burst out into the cool, bright light of the winter day, tears wetting his cheek, breath hitching in his throat.

“Oh sweetheart.” Evan pulled him close, pressing Tommy’s head to his shoulder, rubbing circles over Tommy’s back. “It’s okay. Let it all out.”

Tommy didn’t know how long they stood there, clinging to each other before his tears finally ran out, but it mustn’t have been very long because they were still alone on the sidewalk in front of the church by the time he pulled away from Evan. Either that or he’d been so focused on crying that he hadn’t noticed the entirety of his family skirting around them towards their cars to head to the wake that Tommy had no intention of attending.

“I ruined your suit,” Tommy said, eyes falling on the snotty wet should of Evan’s jacket.

“I’ll send you my dry-cleaning bill,” said Evan with a shrug. “Let’s say we get out of here, get in or pyjamas and do a ‘90s romcom marathon? We can start with Four Weddings and a Funeral.”

Tommy chuckled which made his head hurt after all the crying. “You know me too well,” he said, and he grabbed Evan’s hand and pressed his lips to Evan’s knuckles. “Thanks for coming with me.”

“Of course,” said Evan with his adorable grin. He pulled out his phone to call an Uber while Tommy patted his pockets for the tissues he’d strategically stored there earlier in the day. He was blowing his nose in what was probably the least cool and inconspicuous way possible when one of his brothers exited the church, caught sight of him and waved.

“Tommy!” Mikey trotted down the church steps towards him. “Glad I caught you.”

Tommy felt himself close up, shoulders stiffening, spine straightening, fists clenching around his snotty tissues, ready to fight. The last time he’d spoken to Michael hadn’t exactly been a pleasant conversation. To be honest, he couldn’t remember much of what any of them had said, the details lost in the haze of opioids. Mostly, he remembered voices crescendoing over the steady beep of his heart monitor. And there was the slur, he couldn’t remember which of his brother’s had said it, but the tone of it hung crystalline in his memory: disgusted, repulsed, superior.

Tommy had shouted at them to leave, and they had and he hadn’t spoken to either of them since. “Mikey,” he said tersely, taking an unconscious step back.

“I, uh, was hoping to get a chance to talk to you,” Mikey glanced over Tommy’s shoulder at Evan. “Alone.”

Yeah, that wasn’t happening. “Evan can hear anything you have to say to me,” said Tommy and he was grateful that his voice cooperated with his desire to sound firm despite feeling like he might break apart at any moment.

Mikey looked briefly taken aback but then he nodded. “Yeah, that’s fair. I wouldn’t want to be alone with me either after what I said last time.”

“Glad we’re on the same page,” said Tommy. “Now say what it is you want to say. Our car’s on the way.” He glanced quickly to Evan to confirm that their car was in fact on its way and received a small nod in response.

“I’ve been wanting to reach out to you for a while now,” Mikey began. “For years actually. I tried to get your number from Nonna, but you know how stubborn she was.” He gave a wistful smile that Tommy found himself mirroring without meaning to. “I’m glad she was there for you when the rest of us were being idiots about you being gay.”

Tommy waited for his brother to say more, trying to fight the sense of optimism growing inside him at the direction his brother seemed to be heading.

“And yeah,” Mikey continued. “I was an idiot. A bigot. I let Dad get in my head about you and I shouldn’t have and I’m sorry that I said all those horrible things to you. I, uh, don’t expect you to forgive me. My therapist says I shouldn’t do that. But yeah, I’m sorry. You deserved a better brother especially after everything you’d been through. I should have been a better brother.”

Tommy stared. He didn’t mean to. Even if he’d been hoping for this interaction to head in a positive direction, he’d never dare dreamed to actually receive an apology. Not when he felt like he was the one who needed to apologize. “I’m sorry too, for leaving you and Tony alone with him.”

Mikey shook his head. “You were just a kid. There wasn’t anything else you could do,” he said. “And Tony feels the same way, he’s just keeping Dad inside the church so he doesn’t dishonour Nonna’s memory by coming out here and causing a scene.” Mikey paused and licked his lips. “We, uh, don’t really see Dad much outside of things like this. Can’t really stand to be around him if I’m honest.”

“Gee, I wonder why?” said Tommy before he could stop himself.

Mikey chuckled. “I should have done what you did,” he said, “gotten out right away instead of sticking around trying to impress him.”

“Which is impossible,” said Tommy.

“Yeah, I figured that out eventually,” said Mikey. “Figured a lot of stuff out. I, uh, I’d like to try to be your brother again, if you want. Same with Tony.” He reached into his inner breast pocket and produced a crisp white business card. “Call me, if you want. We can schedule something.”

“I’ll think about it.” Tommy took the card and tucked it into his pocket. “You should probably go and give Tony some back up.”

The sound of raised voices inside the church was becoming more and more audible out on the sidewalk.

“And that’s our car.” Evan pointed down the street towards a lime green Prius that was going to be absolutely torture in the legroom department for both of them. Tommy blinked. He’d been so caught off guard by his brother that he’d momentarily forgotten that Evan was even there. How was that even possible? How could anyone be in the same space as Evan and not be inexplicably drawn to his every miniscule movement. Tommy had the brief ridiculous thought that he was a terribly boyfriend before he mentally shook himself and reminded himself that he was allowed to be a bit spacey on the day of his grandmother’s funeral.

“It was good seeing you Tommy,” said Mikey before he rushed back inside the church.

“Bye, Mikey,” Tommy waved and then absolutely did not flee into the backseat of the waiting Prius.

He sighed as he buckled his seatbelt, knees not quite to his chin. He slouched back, letting his head loll against the seat.

“So,” said Evan. “You gonna call him?”

Tommy took his brother’s card out of his pocket and squinted down at it. Maybe he needed to start keeping a pair of reading glasses on him at all times. “I don’t know,” he said. “Let’s gorge ourselves on ‘90s and early 2000s Hugh Grant movies and I’ll think about it tomorrow.”

“Okay,” said Evan. “If you want to meet up with your brothers though, I’ll be there for you.”

“You might regret it,” said Tommy.

Evan cocked his head to one side. “You witnessed the chaos of a Buckley-Han Thanksgiving,” he said. “I’m sure I can survive dinner with your brothers.”

Tommy was sure that was true, and his heart could barely contain the warmth that swelled within it at the knowledge that he had someone on his side. Finally. “Don’t forget Aunt Gina,” he said, remembering her threat to cook for them.

“I mean, she can’t be worse than getting crushed by a ladder truck, can she?” Evan did not sound overly confident in that statement.

“You, know, it might be too close to call,” said Tommy and he leaned over and kissed Evan and closed his eyes and, for the first time that day, he relaxed.

Chapter Text

“Well, that was a shitshow, huh, Aunt Gina,” her nephew Michael said after they’d been driving for a few minutes in total silence.

Gina pressed her fingers into her temple trying to stave off the burgeoning headache until she could get home and pop an ibuprofen. “At least he behaved during the ceremony.” Her brother – please no one judge her for the genetic proximity – had spent nearly the entirety of their mother’s wake getting progressively drunker and ranting about the audacity of his estranged son showing his face at the funeral. There had been slurs thrown around, Jonathan Kinard’s face growing redder and redder the more he drank and the more he ranted until his poor second wife and Anthony had finally managed to drag him away.

“It was good to see Tommy again, though,” said Michael. “He looked good.” His expression was more conflicted than Gina might have expected based on his words, but then again, she’d never learned the specifics of what had caused the falling out between her nephews. Only that after Thomas had been medically discharged from the army, he’d moved away and hadn’t come back. There had been Christmas Cards for a few years, emails and phone calls here and there with updates about graduating from the fire academy and surviving his probationary year, boasting about girlfriends Gina had highly doubted existed, and then the updates had stopped. Fifteen years of nothing.

For a while, Gina had wondered if maybe he’d died – firefighting was a dangerous profession after all – but no amount of searching through the LA obituaries had turned up her nephew’s name. So, Gina had resigned herself to the not knowing and the growing maw of guilt at not having done enough by her nephew, not having built up enough trust with him when it mattered.

And then, maybe seven years ago, her mother had mentioned hearing from Thomas – her little Tomaso, as she’d called him – and Gina had felt relieved to know her nephew was at least alive, though disappointed that he hadn’t reached out to her. And then her mother’s illness had taken a turn for the worse and they’d transitioned her from skilled nursing to the hospice centre and Gina almost hadn’t recognized him.

“I saw him in passing a few times at the hospice. I his email address in my mother’s address book, so I made sure to send him the funeral details,” said Gina. “But this is the first time we’ve spoken. When was the last time you saw him?”

Michael sighed. They’d unfortunately hit rush hour traffic and were at a complete standstill with no sign of moving anytime soon. “When Tommy was in the hospital after his discharge. I, uh, took Tony and we ran away from Dad. His drinking had gotten worse, and I couldn’t do a single thing right, and I thought maybe we could go and live with Tommy, get away from Dad.” He shook his head as though shaking away a memory he’d rather drown at the bottom of a bottle. “I didn’t understand how messed up Tommy was back then. I’m not talking about the injuries either, though those were bad enough. Probably PTSD.” Michael shook his head at a motorcycle weaving through the motionless cars. “Plus, Tommy was what, twenty? Practically still a kid. No way he could’ve looked after us while going through recovery and physical therapy and he knew that. Told me to take Tony home or go to you.”

“Is that when you showed up at my doorstep?” Gina asked, remembering that night in 2004 when her sixteen-year-old nephew and his ten-year-old brother had rung her doorbell. At first, she hadn’t wanted to let them stay, but Siobhan had insisted. So, Gina had let Michael and Anthony stay at least until their father had shown up and dragged them back home. Sometimes, she regretted not fighting for them, but what was she supposed to have done? Keep them from their legal guardian? These days, she probably would have made a report, gotten Child Protective Services Involved, but back then, she’d been too frightened of her brother. Too frightened of her own truths.

And then Siobhan had died, and Gina had been too caught up in her own grief to notice much of anything that had gone on with her nephews.

“Yeah,” said Michael. “Thanks for always being there for us.” He swallowed. “I uh, said a lot of things to Tommy that day. Nasty things about him being gay. Horrible things no brother should ever say, especially not when they’re in the state he was in. Probably drugged out of his mind. He told me to leave. So, I did. Always thought he’d come back home, and I’d have the chance to say sorry, that I didn’t mean any of it, not really. But he never came home, and I didn’t know where he was.” Michael’s voice stretched thin, like he was holding back tears. “Honest to God, Auntie, sometimes I wondered if he’d died. God I’m glad he’s not dead. Glad I got a chance to say I’m sorry.”

Gina pressed her head against the car window as they lurched forward a few feet before stopping again. The cool glass relieved her headache somewhat and there was something soothing about the rumble of the car’s engine. It brought to mind that trick for getting babies to sleep by driving, maybe babies were on to something. “This family’s a mess,” she said. “I admire Thomas for breaking free of it.” How many times had she wished to do the same only to be stopped by fear and obligation.

“Yeah,” said Michael. “Sometimes I wish I’d done what he did, but nah, I had to choose alcohol as my escape.”

Gina glanced at Michael, eyebrow raised but he wasn’t looking at her. “I thought you might still be in rehab,” she said. She didn’t want to judge her nephew. She knew that alcoholism was a disease and that he’d seen the behaviour patterned by her brother, who’d gotten it from their father. She’d also bailed Michael out of jail one too many times following his drunken antics when he’d called her rather than his ex-wife. So maybe she judged him a little, but she tried not to judge him out loud and wasn’t that what counted: the things you said and did rather than the things you kept hidden away in the darkest, most vile corners of your brain?

“Got out just in time,” said Michael. “Though I’ll be honest, the wake really made me wanna take a drink.”

“Are you going to?” Gina asked. “Because I will lock you in my pantry if I have to.”

Michael shook his head with a laugh. “I’m gonna call my sponsor,” he said. “I’m gonna find a meeting. It’s gotta stick this time, Auntie. Or else Maggie’s not gonna let me see the kids.”

Gina nodded. “Good. Let me know what I can do to help.”

“You’re a real one, Auntie.” Michael gave her a little smile before easing the car forward another few feet. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel like he was trying to decide whether to say something or not.

“What is it?” Gina asked when the drumming got to be too much for her sensitive head.

“Who was that guy with Tommy? Tall one? Looked like he got punched in the face?” Michael asked. “There was a vibe about him, like he was Tommy’s guard dog or something. Thought he might bite me when I gave Tommy my card.”

“That was clearly a birthmark,” said Gina. She smiled. She’d liked the look of Evan Buckley. Yes, he was needlessly tall and broad, just like Thomas, but there’d been a lightness to his spirit, despite the gravity of the occasion, and he seemed to compliment Thomas well as far as she’d been able to tell from their brief interaction.

“Yeah, but who was he?” Michael pressed. “Kinda weird to take a friend to your Nonna’s funeral.”

“Sometimes I wonder if your sweet mother – may she rest in peace – dropped you on your head as a baby.” Gina fixed him with the most disdainful expression she could manage, and she was practically made of disdain.

“Auntie!”

“Your brother is a gay man, Michael. That man (his name is Evan by the way) was his boyfriend,” said Gina, softening her tone. “Partner, lover, paramour. Take your pick.” She did wonder what term Thomas and Evan preferred, though Thomas had specified boyfriend when he’d introduced Evan to her.

Michael’s eyes widened as her words sank in and he shook his head as though embarrassed. “Oh, yeah. Makes sense. God, I’m an idiot.” He shook his head again. “I guess it’s one thing to know your brother’s gay and another to see it in person. I mean he doesn’t look gay and neither did that Evan guy.”

“Is there a set way gay people are supposed to look?” Gina asked.

“See?” said Michael. “I’m an idiot. Probably gotta read up on this stuff so I don’t scare Tommy off again if he ever actually calls me.”

Gina nodded. “It’s always easier to accept things when they’re happening to someone else,” she said, thinking about Siobhan. Siobhan who had been gone now for longer than they’d been together, and she’d still never said anything to any of her family. There wasn’t a point now. Better to leave the past in the past. She cleared her throat. “You’re going to need to get over yourself if you truly want to make amends with Thomas and have a relationship with him. The way I see it, you don’t invite a casual fling to your grandmother’s funeral, especially when you have to travel from the other end of the state.”

Michael nodded, absorbing her words as the flow of traffic finally picked up enough for them to drive at a speed exceeding that of a snail. “Wait a second! You know where Tommy lives?”

Gina adjusted her rings, ring splints really – to help with her arthritis. “Los Angeles,” she answered. “But I don’t know exactly where in the city. I figured it wasn’t my business unless he wanted to make it my business.”

Michael finally pulled off the highway, keeping mostly quiet as he drove the rest of the way to her little bungalow. She hoped he was thinking about what she’d said and not thinking about going out and finding a drink. She didn’t know if she should say anything, express her concerns so she squeezed his hand and kissed his cheek before climbing out of his car.

“Any plans?” he asked before she closed the door.

“I’m going to invite Thomas and his boyfriend to dinner,” Gina said. “But first, I think I’ll take a long bath and soak your father’s stink away.”

Michael laughed. “Let me know how it goes,” he said. “I’m gonna go call my sponsor now, look up a meeting. I know you’re worried about me.”

“Good,” said Gina. “Those kids need you in their lives.”

“I’m gonna do my best, Auntie.” And he looked at her with such sorrow for his past mistakes and such determination to do better that Gina found herself feeling hopeful that maybe this time sobriety would stick.
#

It was one thing to say she was going to invite Thomas and Evan to dinner and another thing entirely to actually do it.

After her bath, Gina settled onto her green velvet sofa, wrapped in her fluffy pink robe with her hair in curlers and a glass of pinot noir and stared at her tablet screen over the frames of her glasses. The cursor blinked on the blank expanse of the fresh, new email. What was she going to say? How did you start opening a door you’d thought closed and locked forever, key tossed over a cliff and into the ocean never to be seen again? Only the tide had carried the key back to her shore, washed it up at her feet and now she had a chance to open the door again.

Gina took a sip of her wine, tapped the speech to text button and started dictating.

Dear Thomas,
It was wonderful to see you again and to meet your handsome Evan. I only wish it was under better circumstances.
I’ve been meaning to reach out to you since the first time we saw each other at the hospice, but I was worried about how that would be received. Now, I regret wasting time we could have spent together.
I meant what I said about you and Evan coming to dinner, especially the bit about your father not being invited. I try not to associate with him, which I’m sure you can appreciate. By the way, it was absolutely the right call not to go to the wake. Your father was a nightmare, you probably had a much better evening.
Now, you are absolutely not obligated to come or to even answer this email, but know that you are welcome in my home at any time. Both of you.

Gina hesitated over how to sign off. “XOXO” seemed to cutesy and inappropriate given their estrangement. “Best wishes” seemed too formal for blood relatives. Finally, she decided to just sign her name without any parting message and send the email off. Then she closed out of the email app, tossed her tablet aside and flipped through the TV channels until she found a suitably morbid true crime documentary. Somehow, learning about other people’s worst days always put her crappy days into perspective. At least she wasn’t dead. At least her loved ones were all alive or had died of natural causes.

Would it have been better or worse if Siobhan had been murdered? Gina mused as she sipped her wine, letting it pool on her tongue before swallowing it down. She shook the morose thought away and poured her attention into savouring her wine and trying not to feel guilty about enjoying a genre that felt voyeuristic at best and exploitative at worst. Then she went to bed, dreaming of her dead mother and her irate brother and three little boys drifting on a sea of read wine with nothing but a leaking boat to keep them afloat.

#

In the morning, Gina found an email waiting for her from Thomas:

Aunt Gina,
Sorry for not replying last night. Evan and I got back to our hotel and crashed. Yesterday brought back a lot of emotions as I’m sure you can understand.
We’re just about to fly back to LA so I don’t have time for a long email, but we’ll think about dinner. Here’s my new email and my phone number so you can reach me more easily. I’ve copied Evan in so he’s in the loop.

Almost as soon as Gina had finished reading the first email, a second came through from the aforementioned Evan Buckley. His profile picture featured him with the world’s broadest smile holding a small Asian child. Gina wondered what the relationship was. Maybe Evan and Thomas were even more series than she’d thought, and they’d adopted a child together. She hadn’t seen rings and Thomas would sure have said Evan was his husband if they were married. Could an unmarried couple adopt? Gina would have to look that up.

Evan’s email was full of emojis which Gina usually found a bit childish, especially coming from fully grown adults, but then she pictured the handsome young man at her nephew’s side with his bright eyes and curls and smile lines, and she thought the emojis were entirely suited to him.

Just saying hi. It was nice to meet you yesterday.
Tommy and I will look at our work schedules when we get back and shoot you some options for dinner. Fair warning though, it might be a while since it’ll have to be when we both have few days off so we can fly up, spend the night, and fly back the next morning.
Anyway, it was great to meet some of Tommy’s family. And my condolences on losing your mom. She was an awesome lady.

Gina blinked at that last line, realizing that Thomas had brought Evan to meet his grandmother. If Gina had suspected theirs was a serious relationship that all but cemented her view. You didn’t bring a fling to meet your dying grandmother.

Gina blinked back complicated tears – a little joyful, a little sad, a little overwhelmed at her own feelings – and got ready for work.

#

“You couldn’t take one more day off?” Tabitha, Gina’s assistant and best work friend, greeted her as she swept into the office.

“The news doesn’t stop needing editing just because my mother died, Tabitha,” said Gina, setting her coffee on her desk and powering up her work computer. “But you will be pleased to know that I resisted temptation and didn’t check any work emails until after the wake.”

“Good girl.” Tabitha smiled and sank into the chair across the desk from Gina’s. “And how did everything go? Any drama?”

Gina perched her reading glasses on top of her head and rolled her eyes. “After everything I’ve told you about my family you want to know if there was drama?”

Tabitha, who’d been her administrative assistant for as long as Gina had been editor-in-chief, winced and sucked a breath in through her teeth. “That bad?”

“Not as bad as it could have been, I suppose.” Gina typed in her password, wincing at the twinge in her fingers, and waited for her computer to wake the hell up so she could pull up her email and check the share point before her first meeting of the day, which had blessedly been postponed until after lunch because Tabitha was an incredible assistant and had known she’d need time to adjust even though she’d only taken two days off in the run up to her mother’s funeral. “My gay nephew,” that seemed somehow like the wrong way to phrase that but Gina couldn’t think of a better way just now, “brought his boyfriend.” Maybe she should have just said her nephew brought his boyfriend and left the homosexuality of it all implied. “My brother had opinions about that, none of which were correct.”

“Oh no,” said Tabitha, and Gina could tell she was trying not to look excited to hear more Kinard family drama.

“Luckily, Thomas had no interest in interacting with Jonathan, and Anthony kept Jonathan distracted so Thomas and his boyfriend could leave at the end of the service without being subjected to Jonathan. Not even my idiot brother was disrespectful enough to raise a fuss when a priest was present, so we were safe during the actual service. He erupted at the wake. Any worse and I probably would have called the police, brother or no.”

Tabitha frowned, eyes flitting as she tried to connect each of the names Gina said to other stories she’d heard. “I had no idea your nephew was gay,” she said. “I thought he was getting a divorce. Is that why? Did his wife catch him in a tawdry affair with a younger man?”

Gina rolled her eyes affectionately. “Different nephew,” she said. “I have three on my brother’s side from his first marriage. Michael is the one getting divorced. Thomas is the eldest – the gay one. It’s been years since we last spoke.” She sighed. She really needed a better way to refer to Thomas than “the gay one.” She certainly wouldn’t like it if her entire identity was reduced to her sexual orientation when being described to total strangers. “I may have invited Thomas and his boyfriend to dinner.”

Something of her regret surrounding her relationship with her eldest nephew must have shown in her expression because Tabitha reached across the desk and laid a gentle hand on her wrist, giving a little squeeze. “Once again, I’m here to remind you that it’s not your fault your brother’s a homophobic asshole, Gina.”

Gina sighed. If it was anyone else, she would have tried to bluster her way out of the conversation, but this was Tabitha. It was impossible to bullshit Tabitha. “I could have been better about being there for Thomas, especially with all we have in common.” She raised her eyebrow pointedly. Tabitha knew about Siobhan – they’d all been friends – but Gina tried to keep her work life and private life completely separate.

Tabitha bobbled her head. “How old is this nephew?”

Gina frowned, searching her memory. “I was twelve when he was born so he’s forty or forty-one now.” To her disappointment, she couldn’t remember when Thomas’s birthday was. What a hopeless aunt.

“Exactly,” said Tabitha. “You were a child and then you were a young adult trying to figure out your life and protect yourself form your father and brother and carve out a career for yourself in a misogynistic industry. You didn’t have the capacity to look after someone else’s kids.”

Gina sighed, feeling as though this was very similar to the conversation she’d had with Michael the day before about Thomas’s ability to take his brother’s in when he was fresh out of the military and wounded. “You’re right,” she said.

Her phone pinged with an email notification and her work computer was taking forever to load so Gina opened her phone to find an email from Evan Buckley with a list of dates. The earliest one was two months away.

I don’t know if you know, but Tommy and I are both with the LAFD so our schedules are pretty crazy. We work 24 hours on/24 hours off for three shifts in a row and then we get four days off. We’re not on the same shift rotation so our days off don’t always line up where we both have multiple days off in a row at the same time. Honestly, it was kind of a miracle that we both had the time to come up for the funeral. Anyway, let us know what works for you.

He sighed the email with another emoji.

“Now, what’s got you smiling?” Tabitha asked.

“The boyfriend,” Gina said. She’d known that after the army, Thomas had become a firefighter. She hadn’t known he’d stuck with it, but it made sense that the little boy who’d drawn his father’s anger onto himself in order to keep his younger brother’s safe would grow up to be a protector. But she was glad he’d found someone who was on his side, someone to protect him, someone who was willing to step up and act as a buffer between Thomas and the family he must have still been hesitant to reconnect with. “I think he might be a keeper.”