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Stalemate: A position counting as a draw, in which a player is not in check but cannot move except into check.
“What,” Kevin says, lowering his book to glare at Raymond.
His exasperation is warranted, Ray knows. This is the third time he’s had to ask. Ray has a hard time looking away from his husband tonight, and a hard time explaining why, exactly.
“Noth--” he begins for the third time, but there’s a flash of irritation in Kevin’s eyes that makes him recalculate. “I just love you,” he says instead.
“That’s it?” Kevin sounds sceptical.
“That’s it.”
“Did something happen?”
Now, he looks worried.
“No. Well,” Ray amends, “Nothing serious. I had occasion today to tell Peralta Gertie’s story.”
“Really?” A slow smile spreads on Kevin’s face. “Why?”
“He was resisting purchasing a new mattress. The old one was in a terrible state and Santiago was having trouble sleeping on it.”
“And you compared it to our situation with Gertie?”
“Yes.”
“And did it work?”
“I think so.”
“Good. Well done.”
Kevin goes back to his book, an amused smile playing on his lips as he dips back into the Iliad. Briefly, Ray wonders why Kevin bothers with the book. Surely he knows the thing by heart. He doesn’t seem to be concentrating on the text, though, instead having a quiet laugh at his own private joke.
“What?”
Kevin looks up.
“I find it sweet that you’re so invested in Peralta.”
Ray frowns. “Why would you find that sweet? You detest Peralta.”
“He’s growing on me.”
Kevin’s expression is inscrutable, but there’s still a hint of a smile on his face. His book is resting against his lap, held loosely in his hands.
“Is he?”
Kevin grimaces, tightening his grip on the book momentarily.
“Your high regard of him is prompting me to… re-evaluate mine.”
“‘High regard’ may be an overstatement.”
“Is it? You’re very fond of him. Almost…” He pauses, searching for a word. “...paternal.”
“You’re joking.”
He says it plaintively, even though he’s absolutely certain Kevin isn’t, in fact, joking. Kevin would never joke about such a thing, though there is a certain twinkle in his eye when he replies:
“I wasn’t the one walking around here quietly gloating when Peralta cut off ties with his father.”
“I was not gloating.”
Ray doesn’t even believe himself, and Kevin doesn’t dignify it with a response, turning instead back to his book. Silence settles between them again.
“You would have made a good father, you know,” Kevin says idly a while later, without taking his eyes from the page in front of him.
Ray blinks, puzzled for a moment, before remembering their previous topic of conversation. He frowns.
“Most psychological theory suggest that I would likely perpetuate the patterns of emotional and physical distance modeled for me by my father.”
“I disagree,” Kevin says emphatically, looking Ray in the eye, and the sentiment warms Ray immensely.
“You would have made a good father also.”
Kevin smiles, turning back to his book. Ray tries to do the same, but something is pulling at the edge of his attention.
“Is it something you regret?”
Kevin looks up, frowning.
“Not having children?”
“Yes.”
“It’s not like there was anything to be done about that,” he says, slightly hurried, with a half-chuckle and a tense shrug.
Ray knows Kevin well enough to recognize when he is trying to brush off an uncomfortable conversation. He considers for a moment letting him, but for reasons he can’t quite pinpoint, it unsettles him and feels important.
“Of course there was. There were ways. Are you saying,” Ray says, feeling like he’s hurtling down a freeway with no exit in sight, “that you wish we’d had children?”
“No.”
Kevin sighs and closes his book, perching it on the arm of his chair.
“I don’t know.”
The way Kevin is preparing himself for a serious conversation makes ‘I don’t know’ sound very much like a ’yes’ to Ray. He’s suddenly finding it difficult to recognize the man sitting across from him.
“Why did this never come up?”
Kevin sighs again. Aggravation grinds on Ray’s nerves and he wants to tell his husband to quit stalling.
“Well, for one thing you didn’t want children, so the point was moot.”
“I didn’t think you did either.”
“I didn’t.”
“But you changed your mind, and now it’s a regret.”
Kevin hesitates.
“A small one, maybe,” he concedes finally.
He doesn’t meet Ray’s eyes, looking instead at the table between them. Ray is crestfallen.
“Whenever I have wanted something, I’ve always shared it with you, regardless of whether it was in your power to give, and you have done the same. We have always shared everything. When did we become the sort of people who keeps these things from one another?”
It’s deeply unfair, Ray knows, to accuse Kevin of keeping himself from Ray. Kevin, who has been all in since the day they met. Kevin, who lays himself bare for Ray in all parts of their life, much more so than Ray does for Kevin. Kevin, who wanted children, but didn’t say because he wanted Ray more. Kevin, who takes the accusation as the affront it is and is getting angry, his brow furrowing and mouth tightening to a thin line. Ray knows he’s being irrational, getting too worked up, but he can’t get a grip on why, and can’t quite tamp himself down. Kevin must know it too, but as ever he is white-hot and ruthless in his anger.
“Perhaps around the same time you became the sort of person who would be stabbed and keep it from your husband.”
Ray stands.
“I need some air. I’m taking Cheddar for his walk.”
Kevin doesn’t protest when Ray leaves.
Introspection is never particularly pleasant, and certainly not when Ray finds himself responding emotionally to his surroundings in a manner he doesn’t understand. He walks slowly, allowing Cheddar to meander as he pleases, as he attempts to unravel why Kevin’s revelation feels so much like a betrayal. He presses the phone to his ear, waiting for a response.
“Well,” Anne says, unflappable like always in the face of complex psychological questions. “First, there’s the fact that Kevin doesn’t keep things from you. Ever. So, obviously it’s going to be painful when he does.”
“Obviously,” Ray says, impatient and already regretting the call.
His sister-in-law has been his first call in situations like these for longer than he cares to remember. He realizes the irony in enlisting her for these conversations when her loyalty, conceivably, would be with her brother, but she has an ability to make dispassionate and clinical determinations when Ray finds himself lost in the murky waters of human emotion. Whatever has been said about himself and Kevin, the latter is more equipped to deal with these things on his own.
“For the same reason, you’re going to be assigning a lot of meaning to the fact that he kept this from you. That’s normal, but it’s not necessarily objectively right. He may not actually feel this is a big deal, even though you do.”
“I doubt that,” Ray says.
Anne is undeterred by his scepticism.
“Then there’s the fact that you probably reconciled yourself decades ago with the fact that you wouldn’t have a family. Whether you’ve really never wanted kids or if that’s just an expression of the fact that you knew - or felt like you knew - you couldn’t, that I don’t know. Being gay when you were young meant an implicit rejection of the norms of what family should look like. Maybe part of you is disappointed that Kevin doesn’t share that as completely as you thought he did.”
“Perhaps,” Ray agrees. “So what do I do?”
Anne sighs.
“I don’t know that there’s a simple answer here. But you’re for sure going to have to talk to him.”
As if Ray’s problems don’t all stem from talking. He doesn’t tell Anne, because it would only serve to alarm her. It certainly alarms him, how perfectly innocuous conversations can turn to arguments so quickly of late. It’s sometimes as though talking reasonably with his husband requires some skill that Ray no longer possesses. He thanks Anne anyway and hangs up the phone.
Kevin is already in bed when Ray gets back and looks up at him expectantly when he walks in. There are a hundred things Ray want to say. He settles for the simplest:
“I wish I’d known.”
Kevin sighs, resting his book spine-up in his lap.
“Would it have changed your mind?”
“I don’t know,” Ray admits.
Kevin arches an eyebrow.
“Then perhaps it was for the best that you didn’t.”
“Perhaps.”
He settles into bed next to Kevin.
“You’re happy, though.”
He means it to be a statement, but still finds himself waiting for Kevin’s answer, not quite looking at him.
“Of course,” Kevin says, a beat too slow for Ray’s peace of mind.
He wants to ask, but Kevin turns over and shuts off his light, so he does the same, settling down to sleep.
“They called again about the Sorbonne earlier today,” Kevin says into the darkness a few minutes later.
“I thought we decided against it.”
“I did,” Kevin says, and Ray notices the change in pronoun. “They were very enthusiastic.”
“You’ve changed your mind.”
“I think I have.”
He pauses for a moment. Ray wants to turn over and turn on a light so he can see Kevin’s face.
“It’s an opportunity for me,” Kevin continues, defensive. “Would you miss me?”
“Of course I would. But you’re right, it’s an opportunity. If you believe you should go, you go.”
“Well, then that’s settled.”
“Yes.”
“Good night, Ray.”
“Good night.”
Ray lies awake for most of the night, trying to memorize the sound of Kevin’s breaths.