Ethan
Twelve days after Truman’s death
Amy and I began to run when I was in my late twenties and Amy must’ve been twenty-five. She started first, and because I saw such a difference in the new energy she displayed, I started to run with her. Only a mile or so at first, but as we got stronger the distance increased. Again, Amy was the one who decided we should run road races. I was reluctant. I’d seen how adults begin to obsess over hobbies—silly, logoed clothing to bike; intense, pencil-thin runners; rock climbers with long hair and tanned, muscular calves.
But when we went to our first race, with a promise from Amy that she’d buy me an expensive dinner and copious amounts of beer, I liked the environment. Not everyone was intense; many people were just there to have fun, meet people, shed some pounds. Of course, the gazelles were there, returning to the start line before Amy and I had even reached the mile-and-a- half mark.
But we got better. We got stronger. Sometimes we took Truman. Amy and I had designated runners. Before the race we’d designate who’d go with Truman. The other one of us would go at our own pace or stay with Truman for a while and then run on. And he would run along with us, his head wagging back and forth, thinking Truman thoughts until he’d get so involved in whatever he was thinking he’d stop, almost causing collisions. It was a nice thing for us to do together, though, like everything with Tru, it was difficult to tell how much he enjoyed the events. He wasn’t a complainer. Never. We just often wondered what he was thinking. He hardly ever told us.
One weekend the three of us headed down to Red Bank, New Jersey, for the George Sheehan Classic. It was a 10k race, our first of that distance. We drove down on a Friday early in the afternoon. Truman had been raised on Cape Cod beaches, and had never seen dramatic waves, so we knew this would be a new adventure for him. We were curious to see how Tru would respond.
I remember Amy had secured a hotel room early on because, had we relied on me, I’d have procrastinated until all the rooms were taken and we’d have had to drive down and back the day of the race. Once we settled into our room, we decided to get into our bathing suits and drive to the local beach. I don’t recall the name, but I do recall we were lucky to find a parking spot.
As we got out of the car we could hear the waves crashing on the shore. The weather was typical New Jersey summer fare: hot, opaque skies, white moisture as part of the scenery and humid.
We’d brought our towels and sun lotion and little else. Truman was not the kind of kid who wanted shovels or trucks; he would find his own entertainment. Amy and I each took a book and a few for Tru if he got bored. Once we’d settled—quite a distance from the water because it was so crowded—I took Tru to the edge of the ocean. The waves had to have been five or six feet as they rolled and crashed into the shore, and I thought how odd it must have been for my son, after being so used to the waves on the cape.
Seldom did Truman ever care to hold hands, but this time he did. I felt the warmth of his hand in mine despite the heat of the day, and I wanted to stand there for as long as this sudden demonstration of affection lasted. I knew he wasn’t frightened, but I could tell he was captivated by what he was seeing. He looked out at the ocean for the longest time and I wanted to bend down and kiss the top of his blond head, the crown of that dome that had brought such grand pleasure to me from the moment he’d been born. Then he looked up at me with his very black eyes and I could see he was full of awe. I didn’t speak; I’d learned long ago to be silent at such times.
He looked out again and I had to look myself. Perhaps there was something out there I was missing. But there wasn’t. Just some brave souls diving into the waves and then surfacing slicked and sun glistened with tanned shoulders and plastered hair, screaming with pleasure at their own daring. I hoped Truman wasn’t going to ask me to take him into the waves. I was not a very good swimmer and I was nervous about riptides. He tugged on my hand, and I looked down at his beautiful, contemplative face.
“Daddy,” he said. Daddy seemed to be reserved for certain moments—when he felt tender, or full of wonder. He looked out at the waves again as if something was out there he hadn’t considered until just then. But the look was fleeting and he turned to me again. “Who fills this thing, anyway?”
I didn’t know how to answer the question. I could say God, but that would be an easy out, and I wasn’t sure it was true, anyway. Of course, the important part wasn’t the answer, but the question. What mattered was that Truman had asked the question.
Who fills this thing, anyway?
My Truman. My curious and tender son. He was five.
I was frightened about Amy. It wasn’t just that she’d called the Beck woman or that she was drinking heavily and not leaving the house; it was that she hated me. She avoided me at every turn. We hadn’t shared the same bedroom since the day we’d learned of our son’s death. Now we were no longer eating together, either. Except for the night she’d woken me to tell me Truman was in his room, we’d hardly spoken.
Like Amy, I was full of rage. But not at her. I was angry at the person who had killed our son, driven a stake through the heart of our relatively happy lives. Even if there was an ephemeral moment when I woke and felt the sun on my face, a moment of bright optimism, it was erased almost immediately by the fact of Truman’s death. The feeling would thicken as I forced myself to get out of bed, make coffee, wear the alcohol from the night before, blanketing my mind until I could make it to my office and the solace of the closed door and the whiskey in my drawer. I didn’t exhibit my feelings in front of Amy, and I knew from the first week that she thought I had accustomed myself to Truman’s death, or rather, as she saw it, his temporary disappearance.
And that’s what frightened me the most, because she’d always had complete faith in the fact that we both loved Truman equally. Yes, perhaps she had been more communicative with him, more willing to share her feelings with him. But she always knew, despite my difficulty with talking about emotions, that my love for Truman was as deeply rooted in me as hers. Now, she no longer believed that was true. I could tell I’d become the enemy in her grieving mind, and I wanted to do something to prove she was wrong. But what could I do? I couldn’t encourage her delusion, or her constant vigil. I had to do what was right for me, whether or not it ended our marriage.
Since Truman’s death I’d found myself in the library during the middle hours of every night, often re-reading the first three pages of a biography of John Adams. I kept reading the same words every sleepless night, written by Abigail Adams, in the forward to the first section of the book:
Ye cannot be, I know, nor do I wish to see, an inactive spectator…we have too many high-sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.
Were those words supposed to mean something to me? I wanted to read the words to Amy to see her reaction.
On the twelfth day, at three in the morning and after my second glass of Wild Turkey, as I sat in the library with John Adam’s biography open to his wife’s words, I heard the swish of slippered feet in the hall and I caught a glimpse of Amy pass by on her way to the dayroom. I followed her and stood in the doorway watching her pour a glass of wine and then go to the couch. She hadn’t seen me. She was looking out at the back lawn, the French doors now black with the night. I watched her drink from the wine glass, place it on the coffee table and sweep her hair from her face.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked from the doorway.
She wasn’t startled by my voice. She turned on the couch to look at me.
“What should you do, Ethan?”
“I only wonder because we don’t talk and I keep asking myself why that is. It’s clear you blame me for Truman’s death…or at least you partially blame me. So what am I to do?”
“If I told you, it would only make you laugh. You already think I’m mad. You would like to lock me away somewhere so you can get on with your life.”
“Bullshit! You don’t know the first thing about what I want. You’ve gone around here in a fog since Truman’s death, and I’ve been completely shut out. For what reason? I love him as you do. Your grief isn’t any larger than mine…”
“I know,” she interrupted. “I know all about your grief, but what are you doing about it? What have you done about it except allow people to come into our lives? What has that detective done except ask us questions? I heard you with the Beck man on the phone, placating him, telling him about the ‘despair’ I’ve been experiencing.”
“So tell me what I should do, Amy.”
“Kill whoever did this to us! That’s what you should do. Someone is walking around on this earth who has destroyed our lives. He walks around with impunity while we walk around in this house as if it were a tomb…and it is, Ethan. I feel cold all the time and the slightest stirring of air is liable to take me away from here before I can get Truman back. Don’t you see, can’t you see for yourself we have to settle the score so some warmth can come back into this house…”
“You blame me, Amy, because you think I didn’t accept Truman for what he was. I’ll remind you he came to me before you. I’ll remind you he was fearful of how you’d react if you knew the truth about him…”
She laughed so loudly I was startled for a moment. “Yes! Fuck yes, Ethan! He entrusted you to watch over him. He had faith you would make sure he was safe from all the watchful eyes in this fucking town, all the watchful eyes in this world. Where is it? In Uganda where gays are murdered? This town is no different, this country is no different. You and I never really talked about the politics of our son’s plight in this horrible country where gays are second targets. And do you know why, Ethan?”
“No, Amy, I don’t know why. Please tell me. I’m curious.” I wanted to walk over and strike her. I’d never wanted to do that before, but now she was accusing me of something that just wasn’t true. I’d put no labels on him. I’d only looked at him as Truman, my son.
“Because if you can’t face something, you just ignore it. You just put it somewhere in that compartmentalized brain of yours and that’s where it stays. Then you don’t have to worry about it any longer. You don’t have to wring your hands over it. Do you know that your sister, Angela, wasn’t even aware Truman was gay? And you didn’t tell your grandfather, either. Holy shit! The one-star general. God forbid he should know the boy named after him was gay! And do you know what I say about all of them? Fuck them! That’s what I say!”
“You don’t know the first thing about how I feel about our son. If you did, you wouldn’t be saying the things you’re saying right now. I want you to know something, Amy. You pigeonhole people, including Truman. In your eyes, I am insular and private, and I will always be that way. Truman was gay and sensitive, and anything he did or said beyond that tightly bound construct you ignored. I can’t argue with you because there’s no point in it. There’s never been any point in it. I am who you think I am and that is all. I’ve spent twenty years wondering how I could possibly escape from the fucking doomed prison you’ve placed me in, the prison you placed Truman in. At least he’s free from it…no! Fuck no, he’s not. He will never be free because you won’t let him lie in peace, will you Amy? He has to stay where he’s always stayed.”
I was trembling with a rage I hadn’t felt since the day I’d seen my son on that table dead. I walked up to her and stuck my face in hers.
“You still have me incarcerated, Amy. You still have me to keep in my fucking place, don’t you?”
I expected her to pick up the wine glass and smash it across my face, but she didn’t. It wouldn’t have mattered. I wouldn’t have felt it. And after a long time of looking at her face—her eyes were somewhere outside of the room—I turned and walked out. And the horrible thing was that at that moment I felt the loss of Truman more acutely than I’d ever felt it. I went to the library and poured a large glass of whiskey and drank half of it down, my hands so palsied much of it spilled down the front of my pajama top. I began to cry in a way I’d never cried before. And as I downed the rest of my whiskey, I thought of Amy’s words.
Kill whoever did this to us!
How was I to do that? I didn’t even know who had done this thing, or how to find them. She was right, though: I’d been entrusted, as his father, to protect him. Hadn’t Rich Beck called me because of his own duty to his son? He hadn’t hesitated even though he knew we were grieving. He did what fathers do. He put himself out there no matter what the danger or what was in jeopardy.
Kill whoever did this to us.
The demand calmed me. The words, circling around in my head, became a balm. If I could do what Amy wanted me to do, perhaps I could lie down afterward and close my eyes and sleep the sleep of the dead.
Amy
Twelve days after Truman’s death
I thought he was going to touch me. He was so close to my face I could feel his breath and that alone was like touching, but just beyond his shoulder I saw a hand and knew it was there to pull him away if he had any intentions of touching me. Oh the fear I felt with his breath coming onto me in such exhalations, and I wanted to grab the glass of wine and smash his face with it. And it was never like that when he would put his tender body upon and above my own and I could feel his skin, his pores against my own, and he would penetrate me like some hot and febrile dream of fluid, so soft and probing, and then the liquid would decant into me.
And then I could feel it grow each day like some seed I’d planted in the soil outside the dayroom, the warm sun heating the soil of my body. And I could feel it take root, extending tendrils and small little runnels of cells, expanding and developing until my stomach began to stretch to take on the bloom that was Truman. Truman. Even then he was demanding to know when and how he would arrive into the light outside the darkness of me, and then I rejoiced that I’d had Ethan’s touch. I loved that I’d had his gentle velvety heat inside my own heat, that we’d combined to make this swelling sensitive being who kissed me on the top of my head and every day kept me from floating away.