“William,” his father called, his voice raspier than before, but filled with joy. “You’re here. I’m so glad to see you. Come in, come in. I look like hell but I’m not contagious.”
Whatever William thought he might say or do when he met his father again disappeared from mind. Here was the man who’d read to him every night that he was home, bought him his first bike, taken him to Paris when he was ten—because William asked what was so great about the Eiffel Tower.
“Father,” he said, struggling to keep the sadness from his tone. Notty had demanded William “keep a stiff upper lip—as tired and cliché as that sounds. We must help him fight the good fight and never let him see us cry.”
The two embraced, a process made even more awkward than usual because of the walker. “How was your flight, son? Did I hear you flew commercial?”
“From JFK. I hired a young pilot to be my copilot to the East coast then hopped a Virgin Air flight. Very nice, actually. I slept most of the way.”
“I’ve heard they have seats that turn into beds. Lovely. Let’s sit, shall we?” His father’s breathlessness made William reach out to help, but Notty, who was standing a foot or so away, shook his head furiously.
“Where’s Mum?” William asked, pacing his stride to baby steps as they slowly made their way into the study. William’s eyes went wide as he took in the changes to the room that had been off-limits his entire childhood. Not until he’d returned from college had he been invited into this inner sanctum to share a brandy with his father and uncle.
“On her way. Should be here any time.”
The leather tufted couch and matching armchair had been pushed aside to make room for a hospital bed. A moveable tray table was cluttered with medical supplies, a small vase of flowers and a plastic upchuck basin William remembered being given as a child when he was ill.
His father paused. “I know,” he said, his tone resigned. “It looks pathetic, doesn’t it? But the place is actually quite functional. Your mum can work on the computer while Naughton drinks my whiskey in front of the fire.” He took a shaky breath. “And I suck down my oxygen.”
“Would you like to lie down, James?”
Father gave Notty a dark look. “No. I’ll be lying down for eternity soon enough. I’m going to have a conversation with my son. Leave us a bit, will you?”
The last he added less antagonistically than he’d started out. Notty gave a mock salute. “I’ll make tea.”
William took his father’s elbow and helped him to the chair. “The ottoman, too, son. If you don’t mind.”
William’s hands were trembling as he gently lifted his father’s narrow, skinny feet to the overstuffed stool. He tucked a woolen throw around him without being asked. “Is there anything else you need? A drink of water, perhaps?”
He shook his head. His near baldness wasn’t as big a shock as his overall emaciation had been. James had started losing his hair in his thirties and had worn it closely trimmed for most of William’s life. And while he’d never been fat, he had sported a bit of a spare tire around his middle for the past ten years or so. That small cushion of reserves was gone now.
As if guessing his son’s thoughts, James said, “It’s amazing how fast the body starts to fall to pieces once you place yourself in the hands of the medical experts. Specialists are the worst,” he said, scowling. “They treat the one aspect of the disease they know best while entirely ignoring the host body. I told your mother recently how proud I was that she remained a general physician.” He looked at William sadly. “Of course, now she’s giving herself a hard time for bringing remedial health care to the children of the world instead of finding a cure for cancer. Imagine that? Lamenting all the good you’ve done simply because someone you loved was stricken by an incurable disease.”
“I used to wish she were in research,” William admitted. “A friend in school’s parents were both doctors employed by some sort of pharmaceutical company. They were home every night. I was quite envious.”
Father nodded, chuckling. “But did your chum ever sleep in a tent on the savannah? I bet not.”
Or dispensed vaccines in Mumbai, breakfasted with monkeys in the Philippines, held the hand of a child dying of AIDS in some hellhole country that changed its name before William could memorize the previous one. “She helped a lot of people, didn’t she?”
“More than we could possibly know.”
“As did you,” he admitted. “You were too modest to brag, but Notty’s kept me abreast of the laws you helped bring about over the years. Civil rights. Human rights. Including the one about a patient’s right to die with dignity.”
Father laughed softly. “I can honestly say I didn’t intend to be a test case of it. Life is a puzzle. Sometimes the pieces go together to form a picture completely different from what you’d envisioned.”
“I agree,” William said, thinking about Daria and the blissful future he’d imagined with her. For that brief moment in time, he’d seen it so clearly. And now his slate of dreams was blank.
“Are you happy, son? In California?” Father said the word as though it was the furthest, most exotic place on the planet. “I know you’re a success in your field. You have famous friends. Naughton is most impressed, although he pretends not to be for my sake.”
William sat forward, hands woven together. “What do you mean? Why for your sake?”
Father patted William’s hand. His skin was dry and slick, like parchment paper. Old people’s skin.
You’re not that old,
he almost cried.
“Naughton has spent most his life protecting me from life’s slings and arrows. His way of returning the favor from when we were young.” He closed his eyes and smiled, no doubt recalling that earlier time. “You know the story.”
“Tell it again. I’ve forgotten,” William lied.
“Notty was small for his age—didn’t get a growth spurt until seventeen or so. Youngest son. His sisters used to dress him in bonnets. Children can be cruel. I rather enjoyed standing up to bullies. Fancied myself a hero. Probably what pushed me into public service.”
Father opened his eyes and sighed. “But once I was elected, I became a public figure and, in the minds of some, an open target. Notty created a public fiction to keep our private lives private. We told you, though, when you were older.”
“Dad, you know I’m proud of you, don’t you?” William asked. “My childhood was unconventional, but I’ve come to realize that different doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Don’t people always want what they can’t have? I wanted the kind of family my chums had. The kind I saw in the movies. The kind I created in my mind.”
“Hollywood’s universal truth?”
“In part. I also saw my friends leading
normal
lives.”
“With
normal
parents,” Father put in, his tone rueful and a bit sad.
William turned his hands palm up in a gesture of acceptance. “A good friend told me recently that dysfunctional is the new normal.”
They both laughed.
“Well, aren’t we a happy bunch,” a voice said from the doorway. “Hello, my son. Come give your old mum a hug.”
William did as requested. Their embrace was the longest he could remember. She’d aged since their last visit. The lines around her mouth and eyes were more pronounced and her hair was considerably grayer, but the cut reminded him of Daria—spunky and unapologetic. “It’s so good to see you, dear. Thank you for coming,” she added softly, for his ears only.
Notty walked in a few moments later carrying a large tray. The four of them sat round the fire, talking and sipping tea, until someone noticed that James had fallen asleep. “The drugs,” Notty said. “He’s in and out all day.”
“And night,” Mum said, squeezing Notty’s hand tenderly.
William understood then how amazing his family truly was. Unique in composition but strong and whole where it mattered. “I’ve fallen in love with a wonderful woman and managed to self-sabotage our relationship inside a fortnight,” he announced to his profound surprise. “What should I do?”
Mum looked at Notty, who nodded. In unison, they said, “Grovel.”
As his mother refilled his cup, she said, “Would this be Daria you’re talking about?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm…interesting. She’s not talking to you, but I received an e-mail from her a few minutes ago.”
“From Daria?”
She nodded. “She explained that she was a friend of my son’s and the two of you had been collaborating on a video of some sort. She copied my e-mail address from a post that Notty had sent you. Clever girl.”
William felt a jangle of nerves collaborate in his belly. “That was it?”
His mother smiled. “No, dear. She included an attachment.” She glanced toward his father’s desk. “I forwarded it to James’s computer. His is newer and has a larger screen. Shall we?” She motioned them to follow her.
William hesitated. “But Father—”
“Is awake,” James interjected. “Someone help me up. I want to see this. Whatever it is.”
“A video of some sort, dear. From William’s girlfriend.”
“She’s not— We broke up…and this can’t be the video. She told me I could view it then pass it along if I thought you’d want to see it.”
Notty leaned over James, who was seated in the desk chair, to hit the play button. “Change of plan, I believe.”
The opening image was a black-and-white image of his father at age five. A handsome, clear-eyed, smiling lad holding an obese spaniel. “Brigit,” Father cried. “Best dog I ever owned.”
As “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” played softly in the background, the photos marched on through Father’s life, introducing his parents, an older brother long dead, schoolmates, and, of course, Naughton.
“You really were a skinny kid,” William said, giving the man a slight poke with his elbow.
“But look how lovely he was when your father and I met,” Laurel said. “So handsome and dashing. I would have been hard-pressed to pick between them if I hadn’t already fallen in love with your father.”
The statement might have seemed odd given the fact both men were gay, had it not been the truth. And seeing a steady sequence of images placing the three friends together—along with a new baby—he understood. They truly loved each other—all of them.
And they loved him, too. The same way Daria loved Miranda and Hailey. But those two adorable children could no more hold their parents’ marriage together than William had been able to make his family conform to some cinematic ideal. And yet, that’s what William had tried to do. Every time he went to some far-off land to see his mother, he would beg her to come home. And every weekend that his father was in residence, William would try to make him act like other fathers.
As he watched the slide show move forward, he could almost hear Daria’s voice in his head, saying, “There’s that damn pedestal again.” He shook his head in wonder. He had a family. An amazing family. He simply never appreciated it because he was too busy trying to make it perfect.
His love for Daria expanded exponentially. He would grovel, beg, do whatever penance she asked of him for however long it took to convince her that their story was bigger than its rocky beginning.
“Daria has an excellent eye for storytelling,” Father said. “This is a life I would be proud to live. And I did.” He looked at William, his eyes glistening. “How lucky is that?”
William had no words, but his heart had never felt as full. He watched the rest of the video in silence, holding his mother when she started to cry. Notty tried his best to keep the moment from becoming too maudlin by interjecting comments such as, “Look, James, you had hair then,” and, “Didn’t I warn you that those striped pants would come back to haunt you?”
The video ended with an image William couldn’t remember posing for, at first. Then he recognized the oak tree behind this house. His graduation from college. William and his mother stood, arms linked, with the two men on either side of them.
“I remember this day so clearly. We were all so proud of you, William,” his mother said, kissing his cheek.
“Top of your class, of course,” Father added. “With your bright future opening up before you.”
William swallowed the lump in his throat. “But I let you down. I’m not a doctor. Or a lawyer. Or a glorified paper pusher,” he joked. They all knew Naughton was much, much more.
The three of them looked at each other and broke out laughing. “Is that truly what you think? That we’re in any way disappointed in you, darling?” his mother asked.
Father looked at William. “Son, we’ve made our share of mistakes, singularly and as a collective, trying to raise a child we all loved. If we somehow made you believe that we harbored certain ambitions for you, I apologize. All we ever wanted for you was to be happy.”
Notty and Mum nodded in agreement.
William didn’t need to say anything—to them. But there was one person he couldn’t wait to call.
“Can we watch it again?” Mum asked.
“Of course, but, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to call the movie’s director and say thank you.”
“Tell her we love it,” Father said.
“Tell her we want to meet her,” Mum said.
“Tell her you apologize for whatever you did and that she was right. Women love to be right,” Notty put in.