Before and Afterlives

  “What for?” he asked, beginning to sound alarmed.

  “Because you’re gay!” I said. It didn’t come out how I wanted, though. By the way his face, always alert and showing some kind of emotion, receded and locked its door behind it, I could tell I’d hurt his feelings. “It’s not like that,” I said. “They didn’t ask to be put on the prayer list. Fern Baker put them on it.”

  “Fern Baker?” Tommy said. “What business has that woman got still being alive?”

  “I’m serious, Tommy. I just want to know if you understand the position you’ve put them in.”

  He nodded. “I do,” he said. “I talked with them about Tristan and me coming out here to live three months ago. They said what they’ll always say to me or you when we want or need to come home.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Come home, darling. You and your Tristan have a home here too.” When I looked down at my comforter and studied its threads for a while, Tommy added, “They’ll say the come home part to you, of course. Not anything about bringing your Tristan with you. Oh, and if it’s Dad, he might call you sweetie the way Mom calls me darling.”

  “Tommy,” I said, “if there was a market for men who can make their sisters laugh, I’d say you’re in the wrong field.”

  “Maybe we can make that a market.”

  “You need lots of people for that,” I said.

  “Mass culture. Hmm. Been there, done that. It’s why I’m back. You should give it a try, though. It’s an interesting experience. It might actually suit you, Meg. Have you thought about where you want to go to college?”

  “It’s already decided. Kent State in the fall.”

  “Kent, huh? That’s a decent school. You wouldn’t rather go to New York or Boston?”

  “Tommy, even if you hadn’t broken the bank around here already, I don’t have patience for legions of people running up and down the streets of Manhattan or Cambridge like ants in a hive.”

  “And a major?”

  “Psychology.”

  “Ah, I see, you must think there’s something wrong with you and want to figure out how to fix it.”

  “No,” I said. “I just want to be able to break people’s brains open to understand why they act like such fools.”

  “That’s pretty harsh,” said Tommy.

  “Well,” I said, “I’m a pretty harsh girl.”

  After Tommy left, I fell asleep without even changing out of my clothes. In the morning when I woke, I was tangled up in a light blanket someone—Mom, probably—threw over me before going to bed the night before. I sat up and looked out the window. It was already late morning. I could tell by the way the light winked off the pond in the woods, which you can see a tiny sliver of, like a crescent moon, when the sun hits at just the right angle towards noon. Tommy and I used to spend our summers on the dock our father built out there. Reading books, swatting away flies, the soles of our dusty feet in the air behind us. He was so much older than me but never treated me like a little kid. The day he left for New York City, I hugged him on the front porch before Dad drove him to the airport, but burst out crying and ran around back of the house, beyond the fields, into the woods, until I reached the dock. I thought Tommy would follow, but he was the last person I wanted to see right then, so I thought out with my mind in the direction of the house, pushing him away. I turned him around in his tracks and made him tell our parents he couldn’t find me. When he didn’t come, I knew that I had used something inside me to stop him. Tommy wouldn’t have ever let me run away crying like that without chasing after me if I’d let him make that choice on his own. I lay on the dock for an hour, looking at my reflection in the water, saying, “What are you? God damn it, you know the answer. Tell me. Whatare you?”

  If Mom had come back and seen me like that, heard me speak in such a way, I think she probably would have had a breakdown. Mom can handle a gay son mostly. What I’m sure she couldn’t handle would be if one of her kids talked to themselves like this at age seven. Worse would be if she knew why I asked myself that question. It was the first time my will had made something happen. And it had made Tommy go away without another word between us.

  Sometimes I think the rest of my life is going to be a little more difficult every day.

  When I was dressed and had a bowl of granola and bananas in me, I grabbed the novel I was reading off the kitchen counter and opened the back door to head back to the pond. Thinking of the summer days Tommy and I spent back there together made me think I should probably honor my childhood one last summer by keeping up tradition before I had to go away. I was halfway out the door, twisting around to close it, when Tristan came into the kitchen and said, “Good morning, Meg. Where are you off to?”

  “The pond,” I said.

  “Oh the pond!” Tristan said, as if it were a tourist site he’d been wanting to visit. “Would you mind if I tagged along?”

  “It’s a free country,” I said, thinking I should probably have been nicer, but I turned to carry on my way anyway.

  “Well, sort of,” Tristan said, which stopped me in my tracks.

  I turned around and looked at him. He did that same little shrug he did the night before when Tommy asked Mom and Dad if he could hang theAmerican Gothic portrait in the living room, then smiled, as if something couldn’t be helped. “Are you just going to stand there, or are you coming?” I said.

  Quickly Tristan followed me out, and then we were off through the back field and into the woods, until we came to the clearing where the pond reflected the sky, like an open blue eye staring up at God.

  I made myself comfortable on the deck, spread out my towel and opened my book. I was halfway done. Someone’s heart had already been broken and no amount of mixed CDs left in her mailbox and school locker were ever going to set things right. Why did I read these things? I should take the bike to the library and check out something Classic instead, I thought. Probably there’s something I should be reading right now that everyone else in college will have read. I worried about things like that. Neither of our parents went to college. I remember Tommy used to worry the summer before he went to New York that he’d get there and never be able to fit in. “Growing up out here is going to be a black mark,” he’d said. “I’m not going to know how to act around anyone there because of this place.”

  I find it ironic that it’s this place—us—that helped Tommy start his career.

  “This place is amazing,” said Tristan. He stretched out on his stomach beside me, dangling the upper half of his torso over the edge so he could pull his fingers through the water just inches below us. “I can’t believe you have all of this to yourself. You’re so lucky.”

  “I guess,” I said, pursing my lips. I still didn’t know Tristan well enough to feel I could trust his motivations or be more than civil to him. Pretty. Harsh. Girl. I know.

  “Wow,” said Tristan, pulling his lower half back up onto the deck with me. He looked across the water, blinking. “You really don’t like me,” he said.

  “That’s not true,” I said immediately, but even I knew that was mostly a lie. So I tried to revise. “I mean, it’s not that I don’t like you. I just don’t know you so well, that’s all.”

  “Don’t trust me, eh?”

  “Really,” I said, “why should I?”

  “Your brother’s trust in me doesn’t give you a reason?”

  “Tommy’s never been known around here for his good judgment,” I said.

  Tristan whistled. “Wow,” he said again, this time elongating it. “You’re tough as nails, aren’t you?”

  I shrugged. Tristan nodded. I thought this was a sign we’d come to an understanding, so I went back to reading. Not two minutes passed, though, before he interrupted again.

  “What are you hiding, Meg?”

  “What are you talking about?” I said, looking up from my book.

  “Well obviously if you don’t trust people to this extreme, you must have something to hide. That’s what di
strustful people often have. Something to hide. Either that or they’ve been hurt an awful lot by people they loved.”

  “You do know you guys can’t get married in Ohio, right? The people decided in the election a couple of years ago.”

  “Ohhhh,” said Tristan. “The people. The people the people the people. Oh, my dear, it’s always the people! Always leaping to defend their own rights but always ready to deny someone else theirs. Wake up, baby. That’s history. Did that stop other people from living how they wanted? Well, I suppose sometimes. Screw the people anyhow. Your brother and I will be married, whether or not the people make some silly law that prohibits it. The people, my dear, only matter if you let them.”

  “So you’ll be married like I’m a Christian even though I don’t go to church.”

  “Really, Meg, you do realize that even if you consider yourself a Christian, those other people don’t, right?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Tristan turned over on his side so he could face me, and propped his head in his hand. His eyes are green. Tommy’s are blue. If they could have children, they’d be so beautiful, like sea creatures or fairies. My eyes are blue too, but they’re like Dad’s, dull and flat, like a blind old woman’s eyes rather than the shallow ocean with dancing lights on it blue that Mom and Tommy have. “I mean,” said Tristan, “those people only believe you’re a real Christian if you attend church. It’s the body of Christ rule and all that. Youhave read the Bible, haven’t you?”

  “Parts,” I said, squinting a little. “But anyway,” I said, “it doesn’t matter what they think of me. I know what’s true in my heart.”

  “Well precisely,” said Tristan.

  I stopped squinting and held his stare. He didn’t flinch, just kept staring back. “Okay,” I said. “You’ve made your point.”

  Tristan stood and lifted his shirt above his head, kicked off his sandals, and dove into the pond. The blue rippled and rippled, the rings flowing out to the edges, then silence and stillness returned, but Tristan didn’t. I waited a few moments, then stood halfway up on one knee. “Tristan?” I said, and waited a few moments more. “Tristan,” I said, louder this time. But he still didn’t come to the surface. “Tristan, stop it!” I shouted, and immediately his head burst out of the water at the center of the pond.

  “Oh this is lovely,” he said, shaking his wet, brown hair out of his eyes. “It’s like having Central Park in your back yard!”

  I picked my book up and left, furious with him for frightening me. What did he think? It was funny? I didn’t stay to find out. I didn’t turn around or say anything in response to Tristan either, when he began calling for me to come back.

  Tommy was in the kitchen making lunch for everyone when I burst through the back door and slammed it shut behind me like a small tornado had blown through. “What’s wrong now?” he said, looking up from the tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches he was making. “Boy trouble?”

  He laughed, but this time I didn’t laugh with him. Tommy knew I wasn’t much of a dater, that I didn’t have a huge interest in going somewhere with a guy from school and watching a movie or eating fast food while they practiced on me to become better at making girls think they’ve found a guy who’s incredible. I don’t get that stuff, really. I mean, I like guys. I had a boyfriend once. I mean a real one, not the kind some girls call boyfriends but really aren’t anything but the guy they dated that month. That’s not a boyfriend. That’s a candidate. Some people can’t tell the difference. Anyway, I’m sure my parents have probably thought I’m the same way as Tommy, since I don’t bring boys home, but I don’t bring boys home because it all seems like something to save for later. Right now, I like just thinking about me,my future. I’m not so good at thinking in the first person plural yet.

  I glared at Tommy before saying, “Your boyfriend sucks. He just tricked me into thinking he’d drowned.”

  Tommy grinned. “He’s a bad boy, I know,” he said. “But Meg, he didn’t mean anything by it. You take life too seriously. You should really relax a little. Tristan is playful. That’s part of his charm. He was trying to make you his friend, that’s all.”

  “By freaking me out? Wonderful friendship maneuver. It amazes me how smart you and your city friends are. Did Tristan go to NYU, too?”

  “No,” Tommy said flatly. And on that one word, with that one shift of tone in his voice, I could tell I’d pushed him into the sort of self I wear most of the time: the armor, the defensive position. I’d crossed one of his lines and felt small and little and mean. “Tristan’s family is wealthy,” said Tommy. “He’s a bit of the black sheep, though. They’re not on good terms. He could have gone to college anywhere he wanted, but I think he’s avoided doing that because it would make them proud of him for being more like them instead of himself. They’re different people, even though they’re from the same family. Like how you and I are different from Mom and Dad about church. Anyway, they threatened to cut him off if he didn’t come home to let them groom him to be more like them.”

  “Heterosexual, married to a well-off woman from one of their circle and ruthless in a board room?” I offered.

  “Well, no,” said Tommy. “Actually they’re quite okay with Tristan being gay. He’s different from them in another way.”

  “What way?” I asked.

  Tommy rolled his eyes a little, weighing whether or not he should tell me anymore. “I shouldn’t talk about it,” he said, sighing, exasperated.

  “Tommy, tell me!” I said. “How bad could it be?”

  “Not bad so much as strange. Maybe even unbelievable for you, Meg.” I frowned, but he went on. “The ironic thing is, the thing they can’t stand about Tristan is something they gave him. A curse, you would have called it years ago. Today I think the word we use is gene. In any case, it runs in Tristan’s family, skipping generations mostly, but every once in a while one of the boys are born…well, different.”

  “Different but not in the gay way?” I said, confused.

  “No, not in the gay way,” said Tommy, smiling, shaking his head. “Different in the way that he has two lives, sort of. The one here on land with you and I, and another one in, well, in the water.”

  “He’s a rebellious swimmer?”

  Tommy laughed, bursting the air. “I guess you could say that,” he said. “But no. Listen, if you want to know, I’ll tell you, but you have to promise not to tell Mom and Dad. They think we’re here because Tommy’s family disowned him for being gay. I told them his parents were Pentecostal, so it all works out in their minds.

  “Okay,” I said. “I promise.”

  “What would you say,” Tristan began, his eyes shifting up as if he were searching for the right words in the air above him. “What would you say, Meg, if I told you the real reason is because Tristan’s not completely human. I mean, not in the sense that we understand it.”

  I narrowed my eyes, pursed my lips, and said, “Tommy, are you on drugs?”

  “I wish!” he said. “God, those’ll be harder to find around here,” he laughed. “No, really, I’m telling the truth. Tristan is something…something else. A water person? You know, with a tail and all?” Tommy flapped his hand in the air when he said this. I smirked, waiting for the punch line. But when one didn’t come, it hit me.

  “This has something to do withThe Sons of Melusine, doesn’t it?”

  Tommy nodded. “Yes, those paintings are inspired by Tristan.”

  “But Tommy,” I said, “why are you going back to this type of painting? Sure it’s an interesting gimmick, saying your boyfriend’s a merman. But the critics didn’t like your fantasy paintings. They liked theAmerican Gothic stuff. Why would they change their minds now?”

  “Two things,” Tommy said, frustrated with me. “One: a good critic doesn’t dismiss entire genres. They look at technique and composition of elements and the relationship the painting establishes with this world. Two: it’s not a gimmick. It’s the truth, Meg. Listen to me. I’m
not laughing anymore. Tristan made his parents an offer. He said he’d move somewhere unimportant and out of the way, and they could make up whatever stories about him for their friends to explain his absence if they gave him part of his inheritance now. They accepted. It’s why we’re here.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I just stood there. Tommy ladled soup into bowls for the four of us. Dad would be coming in from the barn soon, Tristan back from the pond. Mom was still at the library and wouldn’t be home till evening. This was a regular summer day. It made me feel safe, that regularity. I didn’t want it to ever go away.

  I saw Tristan then, trotting through the field out back, drying his hair with his pink shirt as he came. When I turned back to Tommy, he was looking out the window over the sink, watching Tristan too, his eyes watering. “You really love him, don’t you?” I said.

  Tommy nodded, wiping his tears away with the backs of his hands. “I do,” he said. “He’s so special, like something I used to see a long time ago. Something I forgot how to see for a while.”

  “Have you finishedThe Sons of Melusine series then?” I asked, trying to change the subject. I didn’t feel sure of how to talk to Tommy right then.

  “I haven’t,” said Tommy. “There’s one more I want to do. I was waiting for the right setting. Now we have it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I want to paint Tristan by the pond.”

  “Why the pond?”

  “Because,” said Tommy, returning to gaze out the window, “it’s going to be a place he can be himself at totally now. He’s never had that before.”

  “When will you paint him?”

  “Soon,” said Tommy. “But I’m going to have to ask you and Mom and Dad a favor.”

  “What?”

  “Not to come down to the pond while we’re working.”

  “Why?”

  “He doesn’t want anyone to know about him. I haven’t told Mom and Dad. Just you. So you have to promise me two things. Don’t come down to the pond, and don’t tell Tristan I told you about him.”