Still here? Okay good. Here's where the warning stops and my usual little introduction begins. You see, this is another one of those idea for a long story that, at least temporarily got stuffed into about the length of two pages or so. It's one of those themes where the wife (or ex-wife) of a man and his mistress (or former mistress) meet at his funeral and kind of like, well...what would they say to each other if they said anything at all? Only in this case the so-called mistress...is another man. Hey, I like the little plot twists, what can I say? The rest of the story would play out over each telling their stories about how the met the man they were both with at one time or another and take the reader through their relationships up until the person died. Sound stupid, strange or pointless? Maybe. I don't know. It was just an idea.
So here, in its severely condensed form and without any apologies (I did warn you!): Every New Beginning.A Few Words: All right, at least this time I get to say it straight out: this story makes mention of a homosexual relationship between two men. If that bothers you, then don't read it. It's PG stuff, so don't go into this thinking "Allison's starting to write homosexual erotica!" because, well, she's not. But if it bothers you, you have my permission to skip over this. Please.
To tell the absolute truth, if I must for it is the fashion to do so after a funeral, I hope that when I am gone I am missed as much as John is. I mean, at his young age (thirty-seven if I’ve counted on my fingers correctly), you don’t make a list in your head of all the people you think might come to mourn you when you’re gone. Or if he did, I don't think he would have thought to put down the names of so many old and new friends, students, and lovers.
He certainly would not have thought to include me on his list.
With that thought, my eyes wander to the tall man sitting in the front row, closest to the closed casket giving the dead man within his preferred privacy even in death. The tears stream down his face as everyone offers kind words on who John was to them. He looks almost as shattered as he sounded on the phone when he called me the morning after the death.
When he first told me his name, I have to admit my mind drew a blank. Zachary Bliss...it sounded familiar somehow, but no face or situation came up to match the name.
“John’s lover,” he had whispered shakily.
Oh. Yeah.
He said it with no shame evident in his voice. Could being politically correct really ease the blow of my former fiance’s male lover calling to tell me the man was dead?
I almost admired him for it for a moment.
Sighing, I look around at the rest of the crowd. I note immediately that his mother is not in attendance. She never approved of his relationship with Zachary. Hell, she never approved of his relationship with me, the old witch. But I hadn’t been aware of just how strongly she felt on the matter. I mean, to not even go to her own son’s funeral? That sucks.
I had barely got up the nerve to go myself. Now I find myself watching everyone rise to say so many nice things about John, all taking their sweet time because there were a lot of good things to say about a man like that. I imagine myself, for a moment, up there putting in my own two cents on the faithful departed. What would I say? How smart he was, what a great sense of humor he had, how I loved his smile? I had nearly married the man, after all. Certainly I would have a few good things to say about him.
But I knew the rest of the story might resurface. How ten years ago, he had cheated on me with a man I never met, never saw until now. How his choice to be with that man instead of me had rocked my comfortable little world. Would I just find myself babbling away about it all, making a fool of myself in the face of a man’s great sorrow?
The best way to prevent the words from spilling out was by not gonig up there to say anything. So I didn’t.
When the bell began to toll and we all filed out into the ironically bright sunlight of the day, I realized that my decision to keep my silence had, perhaps, attracted more attention than it would have if I had simply swallowed the past and just said it. I had loved John.
But so did the man standing behind me.
“Emma?” I was surprised how soft his voice was. Lyrical and accented, though still somehow manly.
I turned and his tired, red-rimmed eyes bore into me.
“Hi,” I said. “You’re Zachary, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he answered, seeming surprised that I had no reason to recognize him by anything other than his grief. He had the advantage there what with all the old pictures I had intentionally left behind of me and John together when I left. He had to have looked at them at least once, if only to put them in a box and stuff them away in the corner of a closet somewhere so that the new beginning he and John made for themselves could progress into something less new but no less exciting. I had nothing but a muffled voice over the telephone.
“I’m glad you came,” he said suddenly. “John would have wanted you here.”
“I don’t know about that,” I said, adding silently that he didn’t even have the courtesy of telling me he was sick in the first place.
“I do,” he said. He looked down at his hands. “He talked about you a lot. About how your relationship was one of the happier times in his life.”
“But he was happiest with you,” I added, not able to keep a touch of bitterness at bay.
Rather than offended, he seemed grateful that I had said so.
“How he wished things had ended differently between you,” he went on.
I shook my head and tried a smile, but it was hard in the face of his stark and overwhelming sadness.
“No,” I said. “If it had ended differently between us, it may never have truly begun between you two.”
He smiled feebly.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” he asked. For a moment, I didn’t know what he was talking about. My confusion must have showed on my face. “Back there, I mean. You looked like you wanted to.”
I shrugged. “There wasn’t anything more to say. I think we said it all to each other ten years ago.”
“Then why did you come?” he asked curiously.
“I guess to see what became of him after I left. Look at all these people. His students, his friends, you. I hardly know any of them,” I said. “But I’m glad he was happy.”
He nodded with pride, surveying the crowd with his eyes.
“I’m glad he had a man who loves him so much,” I added, realizing it only as I said it.
Another feeble smile. Ten years he had known John. Even I wasn’t in John’s live for that long. The secrets he could probably tell me. And I found myself suddenly curious about all of them but too afraid to ask.
“Yes,” he said and a few tears slide unobtrusively down his cheek. “But he was sick for so long, I had to let him go.”
At first, I wasn’t sure what to say because I wasn’t sure how the topic had turned to this. I knew so little about the situation, that it didn’t seem right to say anything at all. But I couldn’t leave it at that.
I put a hand on his arm. “You did the right thing,” I said. It seemed right.
“So did you,” he said, putting a hand over mine. “Thank you.”
“No problem,” I said because I thought he was talking about John’s death. And then I realized what he was really talking about. But I didn’t take back my words.
“Keep in touch,” he said as he was pulled away by another mourner
I was suddenly glad I came.