No River Wide Enough

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

That evening, after another long shift at the café, I sat with my neighbor and good friend Shirley on the back veranda. I was enjoying her usual funny banter on the perils of being a single mother. Her son Troy was four years old—the spitting image of Bam-Bam, that little hulking boy in The Flintstones. The kid was quite a handful. I adored him.

“So Roy’s brother sent me a check that’s supposedly from Roy.” Shirley sat in the white wicker chair, facing mine, her legs folded under her. She was a short and curvy woman with a vibrant and fun personality.

As a clerk at the border, Shirley struggled with her budget and I tried to help out whenever I could. “How’d Roy manage to send you money?” I asked, glad for her company and the distraction she brought.

“God knows. He’s such a crook. But hey, he’s a generous crook.” She laughed a little, but quickly turned serious again. I knew she missed Roy, though she was still torn about taking him back.

Roy, her husband, was in jail. He’d been caught at the border with a backseat stuffed with m*******a. He’d wanted to give Shirley a better life, but because of his stupid decision, Shirley had almost lost her job. Even after it had been proven that she hadn’t known about his activities, she’d been demoted to a clerk position and her chances of being promoted again were slim to none.

Then, while Roy had been in the slammer and after they’d decided to take some time to think about their future and marriage Shirley had had a brief fling and gotten pregnant to someone new. Troy’s father was a food inspector passing through town. It had only come out later that he was a married man with a family in another province and had never acknowledged Troy’s existence.

I tried to make up for all of the jerks who’d hurt her.

“I don’t know how he did it,” Shirley said. “But I’m obviously not gonna cash it.” She sipped her wine and laughed. “What does he think I am? An i***t? His brother says it’s Roy’s salary for the kitchen work he does in jail and that Roy insists I take it.” She let out a hard breath. “He wants to help me out. Says he’s willing to accept Troy as his own son if I take him back.”

I gave her a serious look. “Wow. He actually said that?”

“Yes.” She hesitated. “There was also a letter with the money. In it, Roy really spilled his guts out. He’s never done that before. Tell me how much he loves me.”

I had a feeling she was going to get back together with Roy the moment the man got out of jail in September. I’d never met the guy. I’d moved here two years ago and Roy had already been in jail. I’d only seen pictures of him. He looked like he had some serious swagger. But according to Shirley, he’d always been a bit repressed and rarely let his feelings show. Maybe that could be changing now. I hoped so, for her sake and Troy’s. “Then you’re thinking of giving your marriage another chance?”

“You know what it’s like to grow up without knowing your father,” she said quietly and reaching for my hand. “I don’t want that for my son.”

Yes, I knew that pain all too well. That was part of the reason I’d been trying to be a father figure to Troy in the last years.

“So when do you plan on taking a week off?” she asked, out of the blue, changing the subject.

For a moment, I stared at the garden. “Uh, I don’t think I’ll take any time off this summer.”

Shirley stuck a curl of her brown hair behind an ear. “Oh…why not?”

“Well, I wouldn’t know what to do with all that time.”

“You’re such a sad clown.” She sat back in her chair, checking the baby monitor at her feet. “Don’t you think maybe it’s time you got back on the saddle?”

“First, I’d have to find a horse.”

She chuckled and shook her head at me. “Go to Burlington or something. There must be gay men in the city. Right? Burlington or maybe you should take a trip to San Francisco.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so.” I couldn’t imagine myself in the Castro. I was way too ordinary for those metropolitan guys. Besides, I read the papers. Now wasn’t the time to visit San Francisco. Yet, I had to admit it to myself—sometimes I envied the community those gay men had built together in the face of Death itself. I was so alone out here. “Maybe I’ll paint the house or something,” I said, after a moment. “Tired of the blue panels. I think I want the whole thing to be white. What do you think?”

“I think you need to get laid.”

She was so blunt. And boy, was she right.

“Chris, I love you to pieces, you know that.” She ruffled my hair. “But you need to do something for yourself this summer. You can’t hang around old ladies and single moms for two months. You’ll go crazy in the winter if you don’t get some fun in first.”

“Oh, I’m all right. I’m getting over him. I’m learning to live on my own.”

“Babe, it’s been a year.” She rose out of her chair and gave me a hug. “I know you’re fine, hon,” she added, squeezing me tight. “And I’m here for you.” She peered down at the end of the street. “There’s Donnie again. Second time now.”

Donnie was Drika’s teenage nephew. He liked to ride his bike up and down our street. “So what?” I said, watching the kid speed by my house.

“I don’t know. Seems like he’s always riding by these days. I think he likes you.”

“Oh, gimme a break,” I said, getting out of my chair. Donnie was seventeen years old. A bit of a loner. I’d loaned him a few books in the past, but that was it. “He’s a kid.”

“Rumors say that—”

“Thanks for the talk. And the wine.” I kissed the top of her head. I despised rumors and refused to fuel them. As the only openly gay man in town, I’d had more than my share of lies said about me since moving here.

Thankfully, Shirley caught on. “Don’t give up on yourself, okay?” she said, looking up at me with a smirk. “You never know what could happen tomorrow. Maybe something amazing is coming your way, right this minute, and you don’t even know it yet.”

“Tomorrow is the country fair,” I said, with a sardonic grin. “I doubt anything will happen to me, except a heatstroke, a headache, and swollen feet.”

Shirley raised her glass at me and then drained it. “Never know, Christensen. You just never know.”