Ten

“IT’S A LITTLE LATE FOR BREAKFAST,” Dad said when he saw us at the door. “Would you like to join us for lunch?”

“Sorry, Dad,” I said sheepishly. “I was drawing. The time kind of got away from us.”

Dad nodded his head. Mom came to the door, raised one eyebrow at me, and we headed down to lunch. We sat in a little café and it was apparent to me that something was bugging my folks. There wasn’t much I could do about it unless they asked something. I certainly wasn’t going to provide details about my sex life, or lack thereof.

“When Tony was a little boy...” Dad started. I cringed. This was going to be another embarrass Tony story, I could tell. “He must have been, oh ... about ten, I think. He disappeared. He was gone an entire summer day. We called the neighbors, all his friends. No one had seen him. It was beginning to get dark and we were getting very worried.” He took Mom’s hand and she nodded her head.

“We’d called the sheriff and were on the phone to the police,” Mom continued Dad’s story. “The minister came to our house and our next door neighbors brought over a casserole.”

“That’s the Midwest for you,” Allie chimed in. “If there’s an emergency, there’s a casserole.” I couldn’t see a casserole helping with any emergency of Allie’s.

“I looked out the window and Tony was pedaling his bicycle as hard as he could up the road and into our driveway,” Dad said. “I never hit Tony in my life, but at that moment I was torn between hugging him and taking my belt to him. The hugging won out, but I had to be stern and lecture him about how worried we were and how worried the neighbors were, and that the sheriff was looking for him. Then the preacher got in on it and he cut me off.”

“We’re not very religious people, Allison. So the simple fact that the Lutheran minister had stopped by to see if we needed help, was very impressive.”

I knew the rest of this story now. I was still going to be embarrassed.

“Rev. Larkin said, ‘Tony, everybody is worried about you, but why don’t you tell us where you were?’ I hadn’t even thought to ask that,” Dad said. “Well, Tony looked at the preacher and just said, ‘I was drawing.’”

I remembered it clearly. I’d been completely caught up in just watching and drawing. It was a point that I thought of now as the first time I’d entered ‘the zone.’ I just forgot everything around me.

“The preacher wasn’t satisfied,” Mom picked up the story. “He asked to see what Tony had drawn.” I decided to get into the story myself.

“I’d been given a sketchbook for Christmas the year before and some pencils, but I’d never had a particular interest in them. For some reason, that day they just seemed like the most important things in the world to me,” I said.

“Tony pulled out the sketchbook and showed us what he’d drawn. The book was full. It was like giving a kid a camera and letting him go, so I’m told,” Dad said. “They take pictures of everything, and sometimes they take many pictures of the same thing. The sketchbook was like that. The first half dozen pictures were of the same rock in a stream not far from our house. Then there was a picture of a tree trunk, one of a sign that I recognized as being about a mile from our house, one of the abandoned barn out in Wilson’s back forty. There was even a picture of a chipmunk. I couldn’t figure out how he’d got the little critter to hold still for so long. It was like Tony was discovering the world in a new way.”

“Rev. Larkin quietly leafed through the book,” Mom said. “Every once in a while, he’d show us one of the pictures. He just nodded his head, patted Tony and shook our hands. He quoted some Bible verse about the prodigal having come home and to rejoice. Then he left.”

“The thing is,” Dad said, “we never knew Tony had that talent until that day. Since then, I’ve never questioned him when he said he was drawing.”

And with that, Dad left the question hanging in the air. Mom and Dad wanted to know what I’d been doing all morning (and all night) with Allison. They were completely willing to accept that I was in love with two women, but they were absolutely horrified by the idea that I’d cheat on them. I was getting steamed that my parents were prying into my personal affairs, so to speak. It really wasn’t any of their business and I was ready to tell them so when Allison jumped in.

“Did he listen to music while he was drawing back then?” she asked simply.

“No,” Dad said smiling. “That came a while later.”

“I wanted to listen, too,” Allison continued, “but his player doesn’t sound good without headphones or speakers, so he had me sing while he was drawing.”

“You wouldn’t have believed it, Mom,” I said. In a few words, Allison had completely defused the situation. What a great girl! “Just when we’d finished, this guy stops outside our door and claps yelling, ‘Brava, Diva!’ She is really a good singer.”

“I’d love to see that drawing!” Dad said enthusiastically. Suddenly, Allison was very shy.

“Um ... I’d rather not show you,” Allie said. “Tony gave it to me to take home. It’s kind of...”

“Oh don’t worry, dear,” Mom said. “We know Tony paints nudes. We won’t pry any further.”

“It’s unusual, though,” Dad mused. “Usually a girl wants a picture of her boyfriend, not of herself.” I shrank into my chair. Dad! Geez!

“First off, there are two answers to that double-sided question, Saul,” Allison said before I could blow up. “The first is that Tony isn’t my boyfriend. I’d like him to be, but as much as I love Melody and Lissa, I just couldn’t be to them what they’d need me to be. You know, if you date one of them, you date all three.”

Oh! Way to go, Allison! I was afraid this was really going to hell, but I chose to stay silent and trust to the goddess beside me that it would come out okay.

“The second answer is that I know what Tony looks like and I have a very good memory,” Allison said. “What I didn’t know is what Tony sees when he looks at me. No mirror would ever show me that.”

Mom was crying. Dad reached over and took my hand. He just nodded his head to me. Mom had to explain, though.

“It wasn’t your father, Tony. I really like Melody and Lissa, even though I haven’t met them in person yet. And the boys are so precious. I kept your father up all night, and not in a good way. I was so worried about what would happen today when they ... when Melody gets here. This week just didn’t go the way anyone planned.”

“It’s okay, Mom,” I soothed. I could never stay angry when my mom was distressed. “Allison is our very good friend. Very good. But she would never do anything that would hurt Melody, Lissa, or me. And I wouldn’t hurt them, Mom. I’d die if I hurt them.”

“Well,” said Dad. “I think we should go watch some racquetball, unless you have other plans. Isn’t your friend Karl playing this afternoon?”

Racquetball. Ya gotta love it.

I was excited. The good thing about having been eliminated from the tournament was that I could take Allison to the airport in Dad’s car and pick up Melody when she flew in. Melody’s flight was scheduled to arrive at six-twenty that evening and Allison’s was taking off at half past eight. We carefully scanned the security lines when we got there to make sure that Allison wouldn’t have difficulty making her flight if she waited with me at baggage claim for Melody. It would be a brief reunion, but fun.