Chapter 12

"You're pissed at him because you think he lied to you?"

The hospital waiting room isn't crowded, but there are at least five other groups clustered in chairs around its edge, some talking quietly among themselves, others staring blankly at the television mounted on one wall above them. Gavin is watching his father talk to the doctor who's been operating on Bill Duncan. The lady looks tired, as if she hasn't slept for days, and he wonders how long she's been on duty?

"He did lie," Gavin says quietly, not looking at the man sitting to his left. Pissed isn't exactly the right word either, but he can't think of a better one at the moment, and doesn't much feel like debating semantics anyway.

There's a sound of derision from beside him. "It must be nice living in a world where everything's so straight forward and easy to understand. Unfortunately, your father didn't grow up in a simple place like that. He grew up in a world where everyone told him that being gay was wrong. Not just wrong, but a sin!"

"So," Gavin retorts, "if he wanted to be gay so much, why'd he marry Mom?"

The reporter on the TV is droning on about a flood somewhere, a child across the room casually tips over a tower of building blocks, but the only sound he can clearly hear is the voice of the large man sitting next to him.

"Because," Bill sighs, "he had the same misconception you do. He didn't want to be gay, Gavin, he was gay. He thought he could, should be normal, and he built a life with Janice that was intended to satisfy that desire."

"So yeah," Gavin shrugs, "a lie." A few feet away, his father and the doctor are still deep in conversation,

Bill slams his open hand down on the low table next to his chair, and the slap of skin on wood reverberates around the waiting room like a gun shot. Gavin jerks upright, but no one else seems to notice.

"What has that man ever done to you, except be the best father he could be?" Bill growls. "Janice might have the right to be pissed at him, maybe, but you?" He stands up, and looks down at Gavin for a second. "You're not even mad at him for being gay anymore, you're just being an asshole."

Gavin's head snaps up from its bowed position, and he comes close to braining himself on the wall behind his chair.

A second later, his father's hand is on his arm. "Easy, Son."

Gavin shakes his head, disoriented by Al's presence in the chair where Bill Duncan had been sitting seconds earlier. "How..." He clears his throat, and starts over, "Sorry. How's Mr. Duncan?"

Al's face, normally so open and expressive, is closed off to him now, an unfamiliar terrain of shadows and worry lines. He's never before thought of him as either old or young, but instead separated into a completely unique category, my father. Perhaps it is just this place, full of antiseptic smells and distressed humanity, and when they leave, the age he now sees in his father's features will simply melt away, leaving behind the person he has always known and loved.

"He's not in surgery anymore, but they're still observing him in the ICU. There was" he swallows, "a lot of internal bleeding."

Just as the BMW had begun its rush forward, Gavin had seen tendrils of darkness surrounding and penetrating Bill's skull. The entire experience earlier that afternoon had felt so much like a dream that he had dismissed much of what he had seen as unreal, the panicked hallucinations of a terrified mind, but now the image returns in all its original clarity, and he shudders. No, not a hallucination, he is certain. The shadow things feeding on Bill had been as real as the BMW that had almost killed him.

"What do they think happened?"

The hand on his arm squeezes for a moment, offering or perhaps seeking comfort from the touch, and then is gone. "They're not really certain. An aneurysm, a build up of pressure that caused a rupture in one of his cerebral arteries."

Of course, the doctors wouldn't see anything extraordinary in what had happened to Bill Duncan, only a mundane medical problem, easily explained. Still, he knew what he had seen. What he needs to do is talk with Elena, as soon as possible.

"Did you see him?" Gavin asks.

"Yes," Al says, "but only for a few minutes. He isn't conscious, and they're watching him closely in case there's more internal bleeding."

If he could see Bill right now, would there still be flickering shadows surrounding his head? "They think there might be?"

Al sighs, and runs a hand across his face. "Honestly Gav, I don't think they know what's going to happen at this point. They say they're doing all they can, and for the moment, that's what we have to rely on." He sounds defeated, as though, despite his words, he has trouble accepting that this is the best course of action. "Right now though," he continues, standing, "I'm going to take you home, and go pick Candace up at the airport."

"Candace?" Gavin stares at him blankly.

"Bill's sister." He offers Gavin a hand, and helps him up from his chair. "I called her when the doctor was looking you over."

Resentment flares, and before he can stop himself, Gavin tugs free of his father's grasp. Candace, the sister's name, is another reminder of his father's secret life, an existence populated with people Gavin has never heard of or met. In his dream, Bill had called him an asshole for steadfastly insisting that Al had deceived him, but what other interpretation is possible?

When he turns back to face him, Al's gaze is reproachful, and Gavin feels a red flush of shame color his cheeks. No matter how justified he may be, this is neither the time or place to show it.

All his father says is, "We can talk about it in the car."

In contrast to the waiting room, the cars in the hospital parking lot are widely spaced, no huddled conversation groups here. Their silver Camry is close to the front, and Gavin runs a hand across its unblemished hood while Al pops the locks with his remote. It was the Nova his father had spent hours restoring, but this is the car Al had allowed him to drive for large stretches of their journey from California to Texas. In the back of his mind, he had wondered, without allowing himself to hope too much, if his father had kept both cars because he was planning to give Gavin the Camry once he graduated from his learner's permit to a real license. The selfish thought stabs him now, and he realizes with horror that he's crying.

"Gavin?" The voice beside him is gentle, and he feels his father's hand gripping his shoulder.

"I wa-was pissed at you," Gavin stutters desperately, drops of salty water splattering on the car's hood beneath him, "and I picked a fight with him when we met outside the house."

"I know," Al says calmly, "I saw you ride up." As it had in the waiting room, the hand on his shoulder squeezes companionably. "If it makes you feel better, I think you impressed him." He chuckles, and Gavin thinks that it's a strangely sad sound, "Believe me, impressing Bill wasn't easy to do."

"I thought," Gavin straightens, and swipes the back of one hand across his traitorous eyes, "I thought maybe I could embarrass him, find out about when you two were in college together."

"Embarrass?" Al doesn't laugh this time, but the amusement in his voice sounds more genuine. "That wasn't ever something Bill was embarrassed about. He always insisted people accept him for who he was, and that strategy usually worked, for him anyway."

But not for you I guess.

"Not for you?"

His father stands quietly for a second, and then slowly shakes his head. "No, you have to believe it yourself in order for that to work." He sighs, and then gestures at the car, "Come on. I really do have to pick Candace up at the airport."

They are turning out of the hospital parking lot before either one of them speaks again. Silences in-between them are not unusual; they have gone hours without speaking sometimes, the room they share quiet except for the turning of pages, clicking of computer keys, and the occasional soft snore if Mac is with them. This time though, the silence is full of unanswered, and possibly unanswerable questions.

"I was going to tell you in a few days," Al says, his eyes on the road in front of them. "I wanted this to be a fresh start, for both of us."

A fresh start? Charlie, and Alan, and me starring as Jake?

The humiliating tears from earlier are gone now, leaving him feeling drained and a little trapped. He had known, ever since the confrontation with Bill Duncan, that he and his father would eventually have this conversation, but the accident, and the events that followed it, had stripped away all of his prepared remarks.