Chapter 245
Billie looked up at him, her green eyes gleaming in the half-light. “Don’t worry, Uncle Scooter. I c’n sleep in here an’ keep monsters away. Mom said monsters only like it when there’s one person ‘round. So, me an’ Uncle Andy’ll keep you safe.”
God, he loved that kid. “Yeah, okay,” he agreed, rough. “Jus’ for tonight, though.”
Billie squirmed under the blankets. “It’ll be like a sleepover,” she said, snuggling up, already sounding drowsy. “Go back t’ sleep. Uncle Andy’ll keep watch for this shift.”
“I will, will I?” Andy asked, amused, but he kissed the top of Billie’s head, then leaned over her to kiss Scooter’s forehead. “Okay. Just this once.” 21
Scooter was still uncomfortable enough in his own skin to yield to letting Andy drive without complaint. He didn’t even loop his hand through the chicken-bar over the window; Andy’s tendency to tailgate like a motherfucker didn’t usually lend to Scooter being relaxed as a passenger. Face it, Stahl, he thought, you are a control freak.
The therapist, Dr. Michaelsson, had been calm, rather matter of fact, and unexpectedly practical, which had helped Scooter to relax a bit. They’d gone over, very briefly, what brought Scooter in for therapy, which had sidetracked the conversation. When Michaelsson asked what Scooter expected from therapy, Scooter’d decided to go ahead and be honest. “Don’t expect nothin’,” he had said. “M’ dad always said therapy was a waste of time an’ money. Useless—”
“Well,” Michaelsson said, “I have heard that before, Mr. Stahl. Tell me, how did your father feel about you being gay? We might want to consider the idea that his views were not precisely the most useful mindset.”
And they’d ended up mostly talking about Big Win, where Scooter had actually expected to be grilled about Chris. He’d been bracing himself to try to talk about that for the last few days and then to be able to just only have it be an aside—my ex and I had a rather violent confrontation recently that’s giving me nightmares—was almost a relief. Scooter might have considered the whole session to be not-so-bad except that, looking back on what he had said…
You don’t speak ill of the dead.
Guilt chewed at him and he stared out the windshield, not even paying attention.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Andy said, whipping around a slow driver with out-of-state plates. “You okay?”
“I don’t know,” Scooter said. “What happens when you find out that one of the things you’ve based your whole life on…ain’t what you thought it was? Like, how do you even deal with that?”
Andy hummed thoughtfully, his quiet tone utterly at odds with his aggressive driving. “I guess it depends what it is, and how much it’s going to change how you go forward. Find someone who can help you re-orient, that helps.” He flashed Scooter a quick smile. “You guys—you and Kat and Jason—helped me with that.”
“I guess I already am,” Scooter said thoughtfully. “Jus’ a matter of letting it go, now. I never let what Dad thought…change anything. Bein’ All-star pitcher never changed who I wanted. Who I loved. But…I dunno, I always felt bad, that I was lettin’ him down. We’ve…you an’ me, we’ve already been changing that. Doc thinks if I can let go of that guilt, it’ll ease up some of the…tension? Pain I’ve been in? I dunno. Feel bad about that, too. Like, you don’t speak ill of the dead, you just…you don’t do that.”
“Doesn’t have to be speaking ill, though,” Andy said, “to say you disagreed. I mean, if you have to say they were rightjust because they’re gone, that’s not cool. But you can say, ‘I loved him and I think he was trying to do right by me, but he was wrong about this.’”
Scooter shook his head, slow. “I guess. I never…I couldn’t be straight, not like he wanted. I didn’t even know how to try. Th’ other stuff, that was easy. Playin’ baseball and football. Wasn’t bad. I liked it. Like doing things physical like that. Worst thing in that was Jason, really. Poor kid; he decided that if I was tryin’ so hard to be straight, he ought to be able to switch things up, try and be gay. He ever tell you about that? We…sort of dated. A bit. It was awful.”
“No!” Andy laughed a little, then made a face. “That must’ve been…oh God, so awkward.”
“Oh, yeah,” Scooter said. “An’ he was all still skinny and bony and short; I’d been playin’ linebacker that year, so…and a good fourteen inches taller than him, I’d say. He hadn’t hit his growth spurt yet. That was terrible when it did hit; he used to cry with growin’ pains, he grew so fast. But, yeah, he was sittin’ in my lap and tried to kiss me. I had to put a stop to it, he…he wanted to you know, want to, and it was just. Not happening. He couldn’t be gay for me, even as good friends as we were. It was sweet of him, you know, but I think it proved to me that…that ain’t something anyone can change.”
Andy nodded. “I dunno, babe, you grew up wanting to make your dad happy, and what I did, mostly, was deliberately piss mine off. Either way, they’re gone, and we have to decide what to do with all the baggage they left behind. But it’s not a lump sum. You can keep some and toss others.”
Scooter was astonished when Andy pulled into the parking lot of Dockside. If someone had pointed a gun at his head, he couldn’t have reasonably given a recounting of the drive back. But the morning had already seemed like a full day. Mentally, he was done for. He sat in the truck for a few seconds, staring up at the restaurant that had been his whole life, somehow. For a moment, he thought perhaps he’d resent the place, the way that Dr. Michaelsson had pointed out that Scooter’s father might have been wrong, and that Scooter might be wrong, looking at his life through someone else’s lens.