Page 73 of Hamartia
“What?!” She sounds insulted. “But it’s so great, Rapha, I love it. Gavin loves it too. Listens to the entire thing on his runs. I never have it off in the Studio.” There’s a few beats. “I’m so so proud of you.”
“You weren’t too embarrassed when I mentioned you, were you?”
She’d said on the phone she screamed and then burst into tears.
“Embarrassed?” she squeaks. “About what? My beautiful boy won a Grammy award and thanked me on national TV. What is there to be embarrassed about?”
I just shrug and smile and she goes back to singing along to our now Grammy award winning album.
It’s just under two hours from the airport to the house just outside Granby. Not the house I grew up in—that’s in Arvada—but the one I bought for her two years ago when we got our first Grammy nomination. The label had advanced the band a seven figure check for the next four albums. She sounded nervous when I called while she’d opened the parcel with the key inside. I’d told her to drive to the address on the card and call me back. She’d done so crying and yelling.I don’t need a new house, Raphael! Why did you do this? I can’t move! I don’t want to move!
I’d asked her to go inside and look at it first, and if she still felt the same then I’d sell it right back. Then she’d seen the studio, the views of the snow-capped mountains over Sunset Ridge and she’d cried some more.
Her, Gavin, and the dogs had moved in a month later. She didn’t need to work anymore, though she still did. A few days a week at a high-school in town. But mainly she painted in her studio and sold stuff via her online shop. She did what she loved. She was happy. I’d helped make her happy. I was proud of that.
Mom doesn’t mention Camille on the drive at all. Not our call in New York either. She just tells me about school and the dogs and Gavin, about Aunt Rebecca and Uncle Lyle, Jessie and Ana, and what she’s cooking for everyone this weekend. I’m listening, but my mind is also wondering about Jae. What he’s been doing since I left him at the apartment, whether he’s sad that I’m gone. While mom gossips, I pull my phone out and see that a few messages have come in since I switched it off of flight mode.
Crawfish: Mase called. Said you and Camille had a fight? Everything good?
JH: I just checked and saw it is going to be snowing there. Please wrap up warm and don’t catch a cold! Happy Thanksgiving, Raphael.
Some warm feeling tugs at my chest as I read it. Longing, I think. I want to call him, hear his voice, smell him. Imisshim. It’s sort of pathetic.
I see mom glance over at me as I stare down at the phone but she says nothing. I slip it back into my pocket and turn to face out the window.
Later. I’ll call him later.
The dogs come bounding up the driveway at the sound of the car crunching over the gravel. The coppery red hair of Samson and the dark short coat of Delilah. They yip and bark around the car while mum shouts at them through the window whenever they get too close.
Gavin is standing on the steps in front of the house, hands in his pockets and a big smile on his face. He’s a nice guy, mom’s boyfriend. Really nice. Tall and grey-haired with a permanent tan and a genuine smile. He calls me ‘son’ though I have never once called him dad. He makes mum happy. But all I can think about when I see him is how different he is fromhim. From Finn Sullivan. Tall where he was shorter, wider where he was leaner, tanned where he was pale. I’ve often wondered if that’s why mom loves him.
He comes down the stairs to help with my bags and pulls me into one of his bear hugs.
“Rapha, son, so good to see you. It’s been too long.”
Gavin is originally from Georgia and his accent and his deep voice gives off these comforting vibes that immediately put people at ease. Useful, given his job. He’s a commercial pilot for Delta and still flies large planes over the Atlantic four times a week. Mom worries a lot about plane crashes.
“How was the drive, sweetheart?” he asks mom as he wraps a wing around her and pulls her close.
“Fine, fine, not too bad once we got onto I-70.” They kiss and I avert my eyes. “Did you lower the heat on the turkey?”
“To one fifty at 4 p.m. yes, ma’am.”
“You’re a good listener, I’ve always said that about you.”
Inside, I tell mom I’m gonna take a shower and Gavin tells me my room is ready and leads me to it, still carrying my bags. It’s not technically my room; it’s just a room that I sleep in when I stay here. Which admittedly is not very often. So by this definition only, this is my room. Gavin drops my bags on the ottoman by the foot of the bed and turns to me. Warm smile on his face.
“It’s real good to have you, Raphael. She was worried you weren’t gonna make it.”
Like I didn’t make it for her birthday, or last Christmas, or the last family wedding. It’s not an accusation he’s levelling, that’s not Gavin’s style, he’s just making sure I know it’s real good to have me.
“Yeah, I know. It’s good to be home.” I nod. “I need to get back more.”
I glance around the room. At the glass doors leading out to the small balcony that has a staircase down to the one leading off the main floor below. There’s some snow on the ridge outside, but its melting. Or it’s not fallen too much yet. It’s cold though, that biting sharpness in the air for sure.
Please wrap up warm and don’t catch a cold!
“We forecast for snow?” I ask Gavin.