Page 22 of Maybe Some Other Time

With the sour smell of beer on his breath, Robbie dropped his keys on the cement and shocked Thelma by raising his voice in Gretchen’s direction.

“What were you doing with her?”

While Thelma was left speechless, Gretchen took a step back from the gate.

“We were just talking, Rob! You know? That shit neighbors do? Or have you forgotten all those cookouts you did with my parents?”

“You stay away from her! I know what you are!”

As Gretchen’s visage twisted in disgust, Thelma finally stepped in. “What’s going on?” She slapped a hand on her son’s chest, willing to put her body between him and Gretchen. “What do you mean you know what she is?”

“He means I’m a queer!”

“The whole damn neighborhood can hear you!” Robbie shouted.

“Yeah, they can hear you, too, old bastard!”

“Both of you stop it right now!” Instantly, Thelma was transported back two months—only instead of two small children fighting over toys and pulling each other’s hair, it was an elderly man and the younger neighbor who was probably strong enough to fight him one-on-one.

I think not! Thelma was tired of childish fighting and how much immaturity had followed her into the future.

“Do you know how late it is?” she asked them both.

“Let’s everyone get inside and to bed. This is ridiculous. ”

Although Robbie stayed back, he shook a hand in Gretchen’s direction, the whole strength of his body surging against his mother’s arm.

“You don’t know anything about her! She doesn’t need your alternative influence!

And neither does my daughter!” More sour beer odors poured from his lips.

It was all Thelma could do to keep Robbie from falling over.

Did he drive like this? Was this even her son?

“I should have never let you babysit her!”

“Queer women exist, Rob! Get over it! I’m not some fucking boogeyman!”

Grunting, Robbie pulled himself away from Thelma and marched toward his own house. “Stay away from them!”

After watching him double-back to grab his keys off the driveway and unsteadily unlock his front door, Thelma swung her head back toward Gretchen, who looked at her with pity.

“I’m sorry,” Thelma whispered, knowing that the neighbor couldn’t hear her. She then chased after Robbie, purse smacking against her side and shoes slapping against the concrete.

Once she was inside, she turned on the lights and confronted the man slumped down in his armchair, staring at the blackened TV hanging on the wall.

“Do you have a problem with her?” she demanded of the man who was over twice her age. “She was only being neighborly to me!”

“Yeah?” Robbie scoffed as he fumbled with the remote. “She likes being neighborly. Was her parents’ biggest disappointment! Should ask her about that!”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s a lesbian! The exact kind of person you should be staying away from!”

Something about the cut of his words dug deeply into Thelma’s chest. “What do you mean, Robbie?” she asked through gritted teeth.

Dark eyes peered at her from behind a pair of metal glasses. “You think we didn’t know about your little affair with that writer?”

Once again, his words bowled her over. It was a miracle that Thelma did not back into the fireplace and smack her head against the bottom of the TV. “What are you talking about?”

Yet she couldn’t hear the guilt in her voice, like a child caught right in the act.

Especially with her son looking at her like that.

Goodness, he knew, didn’t he? Somewhere along the way, throughout the decades, someone figured out that Thelma Van der Graaf, perfect housewife and dedicated mother, had been groaning and sweating beneath another woman for years.

Dressed down like that. Thelma’s voice was dry. By myself…

“We knew about her.” The room was cold and dark when Robbie spoke, the air swelling around him as he said the very words that the Thelma of 1958 feared most. “About the writer.”

Thelma was clocked.

“We found out a few years after you disappeared.” Robbie kicked his shoes off his feet and pulled the lever that made his legs pop up into the air with a mighty clack!

Thelma remained frozen where she stood, her heart simultaneously thundering and dimming until she didn’t have any blood left to flow through her body.

“Dad didn’t go through your things for years.

He was too busy and too fucked up by you just up and vanishing one night.

It wasn’t until he met Mary. She had us going through your things with a couple of ladies in the neighborhood.

Had to clear out your shit to make room for the new Mrs. Van der Graaf, you know.

” He folded his hands on his chest as if he reveled in this.

“It was right there in your hope chest. The same stupid chest Dad kept sleeping with at the foot of your bed. That same stupid chest Debbie always slobbered over and took with her the first chance she could get. You know who found that book?”

Thelma swallowed.

“Me.”

Finally, Thelma found her voice. “What book?”

“The one wrapped up in Grandma’s quilt. The smutty lesbian book.”

Eyes squeezed shut, Thelma recalled one of Sandy’s books hidden in the depths of her chest. Lesbians from Outer Space. My God.

“One thing led to another.” Robbie shrugged. “Even I figured it out, even though I was barely in middle school. Especially when Dad made that writer show up and explain everything.”

More truth cut through the dark silence.

“She confessed to everything. It was the only time I heard Dad yell so loudly. He didn’t even care that Debbie and I were sitting on the stairs listening to it.”

“Robbie, I…”

“Just stop. Maybe it’s for the best that you disappeared.

You wouldn’t be around to get in trouble, right?

You get to go into the future, where queers are not only everywhere, but they’re tolerated.

You could go marry a woman now if you wanted.

Hell! Marry the neighbor! God knows she needs someone who can cook. ”

“How dare you talk to me like…”

“Like what? Like how I’ve always imagined confronting you since I was a boy?

” That was one of the most pathetic laughs to ever touch a man’s lips.

“So weird how it doesn’t actually seem to matter now that it’s happening.

God delivered you here on a silver platter, but getting this off my chest means nothing. It’s just another fucking day.”

With her purse still warm in her hand, Thelma hurried toward the staircase.

“Runs in the family, huh!” Robbie called after her. “My daughter’s got it, too! She’s with that girl right now!”

Thelma only hesitated to hear the last of her son’s venom.

“And what the fuck do I get? Besides a story nobody would ever believe…”

Thelma went into her room and shut the door. She was only as safe as her ability to fall asleep as quickly as possible—at least, in her dreams, her little boy never yelled at her.

And, in her dreams, she was still the good wife who was loved by her family and trusted by her community. There was a time when that was all that mattered to Thelma Van der Graaf.

What mattered to her now?