Page 66 of Sean's Sunshine
Sometimes, it was a way to be seen.
Guillermo Morales had not felt seen for much of his life, but he probably did right now. What would he do with that information? Would he shout, “I’m a porn star!” like he’d threatened, and bolt out of the room? Would he give his mother absolution? Sometimes being seen wasn’t comfortable—or comforting. Sometimes there were too many shadows in the heart that people wanted hidden.
“Thanks, mami,”Billy said faintly. “I’m… I’m working on it.”
His grip on Sean’s hand tightened to the point of pain, but Sean wouldn’t have let go for the world.
Into the uncomfortable silence, Teresa spoke, and Sean smiled gratefully at her. “So, Ghee, you gonna tell us what you been doing over the last three years? Enquiring minds want to know!”
Billy gave Sean a sideways glance, but he stuck to the script. He’d sought out Sam, they’d shared an apartment, and after Sam moved on, he’d survived on tips and student loans and had roomed with a bunch of guys in a flop.
His family didn’t seem to see anything amiss with this, and Billy’s grip on his hand eased up a little bit. In a moment, he asked how Teresa and Alexei had met, and then about Lily and Cora’s grades and whether Miguel was doing any sports in school, and by the time dinner was served—pot luck style in the tiny kitchen/dining room so they could all eat in the living room—Sean could feel Billy’s complete relaxation into “Guillermo, the good son,” and knew that for the moment, he would be all right.
“MY GOD,”Sean muttered as he loosened his belt on the way home, “you weren’t kidding about how your mom could cook.”
The family had left Sean alone for the most part. In a way, he figured he was window dressing, Billy’s boyfriend, proving Guillermo was doing okay and living a stable life for the family that hadn’t seen him. But being left alone during a chatty dinner where everybody caught up with everybody else’s business meant Sean’s only entertainment was his next forkful, and, well, Lucia could cook.
“Yeah,” Billy laughed gruffly. “Be careful. My mom’s table can be dangerous that way.”
“Hm.” There was a thoughtful silence, and Sean thought he’d escaped all the emotional landmines, but then Billy spoke up again.
“What did you think?” he asked, his voice suddenly young. “About my family? You were quiet, but I get it. I think we snark a lot at each other, but we don’t talk a lot.”
“I think your family was lovely,” Sean said, meaning it. “In fact, I think they’re a lot like mine. Loud and obnoxious and in each other’s business and… and important. I think it must feel good to hear that they cared that you’d gone. That they missed you.” There was more, but he wasn’t sure if Billy was ready to go there.
“Then why do you look so pissed off?” Billy asked, which meant apparently hewasready to go there, and Sean wasn’t sure if he was going to be okay with that.
Sean let out a breath. “Because they took you for granted,” he said bitterly. “From the time you were a baby. And I get it. The oldest gets the burden, but you took care of the little kids and you protected everyone from your father and nobody noticed until you were gone, and… and you deserved better. You deserved to becelebratedbefore you even left. So I’m pissed for you. And you may never be pissed about this, but I am, and you know what else? If I ever meet your father, I’m going to pin his balls together with his service medal. So there’s that. And now you are aware.”
Billy let out half a laugh. “Well, my dad’s gonna look great next to your ex-boyfriend, because someday I’m gonna pinhisballs together with his badge. They can be a matched set.”
Sean shook his head. “Your old man’s got a lot more to answer for than Jesse the douche. I’m telling you, Ghee, there’s something very calculated about how he ripped off your mom. I….” He didn’t want to say this because Billy might not have thought about it yet.
“I wonder if one of the little kids helped him,” Billy said thoughtfully.
Sean must have made a sound of surprise because Billy shrugged.
“Yeah, it occurred to me. You… I mean, you probably don’t know how this works. Everyone was afraid of the bastard, but the little kids, they wanted a father too, so they were always trying to please him. And he’d play them like little dolls. ‘Yeah, kid, your mother was bad, but I’ll be nice to you since you got me a beer.’ Berto, he was the worst.”
“Robert,” Sean corrected almost absently.
Billy shook his head. “Nope. Unless the little shit can show up and give me his new name, he’s gonna be Roberto the squid to me, just like when he was a little kid.”
Sean made a pained sound. “You know, growing up with an abusive parent—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Billy said with disgust. “Doesn’t breed heroes, I get it. But he was my shitty little brother, and if he wants me to think of him like a grown-up, he’s gotta be a grown-up to me, and that’s the truth. If I could come back and see the family, the least he could do was be there to curse me out or whatever.”
Nobody had given them an explanation for why Roberto hadn’t been there, and Sean felt a deep stirring in his gut, an unsupported hunch that he was unwilling to voice.
God, Billy was only now trusting him. Did he really want to jeopardize that with an unsupported hunch?
“Your mom wants to see you once a month,” Sean said instead. “I’m sure you’ll run into him. I mean, Thanksgiving and shit.”
Billy gnawed on his lip and made the final turn into Sean’s neighborhood. As he came to a stop in Sean’s driveway, he murmured, “I… I think Thanksgiving needs to be with the flophouse this year,” he said, almost to himself.
“Oh,” Sean said, voice neutral. Itwasnearing the end of October, and Halloween was just around the corner. There were already decorations up in the front yards of Sean’s neighborhood—some of them quite elaborate: skeleton tableaux, ghosts in trees, the big inflatable characters. Thanksgiving was also just around the corner, and Sean had rather been hoping for a reason not to have to drive to Turlock this year to watch his mother suck up to his sisters and sister-in-law for grandmother privileges.
“You’d be with me,” Billy said, the unconscious arrogance making Sean smile. “I’m not leaving you alone or to drive out to southeast of hell’s asshole, or wherever your mother talks about driving in from.”