Burying His Desires

Their penthouse apartment on the Upper East Side was new to me. Mom had raved about it over the phone just after Thanksgiving, lamenting that I refused to come home for the holidays anymore. I suspected she understood why I kept my distance, and didn’t call me out on it, which was a relief. She knew that if she wanted quality time with me, it was easier and usually more rewarding for her to fly to California where we could take a drive up to Napa and have quality mother-daughter time without any men to distract us.

Walking through the door into this new place, I was grateful that I had none of my own memories of the surroundings to contend with. Still, the place was infused with Mom’s presence.

Margaret Vale had never been the kind of woman to reinvent herself. If people couldn’t love her as-is, she had no use for them. The same little antique entry table I remembered from our old place greeted me just inside the front door when the doorman let me in. It had been refinished and polished, its mahogany glowing with new life in a way only Mom could have brought out in it.

I left my coat and suitcase in the foyer and went looking for Michael. I’d called on the way from the airport, but had only reached his voicemail. The doorman had assured me he was home, but I could find no sign of him anywhere. All I found were more and more reminders of Mom. The Christmas decorations were up, something she insisted on even without a child home to enjoy it with. For Christmas, we’d planned a trip to Maui, since she lamented the cold weather in the city. The holiday trappings were all her, too. It had only been a few months since she’d bought the place, but Mom’s presence was unmistakable.

I hadn’t objected to the move from my childhood home after I left for college, because I firmly believed anywhere Mom lived would feel like home to me. I hadn’t been wrong, but it was a bittersweet realization just now. This wasn’t quite home without her, but it was still full of Mom’s ghost.

“Brit.”

I jerked at the sound of his voice and only caught a glimpse of his strong face pinched with the effort to contain his feelings. My own emotions welled up and sent me running into his arms, all the reasons I’d put distance between us forgotten in an instant.

His solid, capable warmth sank into me when his strong arms wrapped around me. I hadn’t realized how much I’d held back my grief until I let go in his arms. The sobs came out in a torrent. My tears drenched his crisp shirt. “Oh fuck, I’m messing you up, a lot.” I leaned back, the embarrassment of it all dampening my grief for a moment.

Michael’s intense blue eyes gazed down at me, seeing me in a way no one else ever could. He brushed the hair away from my face and tugged a handkerchief out of his pocket. While I blew, his expression darkened and grew distant. “I don’t know what I’ll do without her.” He stepped away, walking into the sunlit living room and staring out the high windows.

“Me neither.” I moved up beside him and clasped his hand. He held mine in a bone-crushing grip that betrayed the effort it took him to hold back his emotions. He was trying to be strong for me, I realized.

“I know things haven’t always been easy between us, but you are every bit as important to me as Maggie. I don’t know what I’d do without you, Brit.” He cast a quick glance down at me, then back out the window at the skyline of the city and the Hudson River beyond.

I blinked, uncertain how to reply to that. I hadn’t spoken to Michael much since starting college. It was just easier that way. But seeing the hurt in his eyes made me wonder if part of it had been my fault.

“She’d want us to move on, right?”

He let out a skeptical snort. “Yeah, she would. I can hear her voice now, telling me what to do. I hated being told what to do but she was the only person who could get away with it.”

He moved to the bar and poured himself way too much Scotch. I sat with him while he drowned his sorrows, still staring out the same window as though he could find Mom somewhere beyond the glass. When he started to teeter, I guided him up the stairs with the intention of sending him to bed.

Peeking through the open doors I found the room that was all Mom and started to head inside, but Michael stopped me, tugging on my arm. “I can’t go in there. It’s her space. Always has been. You’re old enough for the truth now, Brit. I need to tell you the truth. Your mother had secrets…I have secrets.”

He blinked and swayed, his words slurring, yet he refused to budge from the hallway. Finally he tore away and lurched to the other side, pushing through a closed door into a different room. I followed, heart pounding at his drunken confession. Or partial confession.

“What secrets?” I asked, following him and turning on the light as he sat on the edge of his bed, fingers fumbling with the buttons of his shirt.

He didn’t respond to my question, but I hesitated to repeat it. I stood watching him struggle for a moment, afraid to move closer while he undressed. Finally the drunken clumsiness frustrated me too much not to help, so I went to him, pushing his hands aside so I could unfasten his buttons.

Too many memories clung to him, in spite of the move to a new place. His strength had always astounded me and as I undressed him for bed, I saw every sinew of muscle that lived beneath the crisp shirts he wore. He had scars and tattoos I had never even known existed.

“I missed you,” he murmured into his pillow as I tugged his pants down over his ass. When they left his ankles he rolled over. “Why did you leave? We were simpatico once upon a time. I thought I was your hero.” His fevered eyes rested on me. His unmistakable erection pointed right at me, but he seemed oblivious to it. I tried to be, but felt my cheeks heat and my core throb at the very sight.

“I’m back now, and you’re still my hero. But you need to sleep, all right?” I pushed him down and covered him up, careful to avoid contact with the tent in his shorts.

One thing I couldn’t ignore was that this was unmistakably his room. Not a single sign of Mom’s presence graced any surface of the room. Exiting, I slipped across the hall back into the room with all her things. I didn’t know what to make of it. Had they stopped sleeping together while I was away? Was it terrible of me if I was pleased by the idea? Was this their terrible secret?