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nickngregFor the “A look into the future challenge”
Rating: PG
Summary: Nick returns to his family home and faces up to some painful truths about his life with Greg
Chapter four: Rescue At Sea
His last night in his childhood bed proved to be just as restless as the previous ones had been. The bits and pieces of his sibling’s lives that he’d heard crowded around with the still unanswered questions.
Two things, though, stood out. One, he was way too tall for this bed now. Two, he was never going to sleep this way, and he might as well get up. So much for his vaunted CSI skills.
Making his quiet way downstairs, Nick decided he would speak to his father in the morning. Surely in fifty years of marriage he’d picked up something relevant to Nick’s problem. In the mean time, there was homemade fudge calling to him from the kitchen. It looked like someone else was having trouble sleeping. Nick could see light under the kitchen door, and smell the fresh coffee.
“You’re far to young to sleep so little, Nicholas.” Figures. It had to be Aunt Tassie. Who else could it be? “Got yourself all packed?” She offered him a cup of coffee and a sweet roll. The smell made Nick’s stomach growl. “I heard that! That’s what you get for picking at your dinner. A man should eat hearty. Something wrong with all this low carb, low calorie stuff. Low taste, I say. I like to see a man enjoy his food.”
Nick accepted the pastry with a contented sigh. He did pick at dinner. He still didn’t know what he was feeling, but somehow he just felt better. Maybe Tassie was right. Maybe he’d made up his mind to break up, and that was what was making him feel better. If that was so, why did the thought of it make the sip of coffee turn to acid in his mouth? Clearly, that wasn’t the direction he really wanted to follow. The relief Nick felt at that revelation was staggering. Tassie was watching him, with concerned eyes.
“What’s going on in that head of yours, child? You look like you found a skunk in your underwear drawer.”
“You were wrong.” Nick felt giddy. Was it too late to call Greg? Of course it was, he was at work. “I’m not going to be looking for any girl to have babies with. I love him…I do, I love him!” He seemed rather surprised by that. Aunt Tassie did not. She smiled a knowing smile, and pushed another pastry across the counter to him.
“Of course you do.” She passed cream and a spoon. “No reason you can’t have babies with him, now that you’re sure.” Nick looked at her, not sure how to take that statement.
“Uh, Auntie. Greg’s a guy. You established that already.” He smiled around a bite of crispy dough. Ummm. Just heavenly. “Uterus free.”
“Didn’t I already chastise you for being smart-mouthed? You young people should know not to speak that way to your elders. In my day, your daddy would take you out back and whup you for that! Times change, boy. And not always for the better!” She swiped at the crumbs on the counter. “Mark my words, by the time your son back-talks you, you’ll wish you’d minded me better!”
Nick let the tide of angry words flow over him. All he had heard was ‘your son’. A son. Children. This was one of the keys to his discontent. Why had he not realized it before? He wanted to be a father. How did they make this work?
“Stay with me, boy. You’re drifting off again.” A refill of his cup and hers seemed to calm her down enough to carry on with their talk. “There are ways, and then there are ways. Just because you’re both men doesn’t mean you can’t raise a child. Surely there are enough ‘enlightened’ folk in Las Vegas that could arrange something for you. Providing you can prove a loving, stable environment.” She peered closely at Nick. “Think you can pull that off, boy?”
“I have to talk to Greg.” He was swamped by an appalling thought. “What if he doesn’t want too? What if he wants things to stay the same?” He felt a rising panic. Aunt Tassie reached over the counter to grasp hold of his hand with hers.
“You’re too excitable by half, child. Calm yourself before your buttons pop.” She gave him a little squeeze before letting go. “Of course you have to talk to him. The boy has been begging you to talk to him for years.” The old lady moved around the counter to sit next to Nick at the bar. “Don’t expect to fix it all over night, Nicholas. You’ve both stored up a lot of hurt. Give him time; give yourself time, to work through things. Mind me now,” she pointed a bony finger at him. “If he’s what you want, you’d best tell him so.”
Nick secretly thought that relationship advice from an elderly spinster may not be the best advice of all, but frankly he was ready to listen to anyone.
“You’re thinking again. Get you into trouble. Over-think everything. All that university education coming back to bite you on the behind. Hard work. That’s what a man needs. Not fancy degrees hanging on a wall gathering dust. Men used to know better.” She sniffed into one of her hankies. “Just because I never married doesn’t mean I didn’t have my chances. I had them. I lost them. Recognized a lot of me in you, boy. You listen up, don’t make my mistakes. They don’t wait around for us forever. They surely don’t.” She gave a shaky sigh. “I’m an old lady, Nicholas. I need my sleep. You’d best get to your bed as well.”
“Why didn’t you marry one of your ‘chances’, Aunt Tassie? What held you back?” Nick felt an obsessive need to know. For a moment, Nick wasn’t sure she would answer. He let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding when she settled back onto the stool.
“I worried about what my mama would say. We had money; oh lot’s of money for those times. Carver didn’t. He was poor and proud. I wanted my mama’s approval, but I never asked for it. I think back now, and I believe I was afraid.” She gave Nick a fierce glare. “Don’t you think I could be afraid? I wasn’t always like you see me today.” She paused to dab at the corners of her eyes. “I told him I would let him speak to my daddy when the cattle were all in for the winter. Then I told him to wait until the spring. Then there were other excuses, and finally he stopped asking me when. He found another girl, and she said yes.”
“Why were you afraid?” Nick didn’t get it. “Your family would have been there to help, wouldn’t they?” That was one thing in life Nick never needed to question. His family would always be there for him, even if he had picked a course in life they didn’t want for him. He faced another realization; he had turned away from that community strength, and had been trying to do everything on his own. Foolish, it made him feel so ungrateful and foolish.
“Oh sure, my daddy would have found a place for Carver. But a little of what Carver was would have died at that. Told you. Proud. It was a time of proud men. Making your own way, it all had a different meaning then. A man made a home for his wife; she didn’t keep on with her folk. I loved the little luxuries. Prideful in my own way, I suspect. Didn’t want to let them go.” The old memories brought new pain to Tassie’s face. “Carver did well in life. We could have made a stand. I wasn’t strong enough. I wasn’t ready for people to point and say ‘that Stokes girl, married beneath her and now look at her’ with pity or worse.” She dabbed her eyes again. “It was better, I was sure, to be alone then to have the union that people might make sport of. Now, I know they would have had to eat their words, but I was afraid.”
She rose again, but before she retired she had one more thing for Nick to think on through the long night. “You’re afraid, too, boy. See it in you just like it was in me. Don’t want people judging your choice. ‘That Stokes boy, went off to that sinful place and ended up living with a man’. You’d rather be alone then let people take their pokes at you. Afraid.” She reached over and gently touched the side of Nick’s face. “Carver did well. I lost out. Greg, yes I know his name is Greg, could be your Carver. No one but you can know for sure. If he is, you could make a stand together. If you can conquer your fear.” With a last gentle touch, the old lady made her way off to her room.
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Date: 2007-04-04 06:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-04 07:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-04 08:17 pm (UTC)And he was so cute and earnest and stuff...what else could I do???
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Date: 2007-04-04 08:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-04 08:22 pm (UTC)Nicky, of course you love Greg! Sheesh, silly boy.
I loved this part.
*kicks LJ for eating my comment*
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Date: 2007-04-04 08:30 pm (UTC)I'm glad you're enjoying this...it is my longest and most complex so far, and I'm becoming sort of obsessed with it!
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Date: 2007-04-04 08:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-04 11:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-05 04:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-05 05:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-05 01:58 pm (UTC)I'm so releaved.
Big hug for you ;-)
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Date: 2007-04-05 02:25 pm (UTC)But, I'm glad that at least you are happy with the result!
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Date: 2007-04-05 07:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-05 08:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-06 11:49 am (UTC)Awesome chapter, keep writing!
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Date: 2007-04-06 01:29 pm (UTC)