2

 

SIX WEEKS LATER, WEDNESDAY

Rolling over onto his back and pulling a thin cotton blanket up over his head, all Eric wanted from this bright mid-June morning was a place to hide. Now that Andrew had moved out, something Eric had never wanted, he felt as if he were slogging through each day with such a heavy weight on his shoulders that at night, all he could do was drop into bed and seek a small piece of oblivion in sleep.

Eric and Andrew had been together for sixteen years. They’d tied the knot up in Thunder Bay four summers ago. Growing up in Winfield, a small town about seventy miles southeast of the Twin Cities, they’d gone to the same high school. Andrew had been two years older, so they hadn’t run with the same crowd, though Eric had certainly noticed him. It would have been hard not to. Andrew’s claim to fame at school had been his musical ability. He played guitar and piano, had an amazing voice, and even wrote songs for the band he and three of his buddies had formed his junior year. Lots of people thought he’d be famous one day. Not that Eric was all that interested in fame. He was, however, very much interested in male beauty.

Andrew dressed like he cared about his looks, all clothes selected to show off his lean, muscular body. At five foot six, he was shorter than most of the other guys, and yet he carried himself with such casual assurance that Eric doubted anybody noticed. It was his eyes that were the most arresting—not just the color, a warm gold, but the way he would fix them on the person he was talking to. He was never in a rush. Always willing to listen. If he was with you, you felt his presence. He was very much in the moment.

From an early age, Eric had known he was different, calling himself gay, albeit only inside his mind, since he was thirteen. He would have bet money that Andrew was gay, too, although nobody ever said things like that out loud back then.

Lying in bed on this hot summer morning, Eric was mentally playing with a stupid game show scenario. In front of a crowd of clapping onlookers, he’d been shown two doors and asked to pick one. The first door allowed him to live with Andrew and be unhappy. The second door meant he’d live without Andrew—and be unhappy. There was no door number three. The crowd seemed eager for him to choose, egging him on with calls like “Number one is better” and “Two, man. Pick two!”

Outside the bedroom window, a crow made its usual morning racket. “All right, all right,” Eric grumbled, struggling out from under the blanket. “I’m up.”

After pulling on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt with the logo of his restaurant—LINDSTROM BAR & CAFÉ—on the front, and pushing into a pair of flip-flops, he made his way past a large hole in the hallway wall downstairs into the kitchen, where he found his sister, Suzanne, sitting at the table with a cup of coffee, staring through half-glasses at a copy of the Koran. Suzanne had been the associate pastor, family outreach coordinator, and choir director at Winfield Grace Fellowship, a nondenominational Christian church, for the last four years. She had a key to his house, not that it was strictly necessary. The doors were rarely locked.

“You thinking of switching religions?” he asked, getting down a mug.

“Just checking out the competition,” she said, turning a page.

“Weren’t you reading some Buddhist something or other on meditation last week?”

“Inquiring minds.”

“Are the boys up yet?”

“Haven’t seen them.”

Suzanne was Gabriel’s mother. She lived in Winfield with her second husband, Branch Born, currently an unemployed landscaper. She’d no doubt come by to pick up Gabriel. Separating the boys, especially when Gabriel was at the farmhouse, was always a hassle.

Jack and Gabriel had spent the night in a tent in the backyard. They explained they were zombie hunters, intending to sleep outside to toughen themselves up until they went back to school in the fall. Eric was amused and decided not to interfere with their plan. Knowing how headstrong Jack was, there wasn’t much point. Also, ever since Jack had run away several weeks ago, right after Andrew had moved out, Eric tended to treat him more gently. He was going through a rough patch, as were Eric and Andrew. “Would you like some breakfast?”

“I could be coaxed.”

“Where’s Branch?”

“Driving up to Prior Lake for a job interview. This one looks promising.”

Branch was a sweet, towering tree trunk of a man in his early forties. Suzanne’s first husband, Sam McKibben, had died of ALS when Gabriel was just seven—almost six years ago. Because Suzanne had taken the death so hard, and because of her painful loneliness, Eric had been thrilled when she’d been hired by the church, which allowed her to move back home to Winfield. Six months later she’d fallen head over heels for Branch and had married him the following year. Suzanne was a warm, outgoing woman, a natural caregiver, and Branch, far more reserved, was a guy who seemed to need a little extra TLC.

Glancing out the window over the sink, Eric thought about taking Jack with him when he went in to work today. As a boy, Eric had spent many summers working at the restaurant. His grandfather Lars Lindstrom had opened the place in 1948. His dad, Henry, had taken it over in 1974. Eric hoped that Jack, who had once loved going to work with him, happy to help with anything and everything, would one day spend his summers at the café. And yet, in the last year or so, Jack had begun to grouse when Eric took him along. He maintained that he was old enough to stay home alone, and that if his fathers didn’t allow it, that meant they didn’t trust him, which wasn’t fair. Jack was upset by injustice of any kind, especially when it came to the way people treated him. Under ordinary circumstances, leaving him alone wouldn’t have been a problem, and yet after his runaway attempt, Eric was worried that he might get it into his head to try it again.

“I’m going out to wake up the kids,” said Eric. “They’ll be hungry. Maybe I’ll make pancakes.”

“I’ll scramble some eggs,” said Suzanne, closing the book and smiling up at him. “I wish Andrew was here.”

“Don’t start.”

“I also wish you’d talk to me about what’s going on with you two. I thought you were doing great. Did I miss something?”

“Probably. You’ve been so preoccupied with what’s happening at your church for the last year that sometimes I wonder if you even know what day it is.”

“That bad?”

“Pretty much.”

“Then fill me in. Tell me why Andrew left.”

“It’s complicated.”

“Isn’t everything?”

Eric and Suzanne, fraternal twins, were blond haired and blue eyed, but that’s where the similarities ended. While Suzanne was philosophically inclined, an extrovert but also a thinker, Eric was the pragmatist, the realist, a guy who’d rather act than analyze. It took the hard knocks of adult life for them to understand the weaknesses in each position, and yet neither had changed much.

“I’m here for you,” said Suzanne.

“In your capacity as pastor, or as my sister?”

“Does it matter? I love you—both of you. Maybe I can help.”

Ignoring her, as he often did when he didn’t know what to say, he went outside, taking a moment to reel in the garden hose. He didn’t like being asked to talk when he didn’t feel like it. In that, he was probably more like his son than he cared to know.

Standing outside the tent, Eric called, “Anybody in there hungry?” When he didn’t receive an immediate response, he opened the front flap and looked in.

Empty.

Wondering where they’d gone, he walked around the side of the farmhouse, calling, “Jack? Gabriel? Breakfast. I’ve got some raw bear meat for you, just what fearless zombie hunters crave.” He continued on to the garage. “Jack? Answer me.” Raising the heavy door, he saw that the bikes were next to the wall. “Where the hell?” he whispered. He called their names one more time, standing in the center of the yard, hoping they’d come racing out of the woods or up from the meadow. When they didn’t, he gave up and returned to the kitchen.

His sister looked up from setting the table. “Tell them to wash up, okay?”

“Can’t find them. What time did you get here?”

“Half an hour ago, maybe.”

“You didn’t see them?”

“I assumed they were asleep in the tent.”

“Well, they’re not.”

Suzanne and Eric exchanged semianxious glances.

“I talked to Gabriel last night,” said Suzanne. “He knows I’ve got meetings all day, that he had to be ready to leave here by nine. Like I said, Branch’s got that job interview. He was planning to take Gabriel on a picnic when he gets home, maybe do some fishing off the pontoon.”

The deal was, Jack was supposed to tell Eric if he went anywhere. It was nonnegotiable after he’d taken off on his bike, intending to ride to a friend’s house a good twenty-five miles away, where he planned to hide in the garage. It wasn’t much of a plan. When his front tire went flat about six miles out of Winfield, he gave up and hitchhiked back to the farmhouse, admitting under pressure what his intentions had been. They’d driven out to pick up the bike, Jack refusing to talk about why he’d left. Not that it was necessary. It was all about Andrew leaving and they both knew it. “I better go find them,” said Eric.

“I’ll come with.”

“Let’s split up. We can cover more territory that way. You check the woods. I’ll take the car and head into town.”

“I don’t get it,” said Suzanne, nervously pulling a lock of hair behind her ear. “Gabriel wouldn’t just leave.”

“He would if Jack made running away sound like an adventure.”

“‘Running away’?” she repeated, her eyes widening.

Eric hated being the kind of parent who always jumped to the most extreme conclusion right off the bat, and yet he couldn’t stop himself.

“Wait. Let me try his cell,” said Suzanne.

“Gabriel has a cell phone?”

“Branch bought it for him. Apparently Gabriel had been after him to buy him one for months. It’s cheap, looks like a toy, but it works.” She stepped over to the counter and picked up the cordless, waiting through several rings. “He’s not answering,” she said, her frown deepening.

“Look,” said Eric, grabbing his keys and billfold off the kitchen counter. “If you find them, call my cell. I’ll do the same.” He was worried, for sure, but he was also pissed. Both he and Andrew had talked to Jack about why Andrew had moved out. They’d made it as clear as humanly possible that their problems had nothing to do with him—that they loved him and always would. They stressed that running away was never a solution. Since the split, Andrew had spent every weekend with Jack. In many ways, he was spending more time with him now that he’d moved out than when he was living at home. They were both bending over backward to make their separation as easy as possible for Jack, though they knew it was still taking a toll. It was at moments like this that Eric hated Andrew.

Hurrying down the back steps to his BMW, Eric glanced toward the long RV parked at the back of the yard. He wondered if Truman had seen the boys this morning. It seemed unlikely since Jack and Gabriel gave him such a wide berth. They’d both made it clear that they thought Truman was freaky. Eric agreed that Truman was an unusual man, although because he didn’t know him well, and because he was family—his dad’s brother—he tried to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Heading down the long graveled drive out to the county road, Eric glanced up at the rearview mirror, his eyes lingering on the farmhouse. Andrew had bought it five years ago hoping that the market would improve and that they could flip it quickly and move on to something a little nicer. He’d painted the exterior a brick red with white trim, replaced the roof, repaired or replaced all the windows, and rebuilt the porch, adding all new screens and some nice outdoor furniture. Branch had landscaped the property, putting in sod, bushes, and flower beds, and erecting an arbor trellis on the south side, complete with a deep purple climbing clematis. It had taken nearly every dime they had. With no money left in the bank to work on the interior, Andrew had taken a project manager position at a construction company up in the Cities.

Eric wasn’t exactly the kind of guy who had premonitions, but he’d had more than one about this place, none of them good. He’d never said anything to Andrew. It just seemed too “out there.” Jack must have felt it, too, because from the very beginning, for no apparent reason, he’d loathed his bedroom. It overlooked the meadow and it was larger than any of his other bedrooms, so on the face of it, he should have been happy. But for the first few months, he refused to sleep anywhere but the couch in the living room. He eventually mellowed after they agreed to repaint. Jack wanted black. They agreed on navy blue. The bats in the walls didn’t come alive until the following spring. Jack seemed to take those in stride, and usually helped Andrew and Eric catch them when they appeared, most often in the middle of the night.

As he sped along the highway, Eric wondered briefly if he should call Andrew and tell him what had happened. Thinking that there was more than an even possibility it wasn’t another runaway attempt, but simply one of Jack’s small acts of rebellion, he decided to wait. If he could find his son, they would need to have another father-son talk about why Papa, as Jack called Andrew, had moved out. Eric wished he could tell him that the move was only temporary, but the truth was, he wasn’t sure Andrew wanted to come home.

For the next half hour, Eric drove around town looking for the boys at all their favorite hangouts—the bakery, the Hamburger Shack, the 7-Eleven, and finally Marla’s Sweet Shop down on Main. Striking out at each place, he decided to head over to Bay Point Park, where he came upon a few teenage girls tossing a volleyball around. For a June morning, it was unusually hot. The beach at the lake would fill up soon enough. He stopped to ask the girls if they’d seen Jack Lindstrom or Gabriel Born. They nodded as if they knew the names, but said that they hadn’t seen anyone since they arrived.

“Except for Mr. Eld,” said the girl in the red shorts.

“Mr. Eld—the science teacher at the middle school?”

“Yeah.”

Jack had been in Aaron Eld’s class this past year. If Eric ran into him, he could ask Eld to keep an eye out for the boys. He thanked the girls and drove on, feeling the worry inside him expand like an inflating balloon. After sailing past the playground behind the middle school and finding nobody around, he pulled the car over to the curb to regroup. Summer classes wouldn’t start for another week or two. Thinking that he should probably check out the homes of some of Jack’s friends, Eric drove up the hill, past the old Carnegie library, and turned left onto Grand Avenue, a narrow, tree-lined street that ran east and west through the town. As he drove along, he noticed a few new FOR SALE and FORECLOSED signs.

Pulling up to the curb in front of a one-story ranch, Eric turned off the engine and jumped out. Next to Gabriel, Corey Willis was Jack’s best buddy. Corey was sitting cross-legged in the grass watching his father dig up dandelions. “Hey, you two,” called Eric, waving. “Either of you seen my kid? Or Gabriel Born?”

“Nope,” said Corey, shading his eyes from the sun. “Not for a couple of days.”

“Can’t find them?” asked Corey’s dad. Eric hadn’t told anyone about Jack running away, though word always seemed to spread in a small town.

“Afraid not. Jack’s supposed to tell me when he leaves. He didn’t this morning.” Tucking his T-shirt into his jeans, Eric glanced back at Corey. “You have any idea where they might have gone?”

The kid shrugged. “The 7-Eleven?”

“Already looked there.”

He shrugged again. “Sorry.”

“If we see them, Eric, we’ll tell them to get on home,” said Mr. Willis. “Unless you want us to help you look.”

“No thanks,” called Eric on his way back to the car. It wasn’t time to hit the panic button just yet. After stopping by two more of Jack’s friends’ homes and learning nothing, he headed back to the farmhouse feeling frustrated and rattled, wondering if Suzanne had fared any better than he had.

Eric had moved to Minneapolis after high school to attend the U. He’d ended up with an MBA and was making a good living as a speechwriter for several sustainable agriculture organizations when his father was diagnosed with cancer. He’d come back to Winfield to help run the café for a few months, commuting between his life up in Minneapolis with Andrew and Jack, and Winfield. He ended up talking Andrew into moving back down after his father had passed. That was eleven years ago. They both had fond memories of the town, and thought raising their son here might be a good idea. They worried how folks would react to a gay couple moving in, but eventually came to the conclusion that they couldn’t let narrow minds chase them away from their hometown. Lately, Eric was beginning to wonder if the move had been a mistake.

Jack received exactly five bucks a week as an allowance. He wasn’t very good at saving money, or at planning ahead. Same with Gabriel. Eric had to believe that if the boys had run off, they would come back when they got hungry or ran out of funds. What preoccupied Eric most on the drive back was the conversation he would need to have with Jack, as well as the punishment he would be forced to dish out. Neither would be a simple matter.