Page 129 of The Same Flesh
“No.”
“You think you’re supposed to forgive him.”
“Maybe.Eventually.If I want to.But that’s about me, Jem.Not about him.It doesn’t have anything to do with him.”
The edge that had been half-hidden in Jem’s voice rose to the surface now.“Then what are we talking about?”Then Jem sank back down and muttered, “Sorry.”
Tean settled himself on the sofa.He set the tissue aside.And then he took Jem’s hands in his.“Hey.”
Jem shook his head.
“Hey,” Tean said again.
After a pair of breaths, Jem looked up.
“I loveyou,” Tean said.“I want to spend my life withyou.”
Jem cut his eyes away.When they came back to Tean, they were wet.“I love you too.”
“I’m happy for Daniel.And I’m sad for Ammon.And I’m proud of him, because I think it took a lot for him to give Daniel that.And I hate Ammon.And that’s a lot for me, all those feelings, and that’s why I cried.But it has nothing to do with how I feel about you.”He tried to laugh, but it came out soft and mangled.“If anything, it has to do with how I feel about my dad.”
Eyebrows arched, Jem said, “Well, now you have to tell me what that means.”
Outside on the street, a pair of twentysomething women pushed strollers along the sidewalk, both of them fixated on their phones.One of them showed the other something, and the other leaned in for a better look, pointing.And then they were gone.
“I don’t know.”Tean’s mouth quirked.“I keep saying that.But it’s true.I feel like the last year has made me realize I don’t know anything.”His chest was tight, and he had to sit for a minute in silence.“I stopped seeing Hudson.”
Jem didn’t say anything.
“You already knew.”
“I mean, I kind of figured.”
Tean let out a slow breath.“I stopped because—because it was too much.Because it’s still so hard, and I’m tired of hurting like this, and I’m tired of dreading every session, and I’m tired of having to—to face all this shit that I don’t want to deal with.Every time I think I’m there, it’s something else.Some new layer.Some part of myself I’ve avoided dealing with or thinking about.And I’m just so tired of it.”He shook his head.“That’s not what I wanted to say.We were talking about my dad, and I was thinking—” But he stopped again.“I’ve been angry at my dad for so long.For a lot of things.For hurting me, I guess.And because I still wanted him to be the father I wish I had.”He stopped again, trying to put the pieces in order.“He’s been unbearable the last few days, everything with his dad.My grandfather was not a kind man.Maybe not a bad one, but hard.When I was young, he wasn’t patient with me because I was different.I didn’t play sports.I didn’t want to hunt.I was too soft-hearted about animals.And so, having to sit and hear my dad lionize him, like his father was the kind of man they didn’t make anymore—it was difficult.In part because everything my dad praised about his father was, for me, the reason for all the ways my father had fallen short.”
“What happened?”Jem asked.
“He found your vow book while I was—” Tean almost saidat Amy’s, but he changed it to “—out, and when I came back, he was upset.Why hadn’t I invited him to the wedding?Why was I trying to hurt him?And I was already angry about the conversation we’d had, everything he’d said about Ammon.And I was…dysregulated.Not in a good state of mind for that conversation.”
“And you lost your shit on him.”
Tean felt the smile flare on his face and then burn out.“Something like that.I told him to get out.”
Something changed in Jem’s face, but all he did was nod.
“And then he came back.After you and I—after you left.He found me at the park.And we talked.And he told me he was sorry, which I think is the first time in my life he’s ever said those words to me.And he told me how angry he was at his father.And how he’d always felt like his father treated him poorly compared to his brother.Which, if I look back, is probably true.And he told me he never wanted his own children to feel like they weren’t loved.”Tean’s eyes were hot again, but he was still holding Jem’s hands, so he wiped his cheek on his shoulder.He laughed, and this time it was a full sound, albeit wet.“It was so fucking weird.”
“Swear jar,” Jem whispered.But his hands tightened around Tean like he was going to keep him from flying away.
“I don’t know what to feel now.I’m sorry he felt that way his whole life.I had no idea he had so much resentment and hurt.It’s—it’s strange, seeing him like this.It was so much easier when I could tell myself he was just a self-absorbed, small-minded man.”
“To be fair,” Jem said, “he still is.I mean, he’s an absolutedickto you sometimes.”
“Yes, he is.”Tean’s head felt like it was full of smoke, and when he tried to think ahead, he found nothing.But he said anyway, “You asked me if it meant I was going to forgive him.Ammon.But I guess that’s what I have to decide about my dad, too.I don’t know.I don’t know what I want to do.I understand him, though.More than I used to.And it’s hard not to say, when I look at him now, that a lot of what I see—a man whose life has been, by his own measure, a string of failures, who has never lived up to his own code, who is a disappointment to himself—has to do with how he was raised.”
“Evil is just a chain of consequences.”
“Well, it’s one thing to say that.It’s a lot more difficult to believe it.I kind of liked being able to demonize people and not give a damn about what might have made them the way they are.”
