Page 8 of Where the Pines Kiss the Sky

Part of the reason we’d not had a sit-down was on me. I’d been doing my level best to spend my time in my room reading the classics that were lined up on a shelf downstairs by the dining room, running, swimming in the pool, or sneaking into the kitchen to plague Emelda. She still adored me even if she did threaten me with a spatula when I swiped too many of her tiny blueberry crumb muffins.

Also, I was hiding. So, my being reclusive was to be expected. I ate alone for the first few days, plotting out my meal times to avoid the crush of guests in the dining hall or at the bar where dinner was pub food. We were a small inn with free breakfast. The big money foods—lobster and such—could be bought at the tip of the island. The supper fare was good though, and one could buy lobster rolls and fries, which I glutted on for the first few nights’ meals. Nowhere on this planet was lobster any better than in Maine. Fresh out of the sea and soaked with butter…

Good thing I was running every morning at the crack of dawn. Amazingly, the guests were being polite. Some nodded and smiled as they passed me in the hall or as they left the pool, but most just looked at me with pity or thinly veiled disgust. Whatever. What did I care if some old bastard didn’t like my choice of undergarments? Fuck him and the Prius he arrived in.

Dad finally caught up with me as I was sneaking out the back door of the kitchen on my fourth day home. He was walking up the slim path as I was backing out, hands filled with warm muffins, and Emelda’s coastal-flavored words raining down on me.

“…flashing that smile at me, sonny. You might think you’re from away but you grew up right here on this island. I flicked your ear back then and I can do so again!” Emelda’s voice scolded as I chuckled to myself and then spun to find my father standing there smiling at me.

“Chuppta?” he asked as the screen door to the kitchen swung shut.

“What am I doing?” I asked, offering him a muffin. He shook his head. Dad wasn’t big on sweets. Guess I got my love of sugar from Mom. “I’m grabbing a bite after a run.”

He nodded, then glanced out at the docks. “You got a minute?”

I really did not want to have this conversation, but it was overdue. I at least owed him some explanations after he had let me return in disgrace. My being here had to have ruffled a few of the conservative-minded folks’ feathers.

“Sure,” I replied, tossing a mini muffin into my mouth and then falling in alongside him. We padded past the games that were all tidy and waiting for players, around the pool that I was hoping to dive into before I cooled down too much, and down to the dock. A seagull floated past. I tossed a bite of muffin out to him. He gobbled it down and looked up at us. The dock bobbed gently as we stood there, the new day warming our faces, feeding nibbles to a gull. If Emelda found out I had given the guests’ muffins to a bird, she would tan my backside with that spatula of hers.

“Things been okay here for you?” Dad asked, his face seeking something out at sea, his hands clasped behind his back. He was wearing the standard uniform of all the ten people who worked here full time: a green polo with the Kesside Inn logo on the front left pocket and tan trousers.

“Ayup,” I replied and grimaced. Holy shit. Only four days here and I had picked my coastal twang back up. Guess I’d have to rehire that speech coach when I got back to L.A. That is, if I still had a job. The studio had been releasing some vague but politically correct statements to the world about me. That they were fully in support of the LGBTQ+ community and all that. Which was nice to know, but what about me? What about my career? Were they going to torch my contract for some sort of ethical breach? Elle could not get a definitive response from them, which was making her testy and me anxious.

“Good, good. I sent all the guests an email that first night you come to tell them you were here for a restorative vacation with your family.” He glanced my way. I nodded along. “They been respectful of your privacy?”

“They have yeah.” I lobbed a small bit of muffin to the gull as a brisk wind blew. “Breezing up,” I commented as I had nothing else to say.

“Calling for a strong wind today. Good day for sailing,” Dad remarked. I bobbed my head. Maybe I would take one of the small boats out and paddle to the jetty. Burn off all these damn muffins I was inhaling. “Elias, I know this is a tough time and all.”

“Mm,” I hummed around a mouthful of blueberry goodness.

“When did you know you were gay?” There. It was out. Being a Mainer, I was shocked he had let it go as long as he had. Folks around here were generally pretty direct about things.

“When I was fourteen,” I replied. “Well, I knew I was different then. Something about me wasn’t like the other boys. I never wanted to touch boobs.”

“Right, right. You never said a word to me, Elias. Never once in over thirty-five years.” I chucked the rest of my pilfered muffin to the gull. He was appreciative. My hunger had suddenly disappeared. “I’m not scolding you, Son. Far from it. I just guess it hurts to know that you held this secret inside you. I wouldn’t of turned you out to sea, boy.”

“I know, Dad, I know. It was just…” I closed my eyes and let the rolling sea under the dock ease away the tension. “It was just that I felt that you’d be disappointed in me.Moredisappointed, I should say.”

He touched my sweaty bicep. My eyes flew open, and I met his confused gaze. “When was I ever disappointed in you?”

“When I said I wanted to be an actor and not run this place,” I confided, the sea breeze drying my skin. A tiny shudder ran down my spine. A swim now and then a shower would be perfect. Then I could hide until dinnertime in my room, reading and letting the world hopefully forget about the tiny frilly briefs I’d been seen wearing. Fucking twinks. I was so done with them. Next lover I took was going to be a beefy lumberjack daddy type.

“Oh,” Dad said. He knew I had him on that one. “Okay, well, sure, I was a little downhearted about that. Your mother and me we worked so hard to get this place successful for you.”

“I know.” I wished I had something to do with my hands now, so I shoved them into the pockets of my running shorts. The gull paddled back and forth waiting for more muffins. “And I wish I had the love of innkeeping that you two had, but I don’t. I adore this place but my heart is on the stage, in front of the cameras. That’s why I didn’t tell you that I was gay. I’d already let you down once…”

“Elias,” he whispered, reaching out to drape an arm around my rounded shoulders. “You being gay don’t upset me at all.” He pressed a kiss to my sodden hair. I had to choke down the ball of emotion wedged in my throat. “And I don’t care one whit about what kind of things you wear under your pants. I know people who done far worse things than pulling on a pair of ladies under bits.” I nodded my head. Speaking wasn’t happening right now. Dad gave my shoulder a pat before letting his arm rest around the back of my neck. “I feel like I did a poor job as a parent because you didn’t feel comfortable enough to talk to me.”

“Dad, no,” I said, turning to face him. The anguish in his eyes about undid me. “You were a great father. The best father a son could have asked for. It’s all me. And what I perceived to be what you felt. I should have opened up. I’m terrible at being honest about the really important things.”

“Water runs downhill, Son. A million times a day, I wish I’d told your mother that I loved her. Sure, I said it on occasion, but I should have said it every day, not just on anniversaries. Don’t you make that mistake, Elias. Don’t you store up things like me. Be more like your mother. Tell folks you love them every day. God knows we don’t know when our last words will be. Make sure they’re filled with love.”

“I love you, Dad,” I choked out and then pulled him into my arms. He stiffened for a second, but then he melted into the embrace, his chest working hard as he battled with emotions that had been packed away for far too many years. “I’m sorry for not telling you.”

“It’s okay, Son. It’s out now.” He pulled back. “It’s out now and we’re going to be starting over. Just like we do when a gale blows up a mighty breeze. We gather up the boards and shingles that were blown off and we start rebuilding, one nail at a time, until we got something even better than we did before things were all stoved up.”

Stoved up. Yep, that was me right now. Battered and bruised.

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