A Certain Lightness in June - 1. Story

"You bet I'm ready to go back," said Bud.

It was the last night of the term. Foster hmm'ed and tapped his fingers against the marble. The melody in his head was shifting, modulating in careful steps from A minor to C.

"I'm sick of this campus... You there, Foster?"

"Yes," Foster said, grinning sheepishly, "I am. Sorry."

"So what song was that?"

"Um..." They had no names, really, the songs he made up. The names he'd come up with never really stuck, at least not in his mind. "It's an old one, from high school. Anyway, you really want to go back?"

Bud sighed. He looked out at the Yard, which looked dark and enclosed from their view on the highest steps of the library. "Yeah. Fucking hate this place." Someone walked past. "And I hate it when they stare."

"He's probably just some guy," Foster said uneasily.

Bud grunted. "I'll miss hanging out."

"Me too," said Foster.

They were quiet for a few moments. Bud stared out at the trees, big black shapes in the night. Next to him, Foster was tapping the marble again.

 ***

The Californian summer, with its dry mornings and pitiless afternoons, was already like an alien season he was feeling for the first time. How much of it was the memory of the air, how much of it was the shock of the familiar stucco walls and familiar yellow grass, he didn't know, and he refused to concede.

His mother and father had accepted--for him--the invitation to the Jones's barbecue. His dad had been particularly eager.

"They've all been asking when Bud'll be back," he'd said, grinning widely. "And I told them, he'll be back. He'll be back, all right."

Yes, thought Bud, back in this dry and waterless place he'd spent two years rejecting. Somewhere far away, where it snowed and rained and grew forests, he'd discovered Bud the Bostonian, Bud the scientist poet, the engineer writer. But none of those Buds had lasted. They'd been spent, dried up, and now that he was back in California, he discovered that the place as deeply rooted as his bones was no longer home.

His entrance to the Jones's backyard went unnoticed. The barbecue, he observed, was in full swing. Bud took a shish kabob, retreated to a corner, and didn't expect to be hailed.

"Bud?"

"Hey," said Bud. "Tony."

"Dude," said Tony, and it was the same voice he used all through high school, the same exaggerated surfer slang, even though they were hundreds of miles inland and Tony couldn't swim if his life depended on it. "Dude! You showed up!"

Bud shrugged. "Yeah. I showed up."

"Dude, did you get any of my Facebook messages?"

"Facebook? I haven't checked Facebook in ages."

"You, like, disappeared."

"Eh, well," said Bud, not appreciating the accusing edge in Tony's voice. "It's not like I haven't been busy. Though I'm sure you have been, too."

The bell peppers were slightly burnt. Bud turned and spat out the blackened skin.

"So what've you been up to?"

Bud shrugged. "Nothing really. How's UCSD?"

"It's all right."

"I read about the drug ring you guys had on campus."

Tony grinned sheepishly. Bud quickly caught it and added, with a smirk, "You guys seem like a pretty wild bunch."

"Dude, I didn't even know it was happening."

"Mm-hmm."

"Seriously, dude, I didn't even see any of that stuff!"

"So no getting high?"

"Dude," said Tony.

They hadn't known each other too well in high school. Bud remembered that Tony had both an Xbox and a Playstation 2, which meant that parties at his house revolved around the widescreen television upstairs. Tony hadn't been very good at Halo, but he had been very loud, yelling "I got creeeeamed!" every time he was sniped or crushed by a vehicle on an alien planet. His mother, Bud recalled, made excellent sushi.

"So how's Harvard?"

Bud shrugged. "It's all right. It's a lot of work and not much time for play, though I did get myself smashed a few times."

"Dude," said Tony again. He laughed. "I can't imagine you getting pissed!"

Bud smiled. "There're a few other things I don't think you could imagine."

"Like what?"

"Hey, I need to keep a few of my deep dark secrets to myself."

"Wait, what deep dark secrets?"

"I'm getting a Coke. Want one?"

Tony shook his head.

Bud paused at the cooler and looked around. Most of the partygoers had gathered at the edges of the backyard, leaving him alone at the center, like the hub of a wheel. He liked it this way. The sun had gone behind the palm trees next to the train tracks, and it was getting chilly.

"So what're those secrets?" Tony said.

Bud smiled, but it wasn't a very good smile. "They're secrets for a reason, Tony."

"You didn't kill someone, did you?"

"Haha. No."

"Seriously, you can tell me anything."

"Mm." And he could, Bud thought. He couldn't tell his parents, but he could tell Tony. Bud tried to play it out in his mind, but it felt remote, unimaginable. He pictured himself turning around, saying, I'm gay. Tony's face would blank in surprise before pulling together with a quick, Oh, that's cool; or, Dude, that's not deep, dark secret! He'd say-what would he say? He'd agree. And then the awkward pause would follow, during which he'd savor the victory that was meaningful only to him, try to control the trembling behind his ribs.

"I forget, what're you majoring in?" asked Bud.

 ***

"Mm, sounds wonderful!"

Foster smiled. Jana was missing half the staccati and stumbling over the scales, but all that was lost on his mother, who still believed him capable of working miracles on Jana's piano playing. He winced; there was another missed flat.

"Foster, do you still remember Kristen?"

He remembered, of course; just the name, the connections, which he hadn't thought about in ages, were enough to bring up the classroom with its white brick walls, the crayon-colored pictures hanging from the clotheslines. He could tell where this was heading. "Which Kristen, Mom?"

"Kristen from elementary school. You know, she took my class last term, I think I told you that."

"Yeah, I remember. What about her?"

He waited, hoped his mother wouldn't hear above the sound of Jana's piano playing.

"I've invited her to the party tonight."

"Oh," said Foster. "Okay..."

Jana's playing slipped from his mind. He looked up to see his mother leaning on the balusters and smiling down from the upstairs mezzanine.

"Do you know what she said to me?"

"What?"

"She said, ‘Oh, Foster's coming back! From Harvard!'"

"Oh," said Foster, giving a wan smile. "Yeah."

"Am I done now?" Jana asked.

He hesitated. No, she wasn't-the adagio was a disaster, and she ought to play the left hand a few more times. But what he wanted at that moment, what came to him as a sudden need, was to retreat into the safe place of his own music.

The doorbell rang. "They're home!" Jana shouted and bounded to the door.

"Hello everyone!"

"What did you buy?" his mother called, bounding down the stairs. "Did you get everything?"

"Did we get everything, Paul?" his father asked.

"Paul, did we get everything?" Jana echoed.

Paul lifted the shopping bag above his head. He already taller than their father, Foster noted; soon, he'd be taller than him.

"Did you get a cake?" his mom asked.

"Uh..." His father pushed his glasses nervously up his nose.

"Yeah," said Paul. He lifted the other shopping bag, like David with Goliath's head, Foster thought. The comparison wasn't too far off. Paul had gotten the genes somewhere-it certainly wasn't from their bookish father-to join the high school football team. Not that it meant very much: the team hadn't won a single game the last season. But Foster could still remember carrying his brother in his arms, and it didn't seem so long ago.

"Don't forget to put it in the fridge. Jana," his mom called, "go help with the things in the car."

"We got everything already," Paul hollered from the kitchen. "Jana, don't open the cake!"

"What's that there, in that bag? I hope it's not another one of your cameras or printers or silly gadgets."

"Ow! Mom, Paul touched my hair!"

This was what he missed, Foster thought. And yet, it was something he was no longer a part of. Foster accepted it with resignation and a little sadness. It was the natural course of things. One left home for college, found friends, and built up one's own family. Unhappiness came when one resisted the flow of things. What troubled him, though, was that he knew that he would be taking an altogether different course. There would be no girlfriend or wife, he knew, and except for Bud, he hadn't made any real friends in college. He knew, too, that he had retreated more than ever before into his own world, his small retreat of music. He did not like loneliness, but solitude was something he fled back to again and again.

"Paul?" his mother called. "Can you clean up the patio?"

Paul sighed. "Coming..."

A few years ago, Paul would've whined and protested, Why me? Why not Foster? But there was none of that now. In two years, Paul would be a college student-just like him-and in two years more, Foster could see his brother coming home with his second or even third girlfriend. There'd be no soliciting of elementary school classmates, Foster thought with a wry grin.

He was debating what to play when Jana came, pulling a lock of hair between her fingers. "Foster," she said, a silly grin on her face, "can I have some of the cake?"

"Should we save it for the party?"

"Aww, but I want to try it now."

Foster looked up. His mom had left the mezzanine. The only person looking down at them was the bust of Beethoven, made of marble and chipped behind the ear. He'd won it in an auction in fifth grade. He remembered that they'd earned good behavior points the entire year just for that auction. The desks he'd sat in, he recalled, had reached his sternum, and he'd liked to hide his hands in the space underneath, where he could imagine he was playing piano. He'd still been taking lessons, then.

"Please, Foster?"

"Let's ask Mom," he said and got up. He looked at the clock: it was five, just one hour before the party was to start. A shaft of sunlight came through the garden window and made shadows from the textured wall.

He'd play later, he decided, as Jana ran into the kitchen and proclaimed that Foster said it was okay to have a teeny bit of the party cake.

 ***

It was unnatural that the lawns were so green, the transplants of magnolias and maples stood where they did. Drive out twenty minutes in any direction, and he'd find plenty of dry grass and groves of eucalypts, intruders that seemed, strangely, to belong in this land.

"Bud!"

"What's up, Dad?"

"D'you have my car keys?"

"Car keys? Nah, I don't think so. Look on counter."

He waited, but the house was silent. It occurred to him that this was the same silence that Bob and Eileen Cruz listened to every day, in the few waking hours they spent under the same room, and the long hours of night. His mother and father slept in separate rooms.

His computer finished loading just as his mother knocked on his half-open door and stepped inside.

"We're going," she said with a sigh. She had a way of saying everything with a sigh. Coming from someone else, it might've sounded long-suffering; from her, it merely seemed slightly bored. "Are you sure you don't want to come?"

"Yeah, I'm sure." He wheeled around to face her. "I'm don't really want to listen to Brahms that much anyway."

She shrugged. "All right." She turned to go. "We'll be back by twelve."

"Have a good time," Bud called.

He watched her go, a little sad that she hadn't caught the lie. It wasn't that he didn't care for Brahms. It was that he couldn't picture himself sitting between his mother and father. Or rather, when he saw himself doing so, it felt as though he were intruding on a well-oiled world that no longer his.

"You're wearing this?"

His father grunted. Their next words were too quiet to make out, but he could hear his father's voice rise in an almost petulant whine above his mother's sighs.

Then, "Bye, Bud!" his father hollered.

"Bye!" Bud called back.

"Honey, we're going to be late..."

The door shut. Sometimes, he wondered if his parents were as happy to have him gone as he was. They loved him, of course, and he loved them. He could recall examples of that love-instances of them doing things, a morning with his mother, the afternoons with his father. But they were not-even to him-first and foremost parents. They were Eileen Cruz and Bob Cruz, the school superintendent and soccer coach, a man's man who still drank beer with the other boys.

yo

It was almost half a minute before Tony messaged back. hey dude! what's up?

the rents went out for a concert

oh nice

It wasn't worth it to bother correcting. yeah

so what's your deep dark secret?

Bud couldn't suppress a grin. He didn't even have to bring up the topic. How convenient. dude, you've got a one track mind

yeah, so what is it?

are you sure you want to hear it?

dude Another message: come on, you can tell me

all right

He let his fingers rest over the keys for a moment. at harvard i had a boyfriend, with whom i broke up a few months ago, during which both of us did some pretty dumb things He stared at the words. The sentence was a bit too much of a run-on, and-screw it. He pressed ‘enter.'

i see

Bud was grinning. It was rather funny. He wished he could see the look on Tony's face. Well, maybe not. yeah, he typed. i guess it's not much of a dark and dirty secret, but it's hard And it was hard, in too many ways to list, in ways that he didn't believe to be justifiable. He was ashamed of some of them. Three little words, and he was paralyzed as though struck with nerve gas. He sent the message with a sharp tap of the keyboard.

yeah, i know a few gay people at campus

cool, Bud typed. i know... He counted: Foster, his ex, who else? not so many

so tell me about your ex boyfriend

hmm yeah It was, Bud thought, rather sordid and uninteresting. There were episodes-the fist fight in February, the time two months after when Pete had decided that the best way of getting Bud's attention was by breaking his glassware... But they were isolated incidents, and merely thinking of it put a bad taste in Bud's mouth.

we met in november, but i didnt even know he was gay until december

were you in love with him?

no

okay

i wanted to know what it was like, you know He pressed enter and realized that Tony probably didn't know. He frowned, trying to think of a way to explain. basically what it's like to be in a relationship. i even tried to convince myself i was in love, which was a really stupid thing to do

yeah

A pause, and Bud watched the little box saying that Tony was typing before the next message appeared: how serious was it?

you mean, did we have sex?

yeah

we did

did you use protection?

stupidly, no, but im pretty sure he didn't sleep around before we broke up. and he says he was a virgin, which i still kind of buy

yeah

i should get myself checked though

yeah, at UCSD we can do it anonymously and for free

i think at harvard too

yeah cool... so how do you feel about it?

all right. i mean, it shouldn't be a big deal

no, i guess not

Bud stared at the screen a while more. It wasn't quite true, what he'd just said, and he wondered if Tony caught on that.

i have to sleep now

now? it's not even eleven yet

yeah, but i have to get up at freaking 5:30 for my internship

shit! yeah, go to sleep!

yeah, night

night-and thanks

sure

Tony signed out.

Bud checked the clock. It'd taken all of five minutes. He could almost laugh at the irony of the anticlimax. Tony had seemed-understandably-more concerned with getting enough sleep than the fact that an old friend from high school had just confessed to being gay. It couldn't matter very much to him. Sex? Yes; protection? No? Cue friendly advice, overall emotional well-being. End of conversation.

He wondered what Eileen or Bob Cruz might say. His mother would be dismayed. His father would be flabbergasted and perhaps a bit-just a little bit-violent. It'd happened before, when he still belonged to California's overwatered lawns and yellow hills. He'd been playing goalie in a little league soccer game. There were lawn chairs on the side lines, water coolers, the sweltering blue sky above them all, and the ball hurtling at him. He'd ducked. The next thing he knew, his father had grabbed him by the arm and struck him across the head. After that, he'd remembered only the stinging behind his ear and in his eyes, and the terrible sense of humiliation. In that moment, he hated his dad Bob Cruz more than anyone in the world.

He frowned. The door was being unlocked, and someone was stepping in.

"Dad?" he shouted.

"It's me," Eileen replied.

Bud got up from his chair. "I thought you were going to the concert."

Even from upstairs, he could hear her sigh. "Well, apparently it got canceled without our knowing."

"Oh, that's too bad."

He watched his mother drop her purse on the chair. "Your father's with his friends, watching Turkey versus Switzerland. Or Croatia. I can't remember."

"Yeah." A beat. "Mom, there's something I want to tell you."

 ***

His mother was sneaking another helping onto Kristen's plate by simultaneously asking a question. "So what're the Chinese classes at Berkeley like?"

"Oh-" Kristen made a few protesting hand motions. "That's too much!"

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, yes!"

She'd gotten her hair done differently since Foster had last seen her, which was more than two years ago. Her face was plumper than he remembered. In his mind, he still connected her with the high school track team, for which she'd been lean and athletic. But he supposed she had less time for sports at Berkeley. They'd all gotten older.

"The Chinese classes are... They're, well--"

They were sitting in the patio, which Foster had helped his mother clean for this occasion. It wasn't much of a party. That was mostly because there was only one guest.

"I take Chinese, too," Jana piped up.

Kristen's smiled. "Oh, do you!" she said. Her smile hadn't changed much, Foster noted; it still produced the two round dimples under her face that he'd once thought, back when they were in first grade and probably even played together, to be funny.

"She goes every Sunday," Foster said, though he wasn't sure Kristen noticed; she was busy matching Jana's shy, sweet grin.

"Yes, just like you did!" their mother pointed out.

Kristen laughed politely and nodded. "Yes, like I did."

The table fell silent for a moment, and Foster found himself watching Jana carefully slide a pea across her plate, spear it with her fork, and then pop it into her mouth in a quick stroke. The tablecloth rustled; Jana was kicking her feet back and forth in victory. Foster felt his lips split into a grin.

His mother was saying something to him. He looked up quickly. "Yes?"

"Foster, you're majoring in--chemistry?"

"Biology," said Foster, turning to Kristen, "with a music minor."

"Oh, my flat mate's double-majoring in math and music."

"Really," Foster said, and added quickly, "That's cool," though he knew he sounded too clipped to be convincing. He hadn't intended to sound that way. He'd just been surprised by the major in music. He'd have liked that.

"Do you live on campus, Kristen?"

"Actually, I live in a sorority."

"Oh, a sorority," his mother echoed knowingly, though Foster knew from the look on her face that his mother didn't really have any idea what a sorority was. That amused him, somehow. Not really knowing why, he leaned over and said, the first thing he'd said all dinner that wasn't a reply to someone else's question, "Paul's on the Mission High football team this year."

"Really!"

Paul grunted. "Yeah, I am. I play wide receiver."

"I don't know anything about football, but uh... some of my friends are really into it."

"Hmm." Paul swallowed his mouthful. "Well, since you go to Cal, you must know about the Play, in the Game?"

"The one against Stanford?"

"Yeah, that one."

"I mean, I've heard of it, but I don't really know the details."

"Okay, so"--Paul leaned forward--"how much do you know about football?"

"Well, how it works in general."

"So do you know what a lateral pass is?"

"Well..." Kristen paused, and then laughed. "Not really."

"So, a lateral pass--"

"Kristen," his mother interrupted, "do you know Alice Wang?"

"Alice?" Kristen shook her head. "No."

"She also goes to Berkeley. Her sister's in Jana's Chinese class."

"Who?" Jana asked.

"Yan-yan, don't you remember?"

"Oh," said Jana, "Yan-yan! Yeah, I remember her. Wang Yan-yan!" she said, in imitation of her teacher, "please sit down!"

They all chuckled and fell silent. The pause felt oddly more noticeable this time. Foster wished his mother hadn't been her usual self and cut Paul off. It'd have given them something to listen to and keep away the silence, which Foster had a hard time gauging its awkwardness.

When they finished, his mother brought out the cake, but Jana was faster.

"I can play Clementi!" she said, tugging at Kristen's hand.

"Who's Clementi?"

"Ohh," said his mother, torn. "Well, I suppose Jana can do a short performance before we have cake, just a few pieces..."

They filed back into the house and gathered at the piano. Jana climbed solemnly onto the seat.

"Play the Sonatina first, Jana," his mother instructed.

His father tapped his mother's shoulder and made a hushing noise. "She knows already."

His parents were acting as though this was a big recital. A few years ago, it'd have embarrassed him. The first notes made him wince, but he relaxed when Jana got to the scales; she wasn't rushing them too much this time. The staccatos, not bad, the roulade, good...

He glanced up. He couldn't tell what Kristen thought of this music, but his parents had matching smiles on their faces. They probably weren't even aware that they were smiling, Foster thought. He felt his own face pull in response, and his fingers tapped, against his leg, a combination of the music he was hearing and the music in his head.

"Bravo!" Foster's mom shouted when Jana finished. They clapped, while Jana slipped off the bench, suddenly shy, and scurried to her mother's side. Foster laughed.

"It's very good," Kristen said.

"Play the Kabalevsky," Foster's mother said.

"Can I play the other Sonatine instead, please?"

"Actually," Kristen said, glancing at her wristwatch, "I think I have to go now..."

"What, now?"

"It's half past nine, and I promised my dad I'd be home by ten. He's kind of paranoid."

"Well, then, take the cake!"

"The cake? I couldn't possibly..."

"But Mom, I want the cake!"

A minute or two later, Kristen was at the door, balancing a large slice of mocha chocolate in her hands.

"Kristen, it was good seeing you again," Foster's mom remarked. "Maybe you and Foster could do some things together during the summer."

They chuckled, and Foster caught Kristen's eye.

"Yeah, maybe," said Kristen.

Foster shrugged. "Yeah."

It wasn't going to happen, of course. He didn't dislike Kristen, and he had been genuinely happy to see her again. But there was also no reason to meet again. He shared so little with her, and they'd found this evening that there was little they could really talk about. And Foster knew he was awful at keeping conversations going. That sort of silence was the worst-between acquaintances who weren't strangers but weren't yet friends.

Of course, he could tell her things about himself, real things-that he loved music, that he was almost frightened by how important it was to him, that had no idea what he'd be doing fifteen years from now. But he couldn't do that. Why would she want to listen? Those were things he hid from even himself.

"Can we have cake now?" Jana asked.

"No," said his mother, "you have to take a bath first."

"But Mo-om!"

"No ‘but's!"

"Oh, fine..."

"Foster!"

Foster looked up. He'd just pulled out the sheet music he'd intended to play. "Yes, Mom?"

"Come!"

He sighed. He'd been looking forward to this for a long time, the chance to play freely, without having to worry about problem sets or midterms. But when he stepped into the kitchen, he saw that his mother's were bright from smiling. She patted the space beside her.

"Hurry," she said. "I want to sit next to my oldest son."

Foster stifled a grin. He took his seat and instantly felt his mother grab his upper arm. It was a gesture that he did as well, much to his embarrassment; once he'd even done it to Bud.

"Ah," she said, "a whole year without my oldest son. How long are you going to be gone for this summer program? Two months?"

"Yes, two months."

"That's so long!"

"Not really," Foster said.

"Tell me, who do you think Jana is like?"

"Well, you and Dad, of course. But more like you, I think."

"Oh?" His mother was smiling. "How so?"

It was a question that he'd replied to many times. "She's got your personality, I think, but she's also careful like Dad."

"So she's a bit like your Dad, isn't she?"

"Yes," Foster said, "but more like you."

He liked talking to his mom about these pointless and nonsensical things. Who Jana was like, why Paul was so different. He never brought up any of the things that were on his mind, and his mother, in her ignorance, never asked.

***

This was turning out all wrong. Bud shrugged his shoulders: a tense, glacial movement. He was sounding surly and argumentative, but he couldn't help it.

"Well? How do you know?"

"I just do," Bud snapped. "It's the same thing as, how do you know you're not--gay?"

"Oh, ho!"

He snapped his head up in time to see his mother stand. She looked livid, or scornful, or something he couldn't pick out from the gloss of her lips, the tightness of her eyes. He'd gotten to her before she could go upstairs, and all of her makeup was still intact. Eileen Cruz looked like a queen.

"Let me ask you, do you think it's normal to be--like that?"

"If you mean normal as the average person, then no." He licked his lips. "It might not be normal, but I don't think there is anything morally or ethically wrong with it."

"Is this what you're learning at Harvard?"

"What? No." His lips quirked. "I'm learning math, as you've instructed."

"I'll be talking to your father about this," she said, after a pause.

"Go ahead," Bud called. Eileen Cruz was already at the foot of the stairs. "I was going to talk to him anyway."

She stopped. Her earrings glittered. "You're not-like that." She turned around and went up the stairs.

"Well, sorry!" he shouted, spreading his arms out along the back of the sofa and crossing his legs. "I can't really help it, can I?"

He heard her door slam shut. The house was quiet.

"Well," he muttered to himself, "that was fairly uncomfortable."

A moment or so passed before he went upstairs. The landing was quiet. He'd forgotten to switch off the downstairs light, so it was hard to tell if his mother had turned on the paper-screened lamps in her room. Bob Cruz's room down the hall had no such lights. His mother was probably washing her face with her gentle-cleansing face wash. He couldn't hear the faucet, but his mother liked to rub her face with the wash before using water. The bottle had something in French on it, and a rather unremarkable picture of a lavender sprig. He couldn't remember a time when she hadn't used it.

He woke his computer from its screensaver. Tony was offline. Foster wasn't there, but Foster wasn't, usually. He had Foster's cell number. He could call. But not now, not before his father came home.

By the time he finished his second game of solitaire, it was half past one. He yawned. This wasn't terribly unusual; there were times when he'd stayed up to three in the morning playing Warcraft, and Bob Cruz was still with his mates. He'd thought, though, that Eileen Cruz would've given her husband a call. Her light was still on, he noticed on a trip to the bathroom. That was unusual. Eileen Cruz rarely went to bed past twelve. He wondered what she was doing. Reading Harper's? Reader's Digest?

When he shut the door to his room, it was nearly three.

"Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow," Bud muttered as he kicked some stray bits of clothing off the end of his bed. "Or," he said, staring at the ceiling, "later today, rather."

He was awakened by the lights of his room. Someone was there, in the doorway.

"Dad?" he muttered. The light was hurting his eyes. "What time..."

"Get up."

Before he could move, he felt a hand clamp his upper arm. His hissed; the hand left.

"Get up!"

"Okay, okay," Bud muttered. His pants were on the chair on the other side of the room. He forced himself not to hurry as he went to put them on. He cursed mentally. One of the pantlegs was inside out. His hands shook.

He was yanking the belt through the buckle when his father spoke again.

"Your mother... she told me that you said..." He stopped.

Bud looked up and stopped in surprise. His father was swaying slightly in the doorway. He was tipsy, or drunk. "What-" He licked his lips. "What time is it? Is Mom still up?"

"She said--!"

Again he stopped. They were both breathing hard. Bud frowned. He couldn't quite make out his father's face in the shadow of the doorway, but it seemed harsh, alert. He didn't look drunk. But Bud could smell the beer, the cigarettes.

"Yeah? What did Mom say?" He was almost fully awake now. "Is she sleeping? What'd she say?" Silence. His whole body was willing him to go on. "That I'm, what, gay?"

He knew the moment he spoke that he'd made a mistake. There'd been too much defiance in his voice. He hadn't intended it, but it had slipped out. If he'd been a little more awake, if his mother were in the room with them, if he himself were just slightly less scared of the notion-

Bob Cruz's face darkened with anger. Bud threw up an arm.

"Don't--" he yelped. He was eight or nine again. A hand grabbed his wrist, and his eyes stung at the pain that burst across his head. A cry tore at his lips, but this time it was different. He was still on his feet, and the cry hadn't escaped; it was trapped instead in the angry steel of his arms.

Bud dropped his hand from his head. "You did not just do that." He could see only glimpses of his father, half shadowed by the doorway. Bud bent and snatched up socks, his sweater. His breath was coming in large gasps. "I'm going."

Neither moved. Then the light in the other room flicked on. It was like the breaking of a string. Within moments, Bud had reached the ground floor and was hopping on one foot as he yanked on his socks, listening, waiting for a sound, but, in the end, there was only the front door shutting behind him.

***

"Kristen's gotten plumper, hasn't she?"

"Mom," Foster said, half disapprovingly.

"Well, don't you think so?"

"Yeah, a bit."

"How did Jana play today?"

"Mm." He considered. "Not bad," he said.

"Ooh," said his mother, "only not bad?"

"Well..." He paused, and then chuckled. "It isn't bad, but there's still some expression and stuff that she's missing."

Jana appeared at that point, and step ahead of her father. "Can we have cake now, please?"

"Lao tou zi, can you cut the cake?"

Foster's father grunted.

"Your father is pretending to be really tired," his mother whispered conspiratorially, "but he's actually really happy that you're back."

Jana had clambered onto the seat next to her mother. "Does Paul want cake, too?"

"Where's Paul?" Foster asked.

"He's upstairs. Paul," his mother called, "do you want cake?"

"No!"

"But it's really good!" Jana shouted back. "It's mocha, I think, and it's got a really, really, really nice middle--"

"Jana! Stop shouting!"

Jana turned and stuck her tongue out at her mother before crossing her arms and proceeding to pout. Foster grinned. He was only half listening to his mother.

"This house has way too much shouting all the time, morning to night. Oh, this piece is too big."

"Thanks," Foster said, when his father offered it to him instead. "Mm, looks good."

"Foster, do you still remember Marcus Tang?"

"Who?"

"Of course he doesn't," his father said. "He was only two."

"You used to play with Marcus when we were still living in Palo Alto." His mother smiled around a mouthful of cake. "It's funny, we were the only two Chinese people there. All those Americans, they must've been thinking, ‘What are these Chinese people doing here?' Anyway, Marcus is going to Purdue."

"Oh, Purdue. That's not bad, is it?"

"Mm"-his mother made a ‘No' noise through her nose. "It's the bad Purdue. There's a good one and a bad one."

"Ah."

The smile was back again. She was reminiscing; it was one of those things that, once started, wouldn't stop until they'd done them all.

"Marcus really liked to grab other kids' toys, isn't that right?"

"Mm-hmm," Foster's father said, nodding.

"Steal other kids' toys!" Jana echoed indignantly. "That's bad!"

"Even Adam's toys got stolen-do you remember Adam? He was a year older than you and Marcus, and his parents were these tall Americans... I bet they were all shocked that this little Chinese boy could be so fierce!"

"But none of us parents could do anything about it," Foster's father added. "We couldn't just grab the toys back from Marcus-even though we wanted to."

"So one day," his mom went on, "I told Foster, ‘Don't let go when he tries to steal your toys! When he tries, just don't let go!' The next afternoon, when Marcus grabbed Foster's toy, Foster just refused to let go. He just held on!"

Jana giggled and imitated the movement her mother made. "Foster just held on!"

Foster smiled. He knew all these memories already. They were mostly about him, but he didn't mind, really. It was like hearing about someone else.

"How much older was Marcus?"

"One month," Foster's father said, after a moment.

"No, it must've been two. He was born in April."

"Really?"

"Yes, I'm sure of it. Anyway, there was that time at Marcus's birthday party, when Marcus's parents tried to have him say ‘Bye-bye! Bye-bye!' to the guests as they left. But no matter how hard they tried, Marcus wouldn't say it. And then Foster, whom your father was holding, suddenly turned around and shouted, ‘Bye-bye!'"

Foster chuckled. He couldn't help it.

His mother leaned across the table. "Did you tell him to say it?"

"Me?" his father said, looking surprised. "Of course I didn't. I was just holding him."

"That Marcus was always kind of slow and dumb-looking. He also had a small head."

"Mom!" Foster said, but he was laughing.

"Once Marcus's grandparents came to your father and said to him, ‘Wah, your Foster's got such a big head! What do you feed him?' Of course your father didn't want to tell them that we fed you yoghurt every day, so he said, ‘Air! He breathes a lot of air!'"

"Eh, what's going on down there?"

Foster controlled his laughter enough to point at the cake. "Want some?"

Paul frowned. "I dunno..."

"Come on!"

"Come on!" Jana echoed.

Paul shrugged and began descending the stairs. "I guess," he said.

"Yay, Paul's coming for cake!" Jana crowed.

"It's great, this cake," Foster called. "Here, I'll cut you some."

The day had turned out pretty well, he thought, tilting a slice onto an empty plate. The party, which he'd privately been dreading, had been rather tolerable, and it was good, now, to just sit with his family, eat cake and talk about nothing at all.

***

The sand crunched under his feet. His hand was cold from wiping the dew off the swing set, and he could feel the water through the seat of his pants. He shivered and cursed himself again for having forgotten his cell phone.

The playground looked different at night, bigger. They'd changed the little castle in the center of the sandbox into a slide with monkey bars. The swings were still there, though one of them was now fitted with a diaper seat. He'd always liked swings. Flight, he'd once read, was the first human dream.

It'd all happened so fast. He wished he had his cell phone, just so he could see just what time it was. It must've been three, or maybe four in the morning. There was a bit of light in the east. He wondered what was going to happen. He was legally an adult; he was twenty. They couldn't stop him from going to college, and he was fairly certain Harvard would waive the tuition if his parents decided to be really shitty and cut his funding. It wasn't a multi-billion dollar institution for nothing. And he had his own bank account; the phone plan was his.

It was strange how wet the night was. Bud rubbed his arms. For a state with nothing but dried up grass for miles and miles, California was very damp. Boston's nights hadn't nearly been this wet. In winter they'd been so dry that he had felt his skin crawl. He wanted back. Massachusetts was his home now, not these wrinkled yellow hills, the bewildering suburbs and the streets full of cars, always going, wandering. He thought of his father, standing in the doorway with eyes wide with-something. It might've been terror. Bud squeezed the memory from his mind. His parents weren't family anymore. They hadn't been for a long time, and they certainly weren't anymore. He was unchained and alone. It was something he'd played this out before in his head-what might happen if his parents kicked him out, disowned him. It'd seemed strangely simple: he'd find a hostel and stay there before buying a plane ticket back to Boston, ring up some of the people he knew who lived there. Strange how difficult it was to even push himself out of the swing. A car was coming.

It was his mother. He watched her roll down the passenger seat window.

"Bud?" she called, beckoning. "Bud?"

He hesitated, glancing from his mother's face, caught in the reflected glare of the windshield, to the slow patterns of headlights in the mist. He was jogging across the small stretch of grass and stopped next to the door.

"Come in," she said.

He hesitated. His teeth chattered from the cold.

"Bud?" She was silent for a moment. "He's sorry," she said.

Bud frowned. "D-dad?"

"Your father is sorry for what he did," she said. "He was--drunk."

He digested this in silence. "Did he--" He stopped.

"Yes. He apologized." She took a deep breath. "We'll talk about it when we get home. Now, get in the car before you freeze to death."

"Mom," Bud said, "I'm not going to change."

"Get in the car, Bud, we don't have time-"

"This isn't a temporary thing, I'm not going to be, suddenly..."

"Just get in the car!" his mother snapped.

Bud shook his head. "Mom," he said, evenly, "it's not going to go away."

They were quiet for a moment. Then Eileen Cruz nodded, slowly. Without her hair drawn back as it usually was, she looked both older and younger at once. "Come in the car," she said.

Bud nodded. He fumbled with the handle before opening it.

"Let's go home," his mother sighed.

Home.

***

They'd finished the cake, except for a small slice that Jana made everyone promise to leave for her tomorrow. He had about twenty minutes, Foster thought, sifting through his sheet music. He had piles of it, many of them loose-leafed printouts, others photocopies that he'd painstakingly compiled into binders. None of it had been touched since he left.

"Mom, can I go to Yan-yan's tomorrow?"

"Only if you practice piano really well."

"But Mom..."

"Foster said you were only ‘not bad!' You need to be ‘very good' to go!"

He pulled the pages from under the stack and arranged them neatly across the piano. Jana was in her bedroom. Paul was upstairs, probably surfing the internet. His parents were winding down for the night. He rested his fingers on the keys. In that moment, listening to the soft sounds from the house, he was aware of that sense of separateness again. He was seated on the edge of a window, and, with the first left-hand chord, willed his music into another world.

"Lao tou zi," his mother was saying from the hall, "Don't forget to cash that check tomorrow."

"Yes, I know."

There was a curious resonance to the notes. It was only his imagination, he knew, but at certain times, he thought he could hear his mother's, singing along with words that belonged neither to the past nor present nor future.