Running for Home - 83. May 8, 2022

May 8, 2022

I woke up this morning curled up against Bobby, feeling refreshed and relaxed. Completely the opposite of my wakeup yesterday. I guess that is to be expected - my meeting with my father was a success, though I still find myself troubled that he’s still drinking. He didn’t have more than that one beer with me while he cooked our dinner, though, so maybe he wasn’t lying when he told me his drinking was under control. Even though it worries me, I am willing to give him the chance to show me that he is in a good place, that the booze doesn’t control his life and behaviours anymore.

Bobby was already awake before me, quietly watching me. He gave me a sweet kiss when I opened my eyes. If Liam hadn’t been on the other bed in the room, I’d have taken Bobby right there. Or had him take me. Whatever, I’m not picky. But that would have to wait for a time with some privacy.

Liam was a little annoyed with me when he woke up, as I expected. Bobby had told me last night he didn’t want to go to sleep until I was back at the hotel, but had succumbed to tiredness at about 9:30pm. He’d had an exciting day at the baseball game with Bobby, so I guess that wasn’t completely unexpected. I felt a little selfish, but I was also growing aware that we had to find more ways to make Liam feel more secure that we weren’t going to disappear on him like his mother had.

We had breakfast at the hotel’s restaurant, some eggs and bacon for Bobby and I while Liam got a waffle with strawberries, syrup and whipped cream, much to his delight. After we finished, we went back up to the room. Liam reminded us it was Mother’s Day and we were scheduled to chat with his grandmother. Bobby and I chuckled and started a video chat with Bobby’s parents. Madeleine seemed very happy to see us; well, Bobby and Liam at the very least. I think she still is having trouble getting over her horror at seeing me incinerate the Purifiers who were posing as my aunt and uncle with nothing more than a thought. I hope this isn’t going to be a long-term problem, for Bobby and Liam’s sake. Liam was putting on a brave face this morning, not really admitting that he was thinking of his mother, but I could tell his mood was a little low, even with the call to wish his grandmother a happy day. I hoped that meeting my father later would brighten his mood, even a little.

When the video chat was over, I messaged my father’s cell phone, asking if he was ready for us to come over. I got the immediate response that he was looking forward to it, but wondered if Liam would have more fun if we went to Belle Isle instead of just hanging out at his house. There were different things to see and do and some great food trucks. He was wondering if I was okay with Uncle Mike coming too.

I hadn’t thought about taking Liam to Belle Isle. I remembered going there once as a kid. I remembered that there was an aquarium and a maritime museum, and I think we went to the beach there too, although it was a little early in the year for swimming today. I asked Bobby what he thought and he did a quick search on his phone and agreed that it might be more enjoyable for Liam than just sitting around at the house, especially if we were going to spend the whole day together. Well, that’s what I wanted, so I told my father we liked his idea. And, honestly, if Uncle Mike was as important in my father’s life as I’d found out yesterday, I was happy to have him along as well.

I had thought about it last night, lying awake in bed curled up in Bobby’s arms, about how Uncle Mike has basically been a second father to me for the first five years of my life. I didn’t really understand why he wasn’t around at first after my father fell out with him. I mean, I knew they had a fight, but it didn’t really register with me how serious it was until I realized he wasn’t coming back. I missed him a lot at first, but eventually I got used to him not being around anymore. It was just another facet of our new, dysfunctional normal as we turned into welfare scum.

We drove over to my dad’s place. An SUV was already in the driveway - perhaps Uncle Mike’s. My dad’s work van was gone, probably hidden away in the two-car garage. Before we were even out of the car, my father and Uncle Mike were coming out the front door, smiling and waving in greeting. Liam commented that my father and I looked a lot alike, but Uncle Mike didn’t look like us at all. I told Liam that Uncle Mike wasn’t really related to us, but he was my father’s partner just like Bobby and I were partners. We got out of the car and my father pulled me into a hug, and shook hands with Bobby before pulling him into a hug as well. Bobby blushed mildly at that. Uncle Mike gave me a hug as well, which felt really good. I hadn’t realized I’d missed his hugs.

Finally, the attention was turned to Liam, who had watched the whole interplay with a mix of curiosity and uncertainty. He asked my father if he was his grandfather, since he looked an awful lot like the pictures his mother had of her father. My father knelt down to Liam’s height, shaking his head, telling Liam that his grandfather was his brother Aaron, someone he hadn’t spoken to in years. He told Liam that his name was Isaac, and he was his great uncle. Liam nodded and said he was glad, since his mommy told him his grandpa and grandma were mean to her and sent her away because of his daddy. Then Liam asked my dad if he could call him grandpa anyway, since he was my dad. My father swallowed deeply, and a tear streaked down his cheek. He smiled warmly and said, yes, he would be happy if Liam called him grandpa. Liam stepped forward and gave my father a big, tight hug. My heart swelled four sizes, watching them. Liam gave Uncle Mike a hug, too.

My father asked if we wanted to take the bus to Belle Isle or if we wanted to go for a boat ride to get there. Liam immediately replied that he wanted to go for the boat ride. I chuckled and told my father that clearly we had our answer. My father said the boat was at a yacht club marina a few blocks away, and if we wanted we could ride over in his SUV.

We piled into the SUV and drove over. It really wasn’t that far, but whatever. My father wanted to chauffeur us so that was fine. We pulled into the Grosse Pointe Club, which was a bit ritzy for my tastes. I asked my father if he had a membership here and he nodded. He told me yesterday that he’d done well on the stock market with the windfall of the lawsuit suing Xavier over my kidnapping, but this really drove it home. If he could afford membership at an exclusive club – and a boat too – he wasn’t hard-pressed for money at all. Hell, it made me wonder why he was still working; if his investments were doing well, he might not need to. We parked and walked through a nice building out to the marina docks on the riverfront.

My father’s boat was a nice size – not humongous, but not at all modest either. Uncle Mike said they liked spending time on the water on weekends in the summers, either in Lake St. Clair, or taking longer trips into Lake Huron or Lake Erie. They’d spent time on Pelee Island visiting the wineries there and on the Canadian south shore and even gone to Cedar Point once to have fun. Liam asked what Cedar Point was, so we told him that it was a big amusement park with roller coasters and Ferris wheels and merry-go-rounds and lots of other rides. He thought it sounded really cool and asked if we could go there someday, since he’d never been to a place like that before. My father looked at me and I nodded. He told Liam he’d be happy to take him there someday. Maybe we could make it a family trip sometime later in the summer.

We got in the boat and launched. We could see an island right from the dock at the mouth of the Detroit River, but my father indicated that what we could see was Peche Isle on the Canadian side, and Belle Isle was just beyond it in the river. My father asked if we wanted to motor around on the water for a little while first and see the downtown skylines of Detroit and Windsor across the river in Canada. Liam excitedly asked if we could, so of course we consented.

Both Windsor and Detroit had built up a bit from what I remembered. Though, those memories were a bit fuzzy, since I hadn’t been here since I was a kid. The Renaissance Centre in Detroit was still the highlight of the city skyline. Liam thought the Ambassador Bridge was neat and he was really impressed by the ongoing construction of the new Gordie Howe Bridge that would be better connecting the Windsor-Detroit trade corridor. Liam asked if we could visit Canada sometime, and Bobby and I told him we definitely would do that someday if he wanted to. I’d only ever been to Windsor once or twice with my parents that I could remember. Of course, Bobby and I had been to Alkali Lake in Alberta too, though that was hardly a pleasure trip.

Soon enough, we were docking on the northeast side of Belle Isle at the Detroit Yacht Club. The island was bigger than I remembered, but still walkable. We toured around a bit, with Uncle Mike and my father taking turns chatting with Liam and pointing out the sights to him. Our first stop was the Belle Isle Nature Centre. We learned all about the native plants, birds and other animals found on the island and in the surroundings of Lake St. Clair along the shoreline. There was even a special beehive that Liam could see inside and watch all the bees doing their thing. Our next venture was to the Blue Heron Lagoon Trail. We had some great views of the lagoon and the river, along with a bunch of water birds.

Liam was starting to get tired of walking, so my father picked him up and carried him on his shoulders. Liam thought that was the best thing ever, enjoying the higher vantage point. As we were walking towards the part of the park where the Conservatory, Aquarium and the Museum were, Bobby and my father got a ways ahead of Uncle Mike and me. We were chatting about things, about my work, about his job as a financial planner – he was the one taking care of my father’s money, actually – and just catching up in general. Uncle Mike’s earlier happy mood seemed to be dipping a bit, and I asked him what was wrong.

Uncle Mike sighed and regarded me with a serious look. He told me that it was really hitting home how badly he fucked up. He apologized to me, apologized for walking away from our family. For leaving me with my parents when they were clearly struggling, even if my father had hurt his feelings badly. And he apologized for not stepping in when he found out that my parents had neglected and beat me. He thought someone in dad’s family would have stepped in and taken me in; he hadn’t known about the discovery that I was a mutant nor about my father’s family’s anti-mutant beliefs at the time.

I shook my head, told him it wasn’t his fault. I was sure he’d had it pretty tough trying to navigate my parents’ wishes that their poly relationship stay hidden, and if my father had hurt his feelings to badly that it made it impossible for him to stay with them he had every right to step away. Uncle Mike shook his head, telling me he’d been a selfish prick and was too immature about the whole thing. In some ways, my father was right – my uncle had really only been playing at being part of our family and had still been living a carefree, bachelor’s life as he’d felt like it outside of the time he spent with our family. He’d felt the loss keenly, but he was too proud to admit that he needed us in his life. If he’d invested more before things went south, if he’d just made my mother and father feel more like they could rely on him, then maybe things would have been different. And if he’d made more of an effort to swallow down his own hurt from the argument with my father and stepped back in when my mother had asked him to, maybe things could have been different for all of us.

I looked at him for a minute. I asked him to confirm that, that my mother had asked him to come back and help. He nodded, a couple tears streaking down his face. He told me that she had, that she’d asked him to try and reconcile with my father for my sake because we really needed his help, but Uncle Mike had been too stubborn and wanted my father to be the one to apologize for the words they’d exchanged. I nodded. It hurt, hearing that, but it was just a dull ache. I told him I forgave him, that I was glad he was back together with my father now and supporting him.

My father and Bobby were still a fair distance ahead of us. I lowered my voice and asked Uncle Mike if my father’s drinking was under control like my father insisted, or if it was a problem he was still struggling with. Uncle Mike nodded, and told me that my father had been in pretty bad shape when they reconciled, but he was off the bottle within a couple months or so of the wedding where they reunited. As far as Uncle Mike could tell, he'd never fell back into the habit in the last ten years they'd been together. He believed my father was doing fine managing himself. Uncle Mike told me that my father always limited himself to only a few drinks at a time, spaced out over several hours on the occasions when he did drink. My father really only had a couple of drinks on weekends or maybe a few more on special occasions, but never overdid it. Uncle Mike put a hand on my shoulder and told me that I could relax and not worry about my father’s drinking anymore, that he would keep my father on the straight and narrow.

I smiled softly and let out a breath that I hadn’t realized I was holding. I joked with him that he might keep my father on the narrow, but definitely not on the straight. We both laughed, causing my father to turn around and take a look at us, pausing so we could catch up to him, Liam and Bobby. My father looked so happy, and I could understand why - his family was finally coming together after such a long, painful disruption.

My family.

Our family.

It felt good, so fucking good to realize that. To feel it. To see it in fucking action.

We had an awesome time together for the rest of the day. Liam really enjoyed the aquarium and thought all the stuff about ships and sailing at the maritime museum was cool - though not as cool as fire trucks and firefighters, of course. We had burgers for lunch and got some great Mexican food from a food truck near this beautiful old fountain at the one end of the island for dinner.

I didn’t want the day to end. I really didn’t. I know I was seeing my father and Uncle Mike in an ideal setting, not seeing how they behaved in their daily grind, but did I have to care about that anymore? I mean, I hoped they were happy in their careers and their relationship together, and it was clear from the house, the boat and the Grosse Pointe Club membership that they were leading successful lives now, so wasn’t that enough to know? Wasn’t that enough, as long as they could spend time with me and Liam and Bobby as a family and help us feel loved and part of something bigger than just ourselves?

Evening twilight was setting in as we docked back at the Grosse Pointe Club. I wanted to hang out with my father and Uncle Mike longer, but Liam fell asleep in the SUV on the way back to the house. Bobby and I decided that meant it was probably time to pack it in and get Liam back to the hotel. My father started to offer for us to stay the night in the guest rooms at his place, but then realized we would have needed to check out of the hotel before the afternoon and we’d have to pay for the room anyway. Bobby took one look at me and then turned to my father and told him it didn’t matter, we’d be happy to stay with him. My father offered to pay for our hotel costs and Bobby chuckled and told him that he wasn’t the only one who had done well for himself financially in the stock market.

I looked at Bobby with an eyebrow raised. He’d never actually told me how much money he had squirrelled away, how big his nest egg was. He’d obviously done well for himself in New York, but he’d never told me exactly how well. Not that it mattered, but I guess that’s something we should probably have a discussion about given how serious our relationship has become. I mean, he knew that I had been struggling with money before coming to the School, but we’d never talked about this in any detail before. I guess I just didn’t really care. Bobby could have been living in poverty and I wouldn’t have cared, beyond wanting to lift him out of it. I love him for who he is, not for his financial success.

Bobby offered to go to the hotel to pick up our things so Liam and I could stay here with my father and Uncle Mike and get settled in for the night. I gave him a sweet kiss and agreed. When I turned back to my father, he was looking at Bobby and me with this expression I couldn’t quite place - there was happiness, for sure, but there was also pride, wistfulness, and maybe even approval.

Liam barely woke up as we transferred him from my father’s SUV to one of the guest bedrooms. We showed him which room Bobby and I would stay in, and which room was my father’s so he would know where we were if he woke up from a nightmare and was scared. We got him tucked into bed, getting a goodnight kiss from all four of us. He fell back asleep before we were even out of the room.

After Bobby left to pick our things up from the hotel, my father, Uncle Mike and I sat out on the back deck together. The evening air was calm, the sound of small waves lapping against the shore lulling my sense. We were chatting about workout routines - apparently, my father and Uncle Mike did Cross Fit a few times a week and Dad had a gym down in the basement for his off days. My father told me he was glad I was keeping up with my fitness, and I told him I was happy he was doing the same, especially now that he was approaching sixty. My father rolled his eyes and told me not to remind him of that. We laughed, and then Uncle Mike let out a yawn. He apologized and then said he was going to fix himself an espresso. He asked if either of us wanted a coffee, an espresso or an americano, too. My father and I both asked for an espresso, so Uncle Mike headed back into the kitchen to prepare our requests.

It was quiet between my father and me for a minute, but it was a comfortable silence. I could see a few boats out on the lake, some coming back in from a day on the water, others heading away from Detroit towards other ports. My father spoke, telling me he’d enjoyed meeting Bobby and Liam today, that he could see the love in our family, that he thought I’d chosen well. He said his opinion probably didn’t mean much to me, but that was it just the same. I thanked him for saying it, and told him that a few years ago I probably wouldn’t have cared what he thought, but things had changed for me and… well, I probably wouldn’t be there sitting with him if I didn’t care what he thought.

My father swallowed, nodding, a tight smile crossing his face. In the fading light, I could see tears in his eyes. He cleared his throat and then stood up, telling me he was going to go help Uncle Mike and he’d be right back. I wasn’t sure whether I should feel bad or not - were they tears of happiness that I came back to him, that I admitted I still cared what he thought of me, or were they tears of sadness for the years together we’d lost? In the light of bittersweet truth, maybe it was a bit of both.

I breathed out a sigh and relaxed back into my chair on the deck. Twilight was fading fast behind the house to the west. I could just barely make out the Big Dipper and a couple of stars in the Little Dipper overhead to the north. Detroit metro’s light pollution was staggering, of course, so there wouldn’t be nearly as many stars as I could see at the School. This place, my father’s home, it was a world away from the home I’d grown up in back in Flint. My father had more money than I’d ever conceived for my family. It didn’t seem to be affecting him, he didn’t seem to be acting any different than I remember him from when I was younger, before he dissolved into the bottle. He hadn’t tried to shower us with gifts today in an effort to win us over, either. I mean, the boat ride from the Grosse Pointe Club was nice and all, but… well, it didn’t seem like too much. Not if he was doing well for himself. I was grateful for that - I didn’t want his money, just his presence and his love. And he seemed to be giving it, and wanting the same from me, from all of us.

He’d won Liam over almost immediately, I could tell, and Bobby seemed to be enjoying the time we spent with my father today too. I was curious to hear Bobby’s thoughts, though I wondered if I should ask tonight when we went to bed in the guest room, or if I should hold that thought until we were back in our own suite at the School and away from my father and uncle’s ears.

My father and uncle returned, handing me a little espresso cup and saucer. I took a sip of the hot, velvety liquid and sighed happily. My father asked me if I was working on another book, or if the School was taking up too much of my time now. He noted that it had been a longer gap since my last novel, compared to the spacing between the others. I nodded, and told him that I’d just started work on a new one at the end of March, and that my publisher had accepted the prospectus. I told him I had hit a rough patch after my last novel. I am still not sure exactly what the problem was, the lack of inspiration, the lack of ability to put any fiction to paper that was worth reading. I had still been doing some journalism in that period, sure, but I’d found it easier to focus on those articles. They were usually single-issue affairs, with some event or other precipitating the need for discussion and opinions.

But a novel? That was something much bigger and more difficult. If I wanted it to mean something, to have something to say about the world and not just be pointless romantic drivel, it needed strong inspiration and a drive to work at it that I just didn’t have over the last few years. I guess my living situation and my deteriorating relationship with Dominik had just sapped away at everything. I told my father that I’d felt like my life was just spinning tires in the mud, that I wasn’t going anywhere, that I wasn’t really making a difference. I was probably suffering from mild or moderate depression, but I wasn’t really seeing my psychiatrist all that often and I had only really been reporting on my PTSD symptoms when I was seeing them, so there was no diagnosis nor any help. Not that it probably would have made much of a difference, not while I was still with Dominik and living in that downward spiral towards hell.

I told them that despite all the hurt and upset, breaking up with Dominik and starting work at the School last August was probably the best thing that had happened to me since I started at Xavier’s as a student when I was twelve. I’d recovered so much of myself, finally felt like I had a connection to the throbbing pulse of the world again, and I felt like my work really and truly was making a difference. I guess in the midst of all that, my muse had returned.

My uncle asked what the new novel was about. I told them that it was a gay gothic romance, about a young man who after a messy breakup decides his life needed a big change and takes on the job of being the butler and personal assistant to an old-money closeted bachelor. Sparks fly, but the social pressures on the bachelor along with dark secrets of the past threaten to ruin everything. I told them that there would be mutant-related themes, of course, something that I’d included in all of my novels thus far. My uncle and father were curious to hear more, but I confessed to them that the novel was just a skeleton at this point, and I’d only just started the serious writing this week. Besides, I didn’t want to spoil the story for when I finished writing it.

I thought my father was going to ask me something else about my writing, but he took me by surprise, asking me if I could show him my powers. Charles Xavier had told him I could control a fire once it was lit, and that I was very creative with my powers. My father wanted to see with his own eyes what I could do. I don’t know why I was so surprised by that. I hadn’t even realized that it was something we hadn’t really discussed until that moment. My powers were for so long the thing that defined me, but here I was with my long-lost father for two days discussing everything else that was in my life - my writing, my job at the School, my past away from him, my present, Bobby, Liam, Daniel, Dominik and everything else…

I swallowed, nodding. I told him that my powers had evolved recently, that I’d learned how to create fire if I had something flammable I could ignite. My father wandered off the deck and over beneath an oak tree in the yard. He picked up a stick and brought it back over, asking if that would work. I nodded, taking it from him. I concentrated, lighting a small fire at the tip of the branch.

I could hear my father and uncle’s breath catch. They were both looking at me with surprise and amazement. I guess it was one thing to objectively know I could do something and another to actually see it. I felt a smile curling the sides of my mouth. I pulled the flame off the branch and expanded it, turning it into different shapes and forms, splitting it into a multitude of sparks and growing them into their own shapes. The flames danced around us, their flickering light illuminating the wonder on my father and Uncle Mike’s faces.

Just then, Bobby returned, coming out of the house and jokingly calling me a show-off. I laughed and asked him if he was going to freeze all my creations again. He shook his head, stepped over to me and gave me a kiss, his arms wrapping around me. My concentration faltered and the flames winked out. Bobby chuckled, winking at me and then sitting down in one of the empty chairs.

My father and Uncle Mike gushed about the show I’d just put on a little bit. It felt good, good to have people I love regarding my powers with awe and wonderment and not with fear. They asked Bobby to show them what he could do, too, of course. Bobby formed a couple ice sculptures on the deck - probably some of the best I’d ever seen him do. I taunted him a little, asking him who the show-off was now. He laughed at that.

We chatted together, enjoying the evening and the calmness of the lakeside for another hour or so. Eventually, though, my Uncle Mike started yawning and my father wondered if they should get to bed. We retired for the evening, with my father giving me another tight hug before leaving Bobby and I to our own devices in the guest bedroom. Bobby and I stripped down to our boxers and crawled into the pillowy king-sized bed. Bobby pulled me into his arms, and I let out a contented sigh.

He asked me if today had gone as I’d hoped. I nodded, murmuring against his chest that I couldn’t imagine things going any better. Bobby told me he’d enjoyed my father and Uncle Mike’s humour, and he could see pieces of my personality that I’d inherited from my father. I felt the sides of my mouth curl up a little bit at that.

I’d spent so long, so much of my teenage years and my adult life hating my father and the man he’d become. Hating what he did to me, to our family. I wanted to be nothing like him, and every time I found myself slipping up and saying something that he would have said, or doing something the way he would have, or even just looking in the mirror and finding myself looking more and more like him as I aged… Well, I hated it.

But now?

Now, maybe I could live with that. Now, maybe, my father could show me how all these parts of himself that I’d inherited made him a good man, the one that I knew before he lost his job and dissolved into the bottle. I wondered if my mother would ever be able to see this, to see the man that I see now.