-- Chapter 31 --

It was late in the evening when they reached the hospital, and Matt’s parents were already in the waiting area, both looking tired and drawn. The moment they saw Luke and Levi, the relief on their faces was obvious and they both got to their feet and hugged the boys.

‘Oh, thank God you’re here,’ Matt’s mother exclaimed, which was immediately followed by her nose scrunching up, and her holding Levi at arm’s length and saying, ‘You both stink! You need showers!’

‘That can wait, Nan,’ Levi replied, grinning. ‘How’s Dad?’

‘The nurses are in the process of moving Matt to a ward, so they asked us to wait here until that had been completed and they had him settled,’ came the reply. ‘His left leg has two breaks and is now in a cast from ankle to mid-thigh. He has bruising all down one side, to his face and his ribs, and a drip in his arm, but he was awake and clear-eyed when we last saw him.’

‘What the hell happened out there?’ asked Matt Snr.

Just then a young nurse came to the waiting room door, before anyone could answer. ‘Mr and Mrs Parsons, I can take you to the ward now,’ the girl said to them.

‘Oh, thank you, dear,’ Levi’s grandmother replied, before setting off after the nurse, and leaving the others to follow.

When they reached the room Matt had been taken to, they found him sitting up in bed and looking frustrated.

‘About time,’ he said, his voice rough but steady.

‘We had to pack up first, remember?’ Luke replied, as he went to Matt and hugged him, with Levi then doing the same.

The reunion was quiet and practical at first – questions about pain levels, what the doctors had said, how long he would be kept in. Then the story of the rescue began to come out in bits and pieces. Luke described the fall and the decision not to move Matt. Then Levi, with a little prompting, gave a short account of the climb, the call, and the fire. He left out how hard he had cried on the ridge when he finally got a phone signal.

The orthopaedic registrar who came in to check the cast had already heard the outline from the paramedics. He looked at Levi with open interest.

‘You’re the one who got the signal and kept the smoke going?’

Levi nodded.

‘Good work. A lot of adults wouldn’t have been able to manage that.’

Matt’s mother reached across and squeezed Levi’s shoulder. His grandfather simply nodded once, the same way he used to when Levi’s father had done something right as a small child. The praise sat awkwardly on him, but it also settled somewhere useful.

Matt waited until a moment when the others were talking amongst themselves, then he caught Levi’s eye and patted a spot on the bed beside him. Levi cautiously approached and perched himself on the edge of the bed as directed.

‘I know things have been a little strained between us lately, but I’m still proud of you, mate.’ he said quietly. ‘That’s not changing.’

‘Thanks,’ Levi quietly replied.

***

Matt was discharged three days later, and given a set of crutches, along with a strict set of instructions, and a follow-up appointment already scheduled at the hospital in Macquarie Harbour. They packed the Navara and left the old town behind, with Luke driving this time, and Matt stretched out across the back seat.

The drive home felt different from any of the earlier trips for Levi. He was even given a shift at driving, once they had dropped back down out of the mountains and were back onto the coastal plains. Conversation was beginning to come more easily. Silences were less loaded. Something that had been trapped between father and son had shifted on that hillside, out of harm’s way, and had yet to shift back.

***

Levi saw Jimmy and Dan the day after they got back, bumping into them on Main Street near the Parthenon Café, before the three of them headed for the lake with their drinks. They settled at one of the picnic tables on the rise near the Moreton Bay figs, where they could look out over the water.

They dropped onto the seat and started talking about what they had been up to on their holidays, with Levi soon giving his friends the short version of the week that was – the valley, the swimming, the old gravestones, the fall, the climb, the helicopter.

Dan listened with his mouth slightly open. Jimmy let out a low whistle.

‘You actually climbed the side of a mountain to get reception?’

‘It wasn’t that dramatic.’

‘Bullshit it wasn’t,’ Jimmy spat.

Levi hesitated, then added, ‘We even went skinny-dipping a couple of times. The others just . . . did it. I held off at first. Then I didn’t. It felt weird, but it was fine. I didn’t feel as bad about it as I thought I might.’

Jimmy grinned. ‘So, it looks like you might finally be starting to loosen up, eh, Chambers? I like it. And did you get to see all those thirty-something guys in the raw? I bet that was quite a sight?’

This only caused Levi to blush and focus his concentration on the milkshake container he had been sipping from.

Dan didn’t say much. He asked one or two practical questions about Matt’s leg and then went quiet again. Sometimes he wasn’t really a talkative kind of guy, preferring instead to keep a measured distance, but Levi knew that he always took in what was going on around them.

When he left his friends a short while later, Levi headed for the church, in the hope he might be able to catch up with Father Costas. The church garden looked exactly as he had left it, but Father said that he was pleased to see Levi back, as the lawn needed mowing again.

They chatted for a while, with Father asking a few questions about the trip, and about how Matt was faring, before pointing him towards the garden shed, where the mower lived.

Levi smiled as he made his way to the shed and pulled the mower out into the warm afternoon. He fell into the work without complaint, with the physical rhythm feeling welcome. When sweat began to slick his skin he pulled off his t-shirt and hung it over the door of the garden shed, then continued his work. People walking past the churchyard nodded more often now. A woman from the op-shop across the road even called out a greeting. The public acts of service were doing just what Father Costas had quietly hoped they would – showing the town that the boy who had been the source of all those rumours was still turning up and still trying. He wasn’t giving up.

In the quieter moments, while he raked, or watered garden beds, the old line about rock bottom and the only way being up still surfaced. It no longer felt like a distant piece of advice. It felt like something he was slowly proving true.

***

He saw Casey only once in the first week back. It was late afternoon outside the milk bar. Casey was with Dylan and Jarrad, as he always seemed to be, leaning against the same brick wall where Matt had confronted him. Levi’s first instinct was to look away. But then he didn’t. He simply kept walking.

There were no butterflies. No sudden pull in the chest. No rush of guilt or fascination. The feeling that had once arrived uninvited every time he saw that face was simply gone. What remained was a clear, flat recognition: Casey was trouble, and the trouble was no longer his.

The realisation was so quiet it almost surprised him.

***

Two days later Levi ran into Tony Scott and his partner, Aaron, on the footpath outside the post office.

Tony was carrying a handful of mail and looking as relaxed as he always seemed to be. They exchanged the usual small talk – the trip, Matt’s leg, how the coast was treating him. Aaron mentioned that with their work beginning to pick up, he and Zack could do with some help mowing lawns. Then Tony tilted his head slightly.

‘I heard you were helping Father Costas with his garden, Levi.’

‘Yes, I am. It’s good to get my hands dirty, and . . . and Father is good to talk to. He always seems to have the answers I need.’

‘I’m sure he does,’ Tony replied.

‘So, if you like getting your hands dirty, the offer is still there for some work if you’re keen,’ Aaron said. ‘I could get Zack to call in and see you when he’s looking for an extra set of hands with the mowing. It’ll be a paying job, of course.’

‘Sure. I’d like that,’ Levi replied. ‘Thank you.’

‘And your dad was telling us about your involvement with the church back home,’ offered Tony. ‘Does helping out the community seem like something you might want to get involved with?’

‘I . . . I’m not sure. I think it’s good if people help out where they can, especially for people who are less fortunate.

‘Well, you know about the youth charity we have in Mac Harbour that I sponsor, don’t you? Aaron and I are always on the lookout for someone to help out,’ he said. ‘We provide a safe haven for gay kids who’ve got nowhere safe to go. Mostly young blokes who’ve been kicked out or run away, for a multitude of reasons. We’re always short of people who can just talk to them. No big speeches. Just providing a presence. Strictly friends only . . . someone for them to listen to, or to listen to them. You ever feel like coming along one afternoon, you’d be most welcome. No pressure though.’

Levi felt the familiar internal flinch – the clash between the invitation and the beliefs he was still trying to hold onto. He didn’t know what to do with the idea. Helping at the church felt clear and sanctioned. This felt far more . . . complicated.

‘I . . . I’ll think about it,’ he said.

Tony smiled as if that answer was enough. ‘That’s all I’m asking, mate. Like I said, no pressure at all, but I know some of the boys might like hearing from someone their own age, instead of us old farts that run the joint.’

They parted ways and Levi walked to where his bike was locked up, and then rode home, with the suggestion sitting in the back of his mind like a stone he wasn’t ready to pick up or throw away.

To every thing there is a season, he thought, the old words rising unbidden. And a time to every purpose under the heaven. He didn’t have to decide anything tonight, he knew that, but Tony’s suggestions had certainly given him something to think about.

***

He had told them over dinner about his discussion with Tony and Aaron in town and had also mentioned that he was thinking about it.

‘I think it’d be good for you,’ Luke suggested. ‘It might give you a different perspective about what gay teens actually go through . . . you might see that what they go through at the hands of their supposed family and friends, and that indeed is far more than you could ever imagine.’

Levi thought for a moment before asking, ‘Tony said that he was kicked out by his mum, didn’t he?’

‘Yeah. My Aunt Margaret . . . she turned out to be a cow of a thing . . .’

‘A what?’ Levi asked, almost spitting out his drink.

‘You heard him,’ Matt said, with a hint of mischief in his voice. ‘She was a bitch of a thing.’

Even Luke got a chuckle out of that line. Levi grinned.

The distance between him and his father had not disappeared completely, but it had definitely changed shape, while elsewhere, his friendships were slowly finding their feet again, and the pull towards Casey had finally burned itself out. His questions about faith and attraction, and what sort of person he was becoming, were still there, but they no longer felt like they were threatening to drown him.

Later that night, after dinner, he sat in a garden chair in the backyard and looked up at the dark shape of the hills beyond the town. Matt was inside with his leg propped up, complaining about having to keep his leg elevated and arguing mildly with Luke about the proper way to stack the dishwasher. The ordinary, homely, sound of it was strangely comforting.

Thanks to Tony and his family, who had seemed to take an interest in him, several new possible doors had been pointed out for him – the invite to help with lawn mowing that had been made to him at the Bayview party, and the suggestion he could be useful at the charity for gay teens. It was all providing Levi with a sense of self-worth that he was unfamiliar with. He didn’t know yet whether he would walk through either of these doors, or even if he could walk through them. For now though, it was enough that the ground under his feet was feeling steadier than it had in weeks. There was no quicksand waiting to swallow him up. He had been shown a way to stand on his own two feet, and he liked that feeling.

After a while he gave a contented sigh, then got to his feet and went back inside. His two dads were sitting on the same couch, with Matt leaning back against Luke, who had his arms around his partner, while they watched a movie. It wasn’t so long ago that this scene had made him uncomfortable, but now . . . now he was totally fine with it.

His father had once told him that it’s only love. At the time that seemed so wrong. But now . . . yeah, he was beginning to see that, and in a way that he never thought would be possible, it kind of warmed his heart.

To be continued . . .