The Box - 20. Chapter 20

July 10, 1999

“I am sorry to cut our trip short,” I told them as we drove to the airport. We were all packed and ready at the agreed upon time, which was pretty impressive for six gay guys.

“That’s alright, this is much more interesting,” Matt said. It was Wade and Matt who were losing out on this deal. They were being cheated out of a week in Paris.

“I will make it up to you,” I said.

“Good. I can think of a way,” Matt flirted. Robbie gave him a dirty look, but he’d learned to ignore that. I just winked at him. He had a way about him; he always made me feel young and attractive. What a pleasant young man.

“And I owe you as well, Wade. You have been an invaluable help on this trip.” I patted his knee for emphasis and got a smile in return. He would never admit it, but he thrived on praise, on being appreciated.

We had expected to leave right away yesterday, but a call to assemble the flight crew revealed that the Falcon was unexpectedly grounded with a maintenance problem. Of all the times for this to happen, now was just about the worst. I was pretty irritated, but I love my plane, and it’s always been reliable. Not even JP is reliable all the time, I thought, making myself giggle. In any event, it was pretty easy to fix. They’d flown a new part in and fixed it last night, which is why we were zipping to the airport to fly out now.

We had abandoned our vacation mindset and made the most of our time yesterday. Matt and Wade headed into Hamilton to learn what they could about Papua New Guinea. Brad returned to fretting over Amphion while Robbie focused on reading a script proposal for a film project he was considering. JP disappeared to make another edited copy of the diary while I set about getting our travel arrangements changed.

“So what’s our plan?” Brad had asked, cutting through the niceties. We’d been discussing all kinds of things last night, and hadn’t really finalized anything.

“We must go find Aaron, of course,” I said.

“I think we need to see Nathan first,” JP observed. “He’s the other player in this drama. He may want to go with us to New Guinea. If we find Aaron, it would be useful to have one of his brothers there.”

“What about Frank?” I asked. It seemed that Frank would be the logical choice.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Robbie said nervously. “I talked to my dad last night. He wasn’t real happy.”

“Not interested in finding his long lost brother?” Frank could be so gruff sometimes.

“You are assuming a lot,” JP intervened. “You are assuming that he is alive, and that is a long shot in itself. Even if he did make it to this island, he’d be in his 70s now. Not everyone lives forever.” I tried to interrupt him but he stopped me by continuing. “But let us go with those assumptions, and pretend that Aaron did fake his own death and did in fact make it to this island. Frank’s life growing up was a living hell because of Aaron’s decision.”

“He said if Aaron were alive, he’d probably kill him himself,” Robbie said sadly. “He blames his father’s abusive behavior for the way his brothers and their families have turned out. He said that a whole lot of people suffered for Aaron’s choice to enlist, not to mention his choice to fake his own death.”

“It seems that everyone is reaching a lot of conclusions when we’re not even sure he survived, and that he went there,” Wade observed. We all agreed with him, yet the desire to speculate was overwhelming.

“We have some planning to do before we leave. “Do you know where Nathan lives?” I asked Robbie.

“I got his address from my dad,” he said. “He lives in Troy, Michigan, near Detroit.”

“What is Nathan like?” Brad asked.

“My dad says he doesn’t know him very well. He moved to Detroit and went to work for Chrysler right after the war.”

“Guess all that work on Aaron’s Dodge paid off,” Matt chirped.

“Guess so,” Robbie agreed. “He’s got two kids, a son and a daughter, and lives in the suburbs. He’s retired now. My father said he never saw him much growing up. After that big fight with Jeff, where my dad beat up his father, none of his brothers would talk to him. Nathan must have gotten the story from them, because he wrote my dad off too.”

I told the pilots to get us into the nearest airport to Troy and to get all the logistics and government clearances for our access to Los Negros. Ground transportation and accommodations would be arranged by the time we needed them. The plane began to taxi, and we were airborne in no time. The flight to Michigan took only two and a half hours, but with the time change, we arrived shortly after noon. There was a car waiting for us. I gave them the address and sat back, pretending to be calm.

“So we’re just going to show up?” Matt asked me. “Isn’t that kind of rude?”

“Yeah, like you’re the master of etiquette,” Wade said.

“Dude, I know which fork to use,” Matt joked back.

“If he slams the door in our face, we will go on,” I said simply. I didn’t think he would, especially since I looked so much like my father. I was more worried that I’d give him a heart attack. The limo drove through a nice neighborhood, probably the kind of neighborhood a person would envision when they thought of middle-class America. The houses were older, built in the 1960s or so, and looked to be about 1500 square feet. To a one, they were meticulously maintained, with perfectly trimmed lawns and nice landscaping. Norman Rockwell would have a field day with this place, I thought to myself.

We pulled up to a normal looking house, with several cars parked out front. We could see smoke from the back yard, smoke from a barbecue. “Looks like we may be crashing a party,” Brad said.

“Then there will be food here,” Matt said. Wade’s eyes got big at the mention of food. Those two were like human garbage disposals.

“You must be careful not to eat too much or you will get fat like your father,” I teased.

“I am not fat,” Robbie asserted, making us all laugh.

“I don’t think we should all go up to the door,” JP said. “Stefan, I think you should go with Robbie. We don’t want to overwhelm them.” I could see how irritated Brad was by that, but it made sense. Robbie had that classic Hayes look, so he would validate our presence.

“Very well,” I said. The limo had attracted attention. There probably weren’t a lot of limousines that cruised these streets. Robbie and I walked up to the front door, both of us somewhat nervous, and I rang the bell.

An older lady, probably in her 70s, answered the door. She eyed us both up and down, and then looked beyond us to the limo. “Can I help you?” Her tone was not very friendly.

“We would like to see Nathan Hayes. Is he here?” I asked. She looked at us hard, especially Robbie, as if she was trying to figure out who we were.

“Come on in,” she said, ushering us in to their living room. “Nate!” she shouted. She got no answer, which frustrated her. “Wait here, I’ll go get him.”

The room looked like it had been decorated in the late 1970s and had not been updated since then. There was a couch and a loveseat, done in a gold pattern, green carpet that was sculpted, and an upright piano with pictures on it. One was of Nathan and what must be his wife when they were married. The others were of their family: children and grandchildren. The house had a musty smell, with a hint of mothballs.

“I’m in the middle of barbecuing, God damn it,” we heard a man grouse as the back door slammed shut.

“Steven can handle that,” she said. Steven? Who was Steven? He walked into the room and all three of us froze. The man in front of me was obviously Nathan Hayes, but the years had not been kind to him. His brown hair was white, at least what was left of it. He was large, probably about 250 pounds, which for a short man like him made him almost round in shape, and his skin was leathered, which told of lots of time spent either in the sun or smoking cigarettes, or both.

“Steven?” he asked me softly. My heart went out to this guy who had been in love with my father.

“Steven Schluter was my father,” I said. “I am Stefan Schluter.”

“I’m sorry, you look so much like him,” he said, and shook my hand. The sadness in his eyes was obvious.

“It is not a problem. This is Robbie Hayes. He is your brother Frank’s son,” I said, introducing Robbie.

He shook Robbie’s hand and got gruffer, almost like Frank. “Nice to meet you Robbie. How’s your father?”

“He’s doing well, thank you,” Robbie said.

“So what brings you two here?” he asked.

“Actually there are six of us,” I told him. “We were on vacation when we were detoured to Claremont. It seems they discovered some of my father’s things.” That made him visibly nervous.

“Have a seat,” he said. “Can I get you a beer?”

“No, I’m fine,” I told him as we sat down. “My father kept a diary, starting when he turned sixteen until he was killed.” I felt the tears well up at my mention of his death.

Nathan looked really nervous now. “Did he talk about me?”

“Quite a bit,” I told him. “It is not something you will want to share with anyone else until you have read it yourself. In fact, only the six of us, and you and Frank, know about it.”

He nodded. “You said there are six of you? Who else is with you?”

“My partner, JP Crampton, and Robbie’s partner, Brad, along with Robbie’s son, Matt, and his partner Wade,” I said.

“JP is here?” he asked, his face having lit up at the mention of JP. “Wait a minute. Partners? You mean all six of you are gay?”

“We are,” I said. He had that look that straight men were supposed to get when they talked about gay men. I gave him a frosty look. “My father was most descriptive in his diary.” That seemed to put an end to his attitude. He sat there, saying nothing, just staring at us as if to digest what I told him. His wife strode into the room, looking irritated.

“Do you need anything?” she asked. That seemed to pull him out of his mood.

“This is Stefan Schluter, and my nephew, Robbie Hayes. They were in Detroit and decided to stop in and visit,” he said, his voice friendly but firm. He turned back to us. “Why don’t you go get the rest of your group and invite them around back? There will be six more of us, Honey.”

“That is most hospitable of you,” I said. “Robbie, will you go get the others?” He nodded and went off to get our group, while Nathan’s wife went to prepare her family for these unexpected interlopers. Now that we were alone, I moved over and sat next to Nathan. “We think there is a chance Aaron is alive.”

“Aaron? My brother Aaron? That’s impossible!” he said.

“He wrote to my father and told him that he wanted to run off to some island where the two of them could live,” I said. “We think he may have left a clue about which island.”

“They were together, lovers?” he asked.

I nodded. “I will lend you a copy of his diary to read. He loved you too.” It sounded lame.

“But Aaron was killed!” Nathan asserted.

“His body was never actually identified,” I explained. “We are on our way to New Guinea to find out if he did in fact survive. I would like you to consider joining us.”

“You want me to drop everything and buy a ticket to New Wherever?” he asked.

“I own a private plane, so you will not have to do anything but pack a few things,” I said.

“I don’t know if I can do that,” he objected.

JP had taken the diary and cut and pasted together a copy for Nathan that omitted any references that didn’t concern him. I handed it to him. “I am going to lend this to you. Try to find a few minutes to scan it. Then you can let me know. In the meantime, we should go help everyone get acquainted.”

He led me through his house to the backyard where there were several people, clearly his family members, eying the five men who had just crashed their party. “JP!” Nathan said excitedly. He rushed toward JP and pushed his hand away, giving him a big hug instead. “It’s been years!”

“It has been,” JP said, trying not to be awkward. It was too funny. I walked over to his family members and introduced myself to his children and grandchildren, and even met his great grandson, a little boy about three years old. He’d named his son Steven, clearly as a tribute to my father, and I found that touching. One of his grandsons was about the same age as Matt and Wade, so the three of them hit it off pretty well. It was funny to watch these people adapt to six fags breezing into their lives. In the end, they were very nice. It made me wonder if the key to eliminating homophobia was to have straight people like this meet and get to know gay people, to see that they really are the same.

They’d made lots of food, fortunately, but I still felt bad for imposing. It seemed to work out. After we were done eating, I noticed that Nathan had vanished. He was gone for about an hour. I headed in to use the bathroom and I ran into him, literally, in the hall. He looked distraught.

“I read it,” he said.

“I can tell,” I told him. “You must not look like this when you go out back.” He nodded, and I watched him physically pull himself together.

“When are you leaving?” he asked.

“Whenever you are ready to go,” I said.

“I’ll need to talk to Bernice,” he said. That was his wife. “She won’t be happy about it.”

I thought about inviting her along, but she really wasn’t all that friendly. In fact, she was pretty shrewish. “I will leave you to handle her then,” I said cheerfully. He eyed me dubiously but nodded.

We returned to the party and I saw him pull his son and daughter off to the side and talk to them for quite a while. Then he went into the house and I heard loud voices coming from the kitchen. His daughter-in-law and granddaughters, who had been helping Bernice clean up, came back outside with raised eyebrows. Half an hour later, Nathan came outside. “I’ll meet you out front. Give me a few minutes to say goodbye to everyone.” I nodded and got our group together, then headed out to the limo. Nathan joined us fifteen minutes later, and we began our trek to New Guinea.

Nathan seemed nervous by his surroundings when we climbed into the plane, but that didn’t last long as we began to pull his story out of him. He’d been devastated by my father’s death, and by Aaron’s, so after the war, he decided to try and not dwell on their deaths by getting away from Claremont and their memories and moving to Detroit. He got a job working for Chrysler, and got married and raised a family. He had forgotten, or so it seemed, that he liked to fuck men, but I got the distinct feeling that he was hiding some less than open encounters in the later years. None of us thought fit to pry.

JP took him on a lengthy trip through his own interaction with the Hayes family, including the tragic death of Jeff. It was interesting that much of what he told Nathan seemed new to him.

“I’ll have to call your father and apologize for being such an ass,” he told Robbie. “Those bastards are worthless anyway.”

“Why did you believe them?” Robbie asked. “You knew how mean Grandpa was.”

“I didn’t really know how much your father had changed,” Nathan told him. “He was an asshole too, so none of them had much credibility. I tried to keep my own family as far away from them as possible.” It seemed like a good strategy. We slept on the plane, then stopped in Hawaii so the pilots could get their requisite break and we could as well, then we boarded the plane for the long, final leg to New Guinea.

I’d fallen asleep so I was surprised when Celeste, the flight attendant, woke me up. “The pilots asked me to tell you that we’ll be landing in thirty minutes. They say this is a relatively obscure place, so there’s no car to hire.”

“We shall make do as best we can,” I said as I wiped the sleep out of my eyes.

“Brandon did find a place for all of us to stay,” she said cautiously. “I hope that is alright with you?”

I smiled at her. “If you are willing to risk being in the same place with those two wolves, I am fine with it,” I said, gesturing to Matt and Wade, who were sleeping on one of the sofas.

“They’re harmless,” she said with a grin. We landed and found a delegation waiting for us, so rare were travelers to this location. They’d managed to pull together a couple of cars to lug us the few miles to our ‘place’, such as it was. More like a hut with a bathroom. We got ourselves situated while I cornered one of the locals who spoke simple English.

“We are looking for an American who lives here,” I said.

“I think not any Americans live here,” he said, his eyes crafty.

“Let me try and help your memory,” I said, and handed him a $100 bill.

“Is possible I remember,” he said slyly.

“How many of these bills would it take to bring your memory back?” I asked. “Perhaps I should ask someone else?”

That flustered him. “Two bills fix memory.”

“I will give you three, and you take us to him,” I said, extending my hand. He smiled and shook it, then went to round up the driver. There was only room for three people in the car, so Nathan, JP, and I went. Brad was not happy about that at all.

“I can squeeze in,” he said.

“No you cannot. Besides, I need you here in case something goes wrong,” I said. “I trust you to get us out of any scrape.” Somehow, having an important role seemed to placate him. So the three of us piled into a beat up old Land Rover and headed out of the village.

“What is the name of the American who lives here?” I asked.

“Andrew Hawkins,” he said. “He live here many years, since war is over.”

“What does he do?” I asked.

“He fix cars, but now he retire,” he said. Working on the Dodge had helped him out too.

The roads were hideous, and we were thrown about so much it was hard not to vomit. We climbed up a hill, and then descended to the other side. The driver suddenly swerved onto what did not look like a road at all. We wound down what seemed like nothing more than a path until we came upon a little house. I paused to look at it, at the scenery. It was beautiful: A little house, or hut, overlooking a sparkling inlet with a nice beach. There was a native-type boat pulled ashore, with a fishing rod hanging out of the bow.

We got out of the car and walked to the house, when JP had the clarity of thought to pay the driver to wait for us. Apparently, “Andrew” had heard the car coming, and he arrived at the door at the same time I did. He didn’t see JP or Nathan; his eyes were fixed on me.

I looked at him, at this man, and knew without question it was Aaron Hayes. If it weren’t for the expression on his face, his eyes alone, those beautiful blue eyes, would have given it away. But even in his 70s, his good looks hadn’t been erased. He looked thin and fit; it was only his skin that was old, having been exposed to the relentless, tropical sun for years. It looked like leather, lined and wrinkled.

He surged forward and grabbed me, hugging me, almost squeezing the breath out of me. “Steven, I’ve waited all these years for you. Every day that goes by, I hoped you’d make it, that you’d get here.” I felt so bad for him; I just hugged him back and stroked his back. Then I felt him tense up. “Nathan?”

He let me go then, and the two brothers looked at each other. So much emotion played across their faces, I was absorbed in trying to read them both simultaneously. The physical distance between them was like the emotional chasm that separated them. I watched as they struggled with this encounter, until they put it aside. Aaron moved toward him carefully, and Nathan responded, pulling him into a big hug. They held each other for the longest time, tears flowing from their eyes. Not that JP and I weren’t crying too. They finally pulled themselves apart.

“JP, I’d recognize you anywhere,” Aaron said, pulling JP into a hug. “You were so cute as a little boy, and you’re still cute now.” I laughed as JP blushed. “Too bad you couldn’t have tracked me down all by yourself.” It was too funny. “So you’re not Steven.”

“I am not. I am Stefan. Steven was my father,” I told him.

“When did he father a kid? Who’s your mother? And where is Steven?” He asked these questions quickly, in a staccato fashion.

“He met my mother in Paris during the war and had a fling. I am the result,” I said cheerfully, then got somber. “He was killed fighting the Germans.”

He nodded and turned away, leading us into his house, where he collapsed onto a chair. “I was hoping he just didn’t want to give everything up to come out here, but I was worried that he didn’t make it.” Then he started sobbing, really sobbing. I couldn’t tell if he was sobbing because of my father’s death, or because he knew now that the dream would never come true, that my father would never make it here.

A young native man, probably in his thirties, came in, but Aaron snapped at him in the local tongue and he vanished quickly. “Why did you do it?” I asked.

“I knew I was queer. I tried to play it straight, to be with women, but it just didn’t work. I knew that if I went back home I’d end up being exposed, and then my whole family would hate me. I couldn’t do that to my father, I just couldn’t. If he knew one of his sons was queer, he’d lose it. I just couldn’t face them, face everyone.” He was babbling now, and it almost made me laugh to think how much he sounded like Robbie. “I built this dream in my mind, that Steven and I would find each other here and live our lives together. We’d be happy but anonymous. The dream was so real, I made it my reality. Only I didn’t have Steven.”

“And you ended up hurting Dad worse than if you’d have come home and sucked a guy’s dick in front of him,” Nathan said angrily.

“What do you mean?” he demanded.

“You were his favorite. When you were killed, he lost it, went nuts. Then he found out Mom signed your enlistment papers, and spent the next thirty years beating the shit out of her, and the rest of our brothers too. We tried to get Frank to come here with us, but he’s so pissed at you he refused,” Nathan said coldly. I thought it was a little harsh, even if it was true, and I was about to intervene, but JP gave me a look that told me to let it play out.

Aaron looked at him, then at us, then back at Nathan, and just shook his head. “Oh no. Oh no. No.” Then he became inconsolable. He just sobbed and sobbed. I sat next to him and put my arm around him. He pushed me away but I wouldn’t go, so finally he grabbed onto me instead, treating me like a life preserver. I heard the door slam as Nathan left, so mad he couldn’t bear to be here anymore.

“Aaron, can you drive Stefan back to town?” JP asked him. When he didn’t get an answer, JP grabbed his hair roughly, forcing him to look up, and asked him the question again. He just nodded.

“I’m going back to town with Nathan,” JP told me. “Ease his pain.”

I nodded, knowing what I needed to do, and knowing that I was just the right person to do it. I tore myself away from Aaron, stood up, and held out my hand. “Show me to the bedroom,” I told him.

He got up and led me to another room with a bed that was hard, like it was made from native fibers banded together. He watched me, his eyes growing larger and larger, as I took off my clothes. I stood in front of him then, very naked, and smiled as his eyes took in my body. I walked over to him and took off his clothes, item by item, until he was as nude as I was. I reached down and stroked his dick, and even at his age it was hard as a rock, just like my father described in his diary. His mouth was on mine, and I felt his body and his mind surge.

“I’ve waited so long for you,” he said as he pushed me onto the bed. He pushed my legs back, and lubed me up, then entered me slowly, with a degree of care that was touching. “I waited so long for you to get here, Steven.”

“Make love to me like you did at the cabin,” I told him. “Like that night when you came into my room.” And then he was transformed into the 17-year-old man that had first fallen in love with my father. For me, it was sex, really good sex, but just sex. For him, it was the climax of the last 50 years of waiting, the chance to be with the man he loved one more time. He seemed to sense that because he took his time, really making it last, and when he came, it was like an avalanche. He collapsed onto me after he was done, panting and sweating, while I lovingly stroked his hair and his back.

“Why?” he asked.

“My father loved you more than himself. You were very special to him. I know how much you loved him. It was my way of letting you say goodbye to him.”

He kissed me lovingly. “Thanks.”

“I need to share something with you,” I told him. I got up and walked across the room naked to grab my pants. I could feel his eyes on me as I went. I took out a copy of the diary, the one JP had made for him, assuming we found him, and handed it to him.

“What is this?”

“My father kept a diary,” I told him.

“I didn’t know that,” he said.

“Tonto, his mother, got it for him on his 16th birthday.”

“I remember that one,” he said smiling. “Man, your grandmother was hell on wheels. I remember how pissed off she was when he didn’t get a car. She fixed that problem up pretty damn fast.”

I laughed, remembering Tonto, and then lay back in the bed with him while he read. And he read. And he read. Most of the time he spent crying, although there was significant anger, jealousy in his eyes when he read about Nathan, and embarrassment when he read that Steven had figured out that Nathan had fucked Aaron too.

“I can’t believe I treated him like that, left him guessing for so long that I loved him. What a stupid ass I was!” he said, almost inconsolable.

“He figured it out in the end,” I told him. “He really loved you, and you made him very happy.”

“Yeah, only I was so determined to go fight the fucking Japs, I left before I had to. Who knows, if I hadn’t dragged him off, he might not have been killed.”

“It is hard to speculate on that, but it is also possible that I would not be here today, so I must, for purely selfish reasons, feel good that you did what you did,” I said playfully.

“He would have been proud of you,” Aaron told me, making me cry again.

“Thank you,” I said. Then I pushed him onto his stomach and fucked him this time, going slow like he did, letting him slip into his fantasy one last time.

“That one was because you wanted to, admit it,” he said with a grin, exposing the playful man that had so bewitched my father all those years ago. We laughed at that, then we got up and started to put our clothes on. “I need to take you back.”

“What about you? Why not come back with us?” I asked.

“No, this is my home now. This is where I belong. Besides, I’d go back and see what damage I caused, how I’d ruined so many lives, and the guilt would overwhelm me.”

“I want to tell you about the little brother that you never met,” I said. I told him all about Jeff, about how he lived and died, and then I told him about how Frank intervened in that fight after the football game so many years ago. I told him about Robbie and his problems with his cousins, and I told him about Matt.

When we got back to the cottage, he got to meet all these people I’d told him about. It was largely oblique for Brad and Wade, they had no real ties with him. For Robbie and Matt, it was more significant.

“You look so much like I did, when I was young and handsome,” he said to Robbie.

Robbie eyed him warily. “I look like my father.”

“I guess now that you found me, it gives you someone to direct all your anger and disappointment at,” Aaron said bitterly.

“I think you deserve it,” Robbie said. “My father wouldn’t come because he said even if we found you, he’d kill you with his own hands.”

Aaron looked beyond Robbie to where Nathan stood, arms crossed, glaring at him. “I probably do. I thought my father would hate me for being queer, but I figured that if I died in the war, maybe even as a hero, he’d at least be proud of me, and he’d have that memory. I didn’t know he’d react that way. I didn’t know he’d hurt Mom. I thought you would all be better off without having your queer brother around. I really did. I thought it would make your lives easier. If I’d known it wouldn’t, I would have come back and faced the music. God!” He broke down crying again, but no one said anything, we just stared while he slowly got himself under control. “There’s nothing I can do about any of that now. Nothing except feel like shit about it, and I do, and to tell you how sorry I am. And I really am sorry. Tell your father I said that. Even if he won’t forgive me, at least he’ll know I feel like shit about what I did.”

“I’ll tell him,” Robbie said, relenting enough to give him a stunted hug.

Then the rest of us seemed to fade into the background, and it was just Nathan and Aaron, facing each other. “You want me to forgive you, to give you absolution?” Nathan asked.

“Sure I want that, but I don’t expect it,” Aaron said. He didn’t back down like he did with Robbie. Maybe it was because he found out my father slept with him. “I told you I’m sorry, and I mean it. You tell me how to make it up to you, I will. You can go home knowing that I feel like a piece of shit. Will that make you happy?”

“No, it won’t,” Nathan said, pissed off. “I think it’s important for you to know what your actions caused. You deal with it however you want.”

Aaron swallowed hard. “I really am sorry Nathan. I really was selfish, selfish beyond belief. I hope I’ve done better for people in these later years.”

Nathan nodded, then relented and gave him a big hug, a long hug. Nathan had cooled down enough to make a pretense at forgiving him, although I think we all knew it wasn’t that easy.

We all sat in the hut and heard Aaron’s story. He told us how he swapped his dog tags with a man who had been obliterated by an artillery shell and worked his way back to New Guinea. Then he’d deserted and hidden until the military was gone, and slowly built a life for himself among the natives.

After that, it seemed as if we had gone into the past far enough, as if we had ripped those old scabs off more than they needed to be, so Aaron left. He walked out the door, got into his old truck, and simply vanished back into the jungle, back into obscurity, just as he’d done on Pelelieu all those years before.

July 16, 1999

“Did you spend much time here when you were growing up?” I asked JP as we drove down the dirt road on our way to the cabin.

“A few times,” he said. “I think this was Steven’s special place, and after he died, no one really spent much time out here.”

“The property is worth quite a bit of money now,” I observed. “It is still owned by Tonto’s trusts.” The lake had become a prime recreation spot, and the assessed value of the acreage here had climbed in the past ten years.

“How are you doing with all of this?” he asked. I smiled. I’d been waiting for him to say something, to ask me about it, but he’d been biding his time. I could have just brought it up, but it was fun to torture him once in a while.

“I am actually feeling very good about it,” I told him honestly. “I never knew my father. All I had were remembrances from Tonto, and she did not like to talk about him too much. Other than that, the only tangible things about him were his pictures or artifacts from his life. For the first time, I actually feel like I know who he was, the man he was.”

“That’s probably more than a lot of sons get to do,” he said.

“You know what is even better?” I asked him. He looked at me, waiting for me to go on. “I really like the man he was. I read his diary, and I find that I would have made most of the same decisions he did. He was a good person, and he acted honorably.”

“Now I know that is something a lot of sons don’t get to say,” he said, smiling. “I think it is unfortunate that Aaron chose to fake his death and vanish like that.”

“Part of me can’t fault him for it, because being gay in the 1940s would have been very hard,” I said philosophically. “But he hurt a lot of people by avoiding it.”

“Do you think your father would have joined him in New Guinea if he would have lived?”

I’d thought about that a lot, so answering that question was pretty simple. “No, I do not. He would have had to fake his death as well, and he never could have done that to Tonto. I think he had much stronger ties to the community, and to do something like that would have gone against everything he was raised to respect.” I grinned at him. “Besides, he wanted to wait until you were older so he could fuck you.”

JP blushed, and was only saved from my merciless taunting by our arrival at the cabin. It was dilapidated, almost falling apart, and the woods had grown so much it looked as if they would take it over. We walked up to the door and went inside, but didn’t stay long. Most of the furnishings had been stolen, and what was left had been destroyed by the elements. We were about to leave when JP gestured toward an outlying building.

“What is that?” I asked.

“A barn, or a garage?” he asked back. We walked over to the building, which was as decayed as the cabin, and opened the door carefully. There, sitting in front of us, was a pale yellow, 1941 Packard 8 convertible. “Tonto must have stored it out here when he left. Maybe the demand for cars during the war was high, and she didn’t want to be forced to sell it.”

I smiled and walked around it, marveling at how perfect it still was. I got in the driver’s seat and tried to visualize my father behind the wheel. “I will have it restored, and we will have a weekend car,” I said.

He popped open the glove compartment, reached inside, and started laughing. “What is so funny?” I asked. He pulled out some condoms that my father had obviously stored there. I laughed with him, then stopped and smiled, as I felt as if I truly had known my father, and how happy I was that I had met him after all these years.