Death is Not an Option - 13. Chapter 13

Isaac

I keep waking up. For some reason it is always hard. This time at least I am not in pain. Well.... there’s the ever present headache, the soreness in my back, the burning from the IV lines, the throbbing in my arm... but apart from that... no pain. I am so tired. How can I be so tired when all I do is sleep? It’s not even as if there have been dreams this time, not any I can remember anyway.

As usual my awareness grows gradually, rising through the darkness slowly and, before I am close to being able to open my eyes I hear the voices. They are unfamiliar, male... close to me.

“So are you okay?”

“Sure. Why do you ask?”

“Because you haven’t said a word for more than fifteen minutes and that is very unlike you.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologise, you idiot. I know this is tough for you.”

“Tough? Yeah... I suppose. Not as tough on me as it’s been on him thought. What the fuck do you say to someone who’s just been through all that crap?”

“Hello?”

“That’s a good start I suppose. Then what?”

“Then you see how it goes. If he’s anything like you he’ll have enough to say for himself.”

“Like me? I wonder... He doesn’t look like me.”

“Bet you wish he did... no, I mean that you looked like him.”

“Hey, watch it. You know I’m the jealous type and I am not about to sit back and let my boyfriend’s head get turned by my baby brother... no matter how gorgeous he is.”

“As if. I’ve had eyes for no one but you since the moment I first saw you.”

What? Boyfriend? Baby brother? What.....?

“What...?”

“Isaac?”

It feels like my eyes are glued shut and it takes some work to get them open. Eventually I manage it and two faces swim into view. Yup... both men... definitely both men. So....?

“Who...? Um... I... Who are you?”

“That’s... not so easy to explain. My name is Jon. Um...” He shrugs looking a bit lost. He is nice looking, with dark hair that is long and smooth, tied back behind his head. He has little metal rings through his nose and lip. I have never seen that before, not in real life. I blink my eyes to clear them, wondering.

“Try me.”

“I’m... um... do you know about your parents Isaac? Do you know about your father?”

“My father? What... what has he... got to do with...? I don’t...” I blink again. It is so hard to think clearly. I am sick and tired of it; sick of the drugs and the weakness and the pain and most of all the bloody confusion.

“Well, the thing is... I don’t expect you to... I don’t know if.... Oh fuck it. I don’t know what to say to you, how to break it to you so I guess I should just... The thing is... the thing is Isaac that your father was my father too. I’m your brother.”

No way!! “You’re my brother?”

“Half brother but, hey, let’s not split heirs.” I smile at that, I can’t help it. It’s just my sense of humour. I find that I like this man. I don’t know him but I can tell that he is going to be easy to like, and not just because...

“You’re really my brother? Really? I didn’t know.”

“I know. We didn’t know about you either. If we had known about you we would have found a way to...”

“We?”

“I have a sister. You have a sister; and a grandmother: two uncles...one of them is a twat but the other’s okay... and the sweetest aunt ever. And I know that my mother isn’t your mother but she was a close friend of your mother. She remembers her very fondly. They all want to meet you, to help you as much as they can. You have a family now Isaac.”

Well damn! A family. I have a family. How do I feel about that? I don’t know. I have no idea what it means, what it means for me. A family.

“You are my brother.” A stupid thing to say, I know. But I have no idea what else to say, what to think.

“Yep. Always have been.”

“I... um... I...” I have to close my eyes. I can’t look at him any more. I can’t process everything. I can’t listen to his voice and think about his words and look into his face... I can’t do it all at the same time. It’s too much.

“It’s okay Isaac. I know it’s a lot to take in. It’s been a long time. Do you want us to go away so you can think about things?”

“No.” No... if they go away they might never come back. I have a brother. I HAVE A BROTHER. “No, don’t... don’t go. It’s just... I never knew. I never even knew you existed.”

“Didn’t they tell you anything about our father? Didn’t your mother?”

“My mother died when I was too young to remember her. I don’t even have a photograph. Until a few days ago I believed that both my parents were members of the community.”

“Didn’t you wonder? Didn’t you ask?”

“I wonder about a lot of things. I ask a lot of questions. But not about that. Children belong to the community and not parents. There are a lot of children who don’t know exactly who their parents are.”

“That’s awful.”

“Is it? It means that children who lose their parents young don’t have a disadvantage among children whose parents survive.”

Jon smiled. “Duly noted. “ I like his smile. I like everything I have seen about him so far... my brother.

My eyes flick to the other one, the quiet one. He looks nice too. He is smiling. He has a lovely smile. His eyes are very blue, they crinkle at the edges when he smiles. “Are you my brother too?”

He laughs, a rich laugh and the smile widens to light up his face. “No. Not yet.” He gives Jon a sideways look that obviously has a lot of meaning for them but passes straight over my head.

“I’m sorry Isaac. I should have introduced Sean earlier. He’s my boyfriend. He would like to be more, and he will one day but I’m far too sensible to go rushing into things until we’re settled.”

“Oh yes, far too sensible.”

They are teasing each other and I can’t follow it. My mind is still hazy, slow. Am I understanding this... am I...?

“Boyfriend?”

“Yes. We’ve been together for four years now.”

“Four years. I would call that settled wouldn’t you Isaac?”

“That’s not what I meant by settled and you know it. We need to be more financially settled before we think of marriage. We need at least to finish university.”

“Marriage?” I must sound like an idiot, repeating words. But I can’t get a handle on this. In the space of twenty minutes I acquire a brother, a family, and a whole new perspective. “You’re gay?”

“I bloody well hope he is otherwise he’s in major trouble for leading me on for the past four years.”

Jon drapes his arm across Sean’s shoulder. Sean turns his head towards him and he kisses him gently and briefly. I am finding this very hard to process. I don’t know why I am so shocked. It’s not that they are gay; it’s that they are so open about it, so unashamed, unembarrassed.

“Are you always like this?”

“Like what?”

“Well... um... You don’t seem to be... I’m not making much sense am I? I’m not usually like this. Everything is... It’s hard to believe that it’s only been a few days. Everything changed, then changed again and now....”

“Yeah. We heard it’s been really tough on you lately. You must be pretty confused eh?”

“Confused? I don’t know. Not... confused exactly... Everything’s buzzing about in my head. There’s so much going on. It’s hard to process, hard to... um... It’s not that I don’t know what’s going on, it’s more that I don’t know what it means for me.”

“I see. Well. It means that you have options my friend. More than you ever had before. You have people who are worried about you, who care about you, who want to help you. It means that you have a very rare opportunity. You have a life wiped clean. You can choose where you want to go, what you want to do.”

Woah... my head is spinning. This is too much. It’s scary. So many options, so much to understand, to cope with. Everything has changed, everything is different, so very different. I don’t know which way to turn. Having no options is hard, having so many is... in some ways harder.

Jon must have seen the turmoil in my face. I seem to attract people who can do that. I never seem to be able to hide anything. “It’s alright mate. You don’t have to make any decisions right away, none at all. You have some healing to do first. Let’s just concentrate on getting to know each other and on you getting better. You can ask me any question you like, talk about anything you like. We’ll take it easy, chill for a while and when they say you can get out of this place, then you can think about where you want to go.”

“Where do I want to go? I want to go home.”

“Home? To the community?”

The community? Hah! That has never been a home to me, never. It’s been a prison. A prison of the spirit. It crushed me. No... that’s unfair, not the community, Caleb. At the time he WAS the community but no longer. It’s all different now. But I don’t know it any more, I don’t know the people. The people I knew would never have betrayed me... they’re gone now. There are only strangers. I shake my head.

“Then where?”

I look up at him. His eyes are dark, like mine. They are serious and sincere, but then I have seen eyes like that before, so sincere, so caring, so concerned. Eyes of a betrayer. How can I trust anyone now? Even so. He is my brother.

“I don’t know.” I am frustrated by the tears that and running down my face. I didn’t want to cry. Not now, not in front of them. I want them to like me. Suddenly it is really important that they like me. I raise my hand to wipe them away. Jon catches in and holds on. He has a strong grip.

“I swear to you Isaac that I will help you find a home. Whether it’s with us, with your family or somewhere else, I will help you find a home. I don’t know you and you don’t know me, but you are my brother. Your father was my father. His blood flows in both of us, his genes are the same in you and in me. Whether we grow to love each other, or hate each other, whether you are saint or sinner... I know which one I am...” He grins a wicked grin which, despite myself, makes me smile. “I WILL help you find a home.”

I believe him. I don’t know why but I do. I can't help it. It’s something about his eyes, his smile... they are honest. Not that I am the best judge these days. A home. My home. I nod. It’s all I can do. I can’t speak. There is something in my throat, a weight on my chest that is uncomfortable but not painful.

“The doctor...um... Richard? He said that you have been a little confused by the things that have happened to you.”

“He did?” WHAT!! What did he say? Is he supposed to do that, to tell people what we talk about? Has he been discussing me? With whom? I am suddenly blazingly angry. How dare he? It was hard, so hard, to tell him those things, to tell him how I felt and he... Dammit to hell. When am I going to learn? When am I going to realise that I just can’t trust anyone.

I really should have learned by now. After everything that’s happened, if I had learned nothing else I should have learned that. I lived at the community for nineteen years. For nineteen years I lived with people, grew up with them, trusted them. They were my family, my friends. They cared for me. They cared as much as anyone could and still, STILL they betrayed me, still they lied and betrayed me and abandoned me. If they could do that anyone could. I can’t trust anyone. This proves it. For a moment I thought that I could trust Jon, my brother. But I can’t. I can't trust anyone.

“Yes.” Jon’s eyes are narrowed, he sees more than I am comfortable with him seeing so I turn my face away. His voice is very gentle when he speaks again. “Don’t worry Isaac, he didn’t go into any details. He just told us that what happened to you has thrown up a lot of issues that you are having trouble dealing with, that’s all. Anything above that is purely conjecture on our part.”

Can I believe him? Can I? Maybe...maybe Richard didn’t betray me, but what if he did? What if they are both lying? What if...? Can I live like this? Can I live with no trust in my heart, no belief, not in anything? Do I... do I let myself believe or...?

“Yes. There’s been a lot...to... a lot to think about.”

“I can’t imagine. You’ve been through so much. I can understand that it would be hard for you to talk about those things with a stranger... and I know that’s what I am. Apart from an accident of birth I am just a stranger to you. I know that I need to prove myself to you and it won’t surprise me in the least if you find it difficult to trust me. If I was in your place I think that I would find it hard to trust anyone.

“I don’t really know what happened to you. The hospital has filled me in on the outline but they can’t tell me the important things, they can’t tell me how you felt about what happened, how you feel. What happened is in the past, gone, finished. It’s what it’s done to you that’s important. Do you see that?”

I see that this man is clever, that he has a mind like mine. I see that he is getting under my skin and into my head. I see that he wants me to talk to him, that he wants me to be his friend. I don’t know why. I don’t see why he would go to this trouble if he isn’t genuine but people have all sorts of reasons for doing the things they do; some good, some bad; I do not trust my judgement to tell which.

“I suppose.”

“No, don’t tell me what you think I want to hear. Tell me what you think, what you feel.”

Are you crazy? Do you think I know what I think, what I feel? Can you see the drips, the drugs going into my body? Can’t you see by my eyes? I don’t know what I feel; I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what day of the week it is. Hell, half the time I am not even sure of my own name. If people didn’t keep saying it I’m sure I would forget.

“I don’t know.”

“Fair enough. That’s honest at least.” Honest? He wants me to be honest? I’ve just met him, my brother. I don’t know him, my brother. How can I trust him, my brother?

“I feel fragile. I feel like everything I knew to be true is false, everyone I trusted is false, everything I believed is false. I feel that I don’t know anything any more; I don’t trust anyone, not even myself. I feel brittle and cold and dead inside. I feel hurt and torn and...” I look up at him and he is smiling at me. It is a strange smile, a deep, understanding, sympathetic smile and suddenly... suddenly...

“I think I might be gay.”

Jon shrugged. “And?”

“And I don’t know what to do about it.”

“You’re not really in any condition to do anything about it just now.”

“I know but...”

“Okay... what makes you think that you might be gay?”

I feel confused now, really confused, for the first time. This was a huge thing for me, an enormous thing; something that I have been carrying inside me ever since the first stirrings when I was in prison. I have spent hours staring at the ceiling deconstructing my life, looking for clues that I was, clues that I wasn’t. And suddenly... suddenly here I am, releasing all the fear, the confusion, the doubt... to a stranger. And he is smiling at me and chatting as if we were discussing something that was no big deal.

I turn my eyes to Sean. He is looking at me with a sympathetic look on his face. Jon’s arm is still draped across his shoulders; his hand is resting on Jon’s hip. They are infinitely comfortable with each other. The thought occurs to me that maybe... just maybe... it doesn’t have to be a big deal.

Frowning I close my eyes and think about it. “At the community we were not allowed to... be intimate with anyone. We were not allowed to be alone with anyone of the opposite sex, not allowed to talk about anything lewd, not allowed to read books or watch television without permission and the things we read and watched were always screened.

“We worked hard, very hard. There was always something to do, ploughing, sowing, harvesting, and in the winter mending barns, decorating houses, building new ones. And I was given extra duties. I had to help the council with ‘outside issues’. I read books on law, business, tax, anything they were prepared to give me and I did all the paperwork.... for everything.

“When I did have time to myself I liked to be alone. Partly because it wasn’t allowed and partly because... because it satisfied a need in my soul. I didn’t know then what it means to be truly alone.” I am swept by an almost overpowering feeling of melancholy and tears well in my eyes. Jon puts his hand on my arm and I wince, it is my bad arm. He immediately moves it and takes my hand instead.

There is no awkwardness there, no self consciousness. It is the most natural thing in the world. Not that it hurts any less. My wrist screams from when it was wrenched, where the strap cut into it and the IV needle hurts, burns and is sensitive to the slightest touch. I steel myself not to pull away. I would not do that, not for anything. The touch is oddly comforting and that outweighs the pain.

“You’re not alone any more.”

“I know.” And I do. It is a strange feeling, ambiguous.

“So was there anything, when you were growing up, anything at all that made you think you might be gay?”

“There was nothing to make me think that I was anything at all. I didn’t have the opportunity. I have thought about it over and over and over but there was nothing I could think of, nothing that pointed either way.”

“So what was it that got you thinking of it in the first place?”

I stare at him, suddenly terrified. He wants me to tell him about prison, about what happened to me... he doesn’t know but he wants me to tell him and he doesn’t know why I can’t. Fear fills me as I stare at him, my eyes wide. The pain in my head is increasing to a degree that I am finding it harder and harder to think and there is a heavy feeling in my chest. I don’t know whether that pain is emotional or physical. Maybe I should be concerned but it is as nothing, nothing to the pain that comes with the fear.

“I....” The pain is choking me. I can’t speak. My words come out as harsh croaks and Jon looks concerned. He squeezes my hand.

“Do you need to stop? You don’t have to talk to me Isaac. You don’t have to tell me anything. I know you are not used to talking like this, not about this kind of thing. I know how hard it can be. I’ve had this conversation from the other side. Of course I had not been through half what you have but I didn’t have it easy in the beginning either.”

I can’t imagine Jon having this conversation or anything like it. He is so sure, so certain, so strong. But I suppose he was not always so. He was a child once. For some reason that thought makes me feel better, a lot better. I look up into his eyes, his big dark eyes so like mine. My brother.

Suddenly it all comes tumbling out. I had no intention of speaking but once I start I can’t stop. The words tumble over each other, faster and faster, jumbling, tumbling, falling over each other but he doesn’t interrupt. He seems to know that I can’t stop, that if I stop I will not be able to start again and it has to come out, like pus from a lanced abscess. Now I have started, it has to come out.

When I finish I stop. When the words run out there is nothing more. Jon’s eyes had widened as I spoke but he has kept silent and now he smiles.

“It’s alright Isaac. What happened to you was terrible. It was nothing but an abuse of power, a violation and an assault. There was nothing in it of love or compassion. It wasn’t even about sex, not really. You understand that.” It wasn’t a question but I nod. “The feelings you describe, the stirrings, the thoughts, the dreams.... they could have been brought on by the rapes, or by the fact that you were locked up, in your mind at the time for a long stretch, with other men.

“The fact is that what you have told me means nothing, not really. It is natural for all boys, gay and straight to experiment, to have these kinds of thoughts. You haven’t had any sexual experiences to compare. You may be gay, you may not. The trick is to be open. Be completely open and allow love to enter your heart in whatever way it will. Don’t look at the package but what it contains.”

I think about it. I think I understand. I think I do. But it doesn’t help. It doesn’t give me any answers only more questions. Questions on top of questions mixing with other questions raising more questions. My head aches with the questions. My mind buzzes with them, buzzing and buzzing and buzzing.

“Are you alright?”

“Alright?”

“You went very quiet.”

“I didn’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything. But you can. You can say what you want to, ask what you want. I will do my best to answer you.”

My mind is not working. There should be questions. In such a situation, there should be so many questions but there is nothing. There is only... blankness. I feel nothing. I think that every emotion there is has run through me since I first laid eyes on my brother, every one but they were fleeting, they didn’t stay and now they are gone. There is nothing, not even confusion, not anything.

“Isaac?”

“I... I feel...” What can I say to him? My brother. If I keep saying it often enough will it feel real? If I keep reminding myself that I have a brother, a sister, a family will I start to feel something about it? Why am I like this? Why don’t I feel something, anything?

I open my lips to speak but the words are gone before they reach them. There has to be something, something I feel, something I have to say, something.... something.... I am trying so hard, so hard. My jaw is clenched with the effort. I’m starting to shake to... to... Abruptly everything.... fades