CHAPTER EIGHTEEN #4
“Yes!” She let out an incredulous-sounding laugh. “I mean, that’s marriage goals, right? To be able to make it past something like that together? I don’t feel like that exists anymore.”
“It’s just rare, it was always rare, and people have more options than they used to. But you can still make it work.”
“You say this, but you’re literally getting divorced.”
“Because I’m gay,” Carver said, feeling stoned, and she laughed again. “No, really.”
“I know,” Conway said. “I know. It’s just to hear it out loud from you is so jarring.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. It feels good, though. Like now that I’ve started saying it, I can’t stop saying it.”
“Good, I think you should say it,” Conway said.
He twiddled the joint in his fingers and handed it back to her. “Did you always know?”
“Not until I got older and started hanging out with gay guys. Remember when you visited me at UMD my senior year, and you took me and a few of my friends out to dinner? After you left, Gavin told me he thought you were gay or at least bi. I just told myself you were probably bi.”
Carver remembered the dinner, but not Gavin. “What made him say that?” he said, feeling self-conscious and taking a handful of chips.
She shrugged. “He didn’t say. But I always thought you and Lillian worked, in your own weird way.”
“I guess we did ‘til we didn’t.”
She blew out smoke and stubbed the much-diminished joint out on the arm of the porch swing. “I know this probably isn’t comforting, but I’ve never even had that.”
Carver shook his head. “I don’t get this at all. You’re beautiful and sweet and smart. Are you looking for guys in the dumpster, or something?”
Conway giggled.
“I’m serious, where are you finding these guys?”
“Through the apps, or through my friends, or in bars, or whatever. But it’s bleak out there, seriously. And it’s hard for tall girls.”
“What? You’re not even that tall, you’re my height. You’re Lillian’s height. Are you trying to date midgets?”
“Midget is problematic to say.”
“Sorry. I work on Wall Street. How short are these guys?”
“Height isn’t the thing, okay? It’s just one thing. It’s like…” Conway trailed off. “I don’t know, a lot of guys are just mean. My last boyfriend was covertly mean, I didn’t even realize how mean until we were breaking up.”
“I think some guys just have something wrong with them. They hate themselves, that’s all.”
“Right, but where do you find guys who don’t hate themselves?”
“I don’t know. The soup kitchen? Like, volunteering?”
She laughed. “Maybe, yeah.”
“Did you get a chance to talk things out with Mom?”
“What do you think?”
“No?”
“Yeah, no. She said she loves me, and she’s sorry for the deception and any stress it’s caused me, and this is why she told Chip not to tell anyone, and then she referred me to the document.”
“Okay. Alright.”
“And she actually used you as a shield, when I said I was upset. She said, well, Carver has more reason to be upset, doesn’t he? She got this attitude of like, Chip and I are stealing valor from you.”
Carver started laughing. “What?”
“I know.”
“What if I told her you had my permission to be upset?”
“It wouldn’t matter, you know that,” Conway said with a wry smile.
“Right. It’s not actually about me.”
“Exactly.” She was quiet for a moment. “What was it like when you confronted them?”
Carver considered this. Even without the influence of weed, his memories of the previous night were already starting to dim and smear. “They were upset,” he said. “And kind of… I don’t know. I’ve never really seen them like that.”
“Never seen them that upset?”
“Yeah, but it was also like they were almost relieved to be able to confess. Like we were in an interrogation and they finally broke down and let it all out.”
“I can’t even imagine that,” Conway said, sounding disturbed.
“There were a few moments where we felt like equals. I don’t know if that makes any sense.”
“It does. You know, I think they’d only give that to you. Not me or Chip.”
Carver nodded. This felt intuitively true.
“I think it’s because they don’t feel like you belong to them as much,” she added.
“Yeah… yeah.” They were quiet for a moment, and then he said, “Did I hear you and Chip talking about hanging out on Thursday?”
“Do you want to come?” Conway said, her eyebrows shooting up. “You definitely can. I mean, you should text Maggie and make sure, but yeah, please. Come see us.”
Carver grinned at her. “This isn’t one of those fakeouts we do, like after Grandma Chapman died and we were all upset we’d run out of grandparents and promised we would see each other more often, and then we never did?”
“No, this is real, because we didn’t even actually like Grandma Chapman,” Conway said, and he laughed. “Also, I’m actually going to bother you to come hang out, because now I’m worried about you, and back then I thought you barely liked us.”
“Oh, Connie, come on,” Carver said, pained.
“Stop, it’s fine! Now I know I was picking up on the wrong thing, and even if you actually didn’t like us, now I understand why. But that’s all…” She flapped her hands in the air as if dispelling steam.
“You don’t have to worry about me.”
“I kind of do,” Conway insisted. “Just based on the objective facts of the situation. Like, not worrying would be negligent.”
“Okay. I guess.”
“I’m not going to bug you a ton, I promise.”
“You can bug me, if you want.”
She laughed and said, “I’ve missed you,” in a small voice, reminding him of the little girl she’d once been.
Carver thought with guilt about the cold war he’d waged with his parents as a teenager, which only got worse once Chip left for college and their attention wasn’t as split.
Conway had stepped back from the family as much as possible, spending all of her time out of the house or locked in her room painting, attending extra softball and volleyball practices or insisting on clipping her horse’s coat herself just so she could miss family dinners.
It must have been such a relief for her when he went away to college, but she loved him and felt sorry for him anyway, she didn’t blame him for how their parents felt about him.
He’d been too wrapped up in his own miseries to protect her, but she didn’t resent him for this the way he always privately feared she might.
“I’ve missed you too,” he said.
They were quiet after that, just swinging back and forth, enjoying being stoned in the nice weather.