Chapter 14 #2
Oscar approached, following her gesture to sit on the edge of the neatly made bed.
He didn’t say anything while Aaron put the sunflowers in a vase, then rummaged around a cupboard and brought out a pack of rainbow-chip cookies, scattering them on a paper plate on the bedside table.
He passed one to Oscar as he sat on the other side of him, facing his mother.
“This is Oscar,” Aaron said. “He’s my boyfriend.”
“Lovely, Oscar. To meet you,” Aaron’s mother said, her eyes a shock of aquamarine blue as her excitement spilled forth. “Work?” She glanced between him and Aaron, still smiling, reaching for a cookie.
“No. I met him at my top surgery appointment,” Aaron replied. “I…had that, too. Do you…I had that.”
“Right! How silly, of course I remember! How is it, my love?” she asked. Oscar had never met anyone with any type of dementia before, but it was clear as day to him that Gemma wasn’t entirely sure what Aaron was talking about.
“It’s going well, Mom. I’m okay. Better now.” Aaron tugged on his shirt, smiling down at his flat chest, then looked up at her. “See?”
“Lovely,” she said again, wrapping a hand around his.
She still wore her wedding ring. Oscar wondered if she loved Aaron’s dad, if she put up with him being an ass, or she just didn’t remember what he had been like. Aaron said he never visited much.
“You look good.” She glanced at Oscar then. “You too, dear. It sounds like the movies.”
Oscar had never been very good at introductions.
Especially not around people who were important to him, and this was Aaron’s mother.
But her words reminded him of Grandma, and when Grandma had said that, Oscar had made her laugh.
So instead of trying to come up with something clever, he eased into what he knew best: making an utter fool of himself.
“It’s like Cinderella,” he replied, realizing his grave error only when the words were already spilling out of him. “Except I dropped a couple boobs instead of a shoe.”
His skin crawled with embarrassment. Aaron paused munching beside him, cookie hovering in mid-air. And Gemma looked at both of them. Oscar waited for her to make some polite throwaway comment and pretend like this was going to be swept under the rug and forgotten.
But Gemma laughed. And it was music. Her eyes crinkled, tears running down her cheeks, mouth spread so wide she could have been his papa. She laughed with her heart, and Aaron melted beside him, leaning in and resting his head on his shoulder, munching away happily.
“Hold on to him, Ronnie,” she said as she calmed down.
“I will, Mom. I have every intention,” Aaron said. He slipped his hand into Oscar’s over his thigh, linking their fingers and pressing. “Oscar’s sense of humor is what won me over in the first place.”
“Actually, you were the funny one before the surgery,” Oscar replied.
“I thought you were attracted to my dashing looks and broody handsomeness.” He tilted his head back, flicking his hair, knowing full well he’d paint his face in white and blue and don a red ball on his nose if he could see the light sparking in Aaron’s eyes like this, if he could give him a happy moment with his mother.
“Broody, my ass,” Aaron replied. He lifted his head off Oscar’s shoulder, arching his eyebrows at him. “He’s a Golden Retriever puppy,” he said, turning to his mother.
“Oh, like Bessie. Do you remember Bessie?” Gemma replied. “Is home good?” She turned to Aaron again.
Oscar thought perhaps she had forgotten that Aaron didn’t live with his family anymore, but Aaron didn’t even miss a beat.
He told her about the place he now shared with Anna and Joe, taking breaks between each sentence, waiting for her to nod, and he seemed alright as he did it, finger sliding up and down Oscar’s palm, elbow brushing against his.
Oscar sat in on their conversation, feeling very much like he should walk out to the gardens and give them some time alone, but Aaron was holding on like he was drifting on the ocean and Oscar was a float. So he would stay.
And Oscar tried not to flinch or wince or shift around awkwardly every time Gemma lost a word or two, every time her face blanked for a moment, every time she struggled.
Aaron stiffened every time this happened, rushing to help her find whatever she was looking for, and Oscar wished he could erase the struggle that brewed inside him, clear as day.
“You can go now,” Gemma said suddenly, cutting into Aaron’s sentence midway.
“Mom…” Aaron’s hand twitched over Oscar’s thigh.
“Go now,” she said again.
Oscar couldn’t find the light in her eyes anymore, the tears of laughter running down her face.
Her countenance had changed, and maybe he should have noticed her frustration, that her hands were fidgety.
Gemma rattled a string of curses that was still mild compared to the words Oscar said, but Aaron was frozen beside him, and Gemma kept telling them to go now.
When she stood, Oscar didn’t think about anybody else’s feelings. His arm flew out in front of Aaron, blocking him, pushing him down on the bed beside him, the cookie he was eating dropping from his grip and falling to the carpeted floor of Gemma’s room, where someone else would have to vacuum it.
Aaron reached behind Oscar and pressed a button hanging from a lead on the bed.
A moment later, a flock of nurses came rushing in, cooing and holding on to Gemma, easing her into her chair, while she looked up at them with tears crowding her eyes, afraid. Aaron sat up, eyes glazed, lips wobbling, cheeks dark.
Oscar didn’t like that he was here to watch a team of people control his boyfriend’s mother, but he liked that he was here to be with Aaron while he did. He liked that he had an arm to wrap around his shoulder, to pull him in.
I love you. I’m sorry.
A nurse ushered them out to the hall, her kind young face the embodiment of pity. She looked at each of them before settling on Aaron.
“Mom is a little overwhelmed and needs her rest,” she said. “If she stays agitated, we’ll have to give her a mild sedative, but we’re going to try some routine things first.”
“A sedative?” Aaron asked, frowning.
“It’s not invasive. It’s only a pill,” the nurse explained, shaking her head and placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Your mom will be just fine. But I’m afraid I’m going to have to cut your visit short.”
“I didn’t hug her goodbye,” Aaron murmured, and Oscar wanted to raze the building for denying him that.
“It’s alright,” the nurse replied. “She won’t be upset that you didn’t.”
She won’t want you to hug her. It was clear on the nurse’s face. But she didn’t say it, and Aaron stood there unmoving for a moment longer, then gave her a nod and tugged on Oscar’s hand, turning.
Something shattered from within the room. When Oscar turned to see, he spied one of the nurses picking up the crumpled sunflowers and asking someone to get a broom. Aaron tugged on his hand a little harder and led him away.
There were no words on the bus stop and no music on their journey.
It was a quiet ride with a different driver who didn’t know them, so Aaron had to show his card up front, and then they sat together in the back and watched the care home roll away in silence, the press of Aaron’s cheek on Oscar’s shoulder. A consistency.
Oscar didn’t want to stop anywhere on the way home, didn’t want Aaron to go back to his own apartment, where he would have to sit and talk to his roommates. Lovely as Joe and Anna were, this felt personal, and Oscar wanted to shroud him in a bubble of soft privacy.
He whipped out his phone when they were close enough to home and ordered two large chicken kebabs, asked them to fill Aaron’s with as much rice and corn and couscous as would fit in it, to slather it with enough garlic sauce that he would regret it in the morning, and got his with double creamy potato salad and rice, because there was no such thing as too many carbs, and hot sauce, because that went well with mayo, in Oscar’s opinion.
Maybe neither one of them should be allowed to have a kebab again.
But tonight, Aaron would.
Oscar held him by the shoulder as they walked from the bus stop, slowing his pace a little so he’d arrive with the delivery guy he kept tracking on his phone, and when they got there, Aaron glanced at the man waiting in blue but didn’t say anything, not even as Oscar whipped out a cash tip and took the bag.
They went up to the apartment, Aaron bending down to say hello to Luigi still, murmuring and mumbling—too subdued for Oscar’s comfort.
He found the next episode of Schitt’s Creek, Aaron’s favorite show, since the last one they’d put on together and put the kebabs in the warming oven while he ushered Aaron into the shower to clean away the smell of their afternoon.
“Join me?” Aaron mumbled.
So Oscar did. He tore his clothes off like shedding skin after a sunburn, peeling them away layer by layer until he was as naked as Aaron, and stepped into the shower with him.
Aaron cried beneath the water, and Oscar let him.
Maybe Aaron could pretend like Oscar couldn’t tell beneath the running stream of water.
Or maybe he was fine with Oscar seeing, with them sharing.
Oscar pulled him close, wrapping his arms around his stomach from the back, kissing him over and over on the side of his head.
He scrubbed Aaron’s hair with his own shampoo, pressing the tips of his fingers and thumbs into his head, hoping it gave him some relief, and then he ran his comb through the shorter strands with the conditioner, and soaped up Aaron’s back and neck, kissing as he went, eyeing the little hairs he’d failed to trim away at the nape.
“I love you,” Oscar mumbled into his skin.
Aaron took his hand and squeezed.
They came out fresher, wearing Oscar’s most comfortable clothes, bigger on Aaron, but maybe he liked it, because he snuggled into the blanket like a baby on the couch and ate his kebab and watched the Roses interact with the people of Schitt’s Creek.
And Oscar understood why he made Aaron laugh, why someone so lovely would glance twice his way.
Oscar only looked at David Rose once the entire evening because his eyes never strayed from Aaron’s face after that. Aaron was the entertainment Oscar chose for his dinner, each curve of his mouth while he tried to laugh filling Oscar with hope.
In the middle of the second episode, Oscar got up and made a batch of Papa’s cookies.
Aaron tilted his head back, eyeing him, but Oscar gestured for him to watch TV, so Aaron lay down on his side, still covered by the blanket, the kebab foil wrap scrunched up on the coffee table, his chilled soda empty.
Luigi snuggled by his side, head resting on his shoulder while he purred.
And Oscar knew this was the true meaning of family. Of home. Of love.
He brought the cookies piping hot to the coffee table, but Aaron had fallen asleep, and Oscar wouldn’t wake him.
They’d have them for breakfast. Noiselessly, he milled about, cleaning up after their dinner, sealing the cookies in a box the moment they were cool enough, putting Aaron’s clothes on a quick cycle and tossing them into the dryer so he’d have something to wear come morning.
And then, when the episode ended and the apartment was settled, Oscar slid his hands beneath Aaron, blanket and all, and carried him to bed. Maybe his surgeon would have something to say about him lifting a grown person like that, but Oscar had healed from worse things than loving someone.
When Aaron nearly stirred, Oscar shushed him, pressing a butterfly-soft kiss to his temple.
“Rest, boo,” he mumbled. “I’ll be right here.”
And all night long he watched him sleep until his own eyes drooped.