Season 20, Episode 12 “Re”
“Reunion”
I shuffle into the kitchen, where Andie does her homework, sulking because she’s not allowed to come tonight.
I wave to Hetty, our new housekeeper, who’s folding laundry by the dryer.
“Wow,” Andie remarks, surprised to see me dressed up, a lifetime since the DC fundraisers when her fathers rushed off into the muggy night, cologne wafting behind us.
“I look okay?” The suit’s tighter than I’d prefer, but outside powers prevailed.
She nods, before the desultory gaze returns. “You really won’t bring us?”
“Are you still on that business?” Imogen teases as she emerges from the hallway bathroom, her sleek lilac dress grazing the floor. She’d wanted to get ready together.
“I already know what happens,” Andie complains. It’s true. She saw her parents come home in a thousand pieces, but admittedly the entire world did too thanks to the paparazzi, who blew the network’s usual protocol for “spoilers” to smithereens.
“Just because we let you watch a couple Trials doesn’t mean you’re watching this.”
“Your dad’s right,” Imogen says. “Besides, none of us have seen the final episode yet.”
“At least you get to watch,” Wallace spouts from the pantry. Even he is starting to have opinions, perhaps a consequence of being around the crew members so regularly now.
When the new show started, I never expected the kids would want to be on camera, but once the trucks showed up, they were both invading every shot to mug for the crew.
By the time Wallace burst out of a closet to scare me and Imogen during a staged conversation about the garden club she’d joined, I knew my battle was lost, defeated by my children themselves.
I’m hoping the seductive novelty will wear off by making the cameras boringly familiar, and thankfully our contract guarantees I have final cut and full approval on any footage of the kids.
I never fathomed I’d allow this, but the last eight months have been nothing but surprises.
“People I love!” Barnes calls through the front door as he arrives, striding past the Christmas tree to enter the kitchen. He’d insisted on carpooling so we can work the press line in unison before the taping. “Well, don’t you two look dashing?”
Andie instantly accosts him. “Baba, can I—”
“Don’t even try it, sweet pea.” He turns to me. “Did I hold the party line?”
“Yes, you win a cookie,” I say dryly.
He offers Imogen his arm as we depart. I’m still not used to them being so consistently civil.
Perhaps it’s the California climate. Regardless, it’s all documented on Alone Together, coming Thursdays at 8:00 p.m. in January.
If nothing else, they both love Andie and Wallace.
And I suppose they both love me, and that’s not something they hate about each other anymore.
“Be good for Hetty,” I tell the kids. “And can Daddy get two smooches for luck?”
Wallace dutifully obliges before Andie follows, still glum. I give her a tight squeeze, kissing her on the forehead for good measure. “I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.”
She groans, giving in. “Fine. Miss Melange is still coming to breakfast though, right?” she asks hopefully, and I nod. “Okay, well, tell Mr. Shawn he should come too.”
I eke out a smile for my daughter, unable to admit that I doubt he’ll give me the chance.
In the immediate aftermath of Milford Sound, I went straight to emergency surgery in Queenstown.
Barnes, who had seemed well enough, collapsed waiting for updates about me, and internal bleeding sent him to the OR too.
Fortune, however, was inexplicably, magically fine.
Like a drunk driver with loose limbs, being unconscious was apparently the way to hit.
What followed remains hazy. The daisy chain of decisions; the flurry of hospital rooms; lawyers shouting on speaker.
By the time we were cleared to fly home for further procedures, settlement negotiations were complete.
For agreeing the bridge “malfunctioned” in a “freak accident,” the five of us received $6 million. Each.
En route to Los Angeles, Barnes and I reached our own compromise on the plane.
I could never stay married to him, but we were bonded.
Not just by the children, but also by the truth that he would have risked his life for mine, and I’d never forget it.
With Imogen as witness, we crafted a truce.
Joint custody and equal responsibility for the kids’ expenses.
We also would live in the same city. “Your choice,” he promised. “If it’s Charlotte, it’s Charlotte…”
But what was there? Aside from memories of the last time I hadn’t defined myself by another person?
And what had that been but loneliness? I glanced at Imogen, then around the cabin to Erika, Greta, and Zara, all asleep, the sisterhood who’d kept vigil by our hospital beds.
And I thought of Shawn, no doubt anxiously pacing his apartment until we landed.
I’d been chasing the past enough, and home had somehow migrated to one spot. “What if we stayed?”
“In DC?”
“In California.”
I never dreamed I’d live in Los Angeles, and I technically don’t.
Pasadena is its own municipality, a tidy grid of palms and jacarandas beneath the San Gabriels.
Barnes agreed a new town, a world away, might be best for the kids.
A fresh start in the city that already contained the people who most understood what we’d endured. Even Jenny’s initial incredulity faded.
“I’ll miss you being nearby,” she admitted one day while we toured potential houses.
“So apply for a job at UCLA.” I grinned.
“Don’t hold your breath. Besides, I never really thought the Charlotte plan would last.” I looked at her quizzically, and she rolled her eyes. “Come on, Luke, you need to be in the middle of things. You come alive in chaos.”
“I… wouldn’t say I like chaos.”
“But you like wrestling it, to prove you can. At least here you won’t do it alone.
” And then she parked at the last house we visited before I finally selected a remodeled Craftsman not far from Old Town.
When we walked in, my shoulders dropped entirely on their own, and I felt like this might work after all.
Imogen’s new house isn’t far away, a mid-century bungalow she fell in love with more for the garden than anything.
In the yard, she’s erected a massive tree house for the kids in the arms of an old oak, claiming the godmother role which had always been hers by right.
On Saturdays, I sit reading with Wallace while Andie practices penalty kicks, Imogen or Erika relentlessly defending the goal, and my mind inevitably drifts to the old backyard in Charlotte, Mitch throwing a football to me that blots out the sun for a fleeting half-breath.
My divorce was finalized on July 29, 2015, one month after the Supreme Court officially made gay marriage the law of the land.
“Well, we always were ahead of the curve,” Barnes noted ruefully when we signed, both of us still bruised all over.
He dozed off on the couch of my hotel suite that night.
I hadn’t bought the house yet, and I didn’t have the heart to usher him to his own room three doors down.
Watching him sleep, I no longer saw the point in punishing someone while they’re trying to earn forgiveness.
The nights he doesn’t have the kids, Barnes cruises the WeHo gay bars like he’s jump-starting a candidacy for mayor—and there’s no guarantee he isn’t.
Much of the first season of Alone Together has focused on him publicly educating himself on trans rights and advocating for the trans community, starting with both of us donating 10 percent of our settlement money to various trans charities.
He also sought guidance from Erika—both before cameras started rolling and after—and she’s been beyond gracious in counseling him.
He wisely let her dictate all talking points, but no one expected the positive press they got for the “accountability” segments they filmed with trans athletes and college students.
I suspect nearly dying also minimized public flack for Barnes’ policy shifts, but I think it also helps he’s finally pushing an agenda he sincerely believes in.
He even did a photo shoot with Balthazar Orgullo (“Crossing the Aisle” painted across their bare chests), somehow escaping the encounter without getting drenched in margarita mix.
In fact, the only thing Bal threw at him was himself.
“So much saliva,” Barnes recounted, a haunted look in his eyes.
“It was like being kissed by a Newfoundland.”
Even Barnes seems surprised by how many men proposition him.
His Grindr profile features him pensively cradling a coffee mug branded “GOP” (“Gay Old Politician”), which I suppose solicits a self-selecting bunch.
“Isn’t it risky? Some of these guys must hate you,” I finally said one day.
“I don’t want you stabbed mid–blow job by a lunatic with a hero complex. ”
“Don’t be na?ve,” he replied. “They’re fucking me because they hate me.
” He offered to show me his account to prove the point, but I shoved the phone away.
Because he knows me so well, he discerned the real reason.
“He’s not on there… At least I haven’t seen him, and I never forget a headless torso. Especially one with a tattoo that bad.”
“Who?” I asked dumbly.
“Spare me the Elinor Dashwood routine. Just call him.”
Before changing topics to the kids’ new dentist, I dismissed it. “He doesn’t want that.”
And he didn’t.