Epilogue
Six Months Later
Gus
ALMOST ALL MY FAVOURITE PEOPLE WERE scattered around Mum’s house.
Kit, Agnes, Ted, and Mary-Alice were playing a lively game of cribbage in the sitting room.
Henry had one chattering twin on his hip while Marion bounced the other on her knee and sang silly songs.
Henry’s wife, Catherine, was curled on the sofa with a book, looking relieved to have a moment of peace amidst the mayhem.
James, Mum’s boyfriend, was handing out the delicious drinks he’d concocted.
We’d met not long after everything settled, and while I’d been shocked to find out her new beau was the barman I’d met at O’Shea’s, he’d grown on me over time.
He was maybe a bit young for her, but he made Mum beam with joy.
It had calmed me down to learn he wasn’t a regular employee there, only moonlighting when his cousin Meggie needed him.
While I was never going to see him as a father figure, I tentatively liked him as a human being who could maybe, someday, be a friend.
Possibly. If he kept making Mum happy. If he didn’t, he’d be dead. Problem solved.
The only person missing was George. He was wrapping up a case in Quebec City that’d taken the last week and a half to crack.
He was thriving in our new partnership, and I was proud of him.
I just wished he’d hurry up and get back here already so we could spend a bit of time together before Kit and I took off again.
In the kitchen, Mum had begun ladling seafood chowder into bowls while I set bread and butter in the middle of the table.
James tapped me on the shoulder. “Do you have a minute?”
“Uh, yeah,” I said, awkwardly, and waited for him to say whatever he needed to.
“Mind if we use your office, Tillie?”
The way she smiled at him, charmed and delighted and so clearly smitten, made me soften more toward him. “Go right ahead.”
“Two things I want you to know,” James said, after closing the door between us and the rest of the party.
“My favourite cousin, he had a boyfriend who died in the last weeks over in Germany. I want you to know I love Lorne. I used to help keep an eye on him when he was little. He’s one of those sensitive artist types, always drawing on any spare scrap of paper he could find.
When he was ten, he saved up some money and bought himself a paint set that he kept hidden in his closet.
My uncle is a mean drunk, and the donkey’s backend found and destroyed it.
He told Lorne not to be such a sissy and go outside to play like the other boys.
By the time Lorne got to my house he was trying not to cry, but I could tell something was wrong.
I was sixteen, and I wanted to kick my uncle’s ass.
“Instead, I bought a new set and kept it at my house for Lorne. Last year it came out that he had a boyfriend, and Lorne’s parents disowned him, that whole side of the family did.
Me and Meggie were the only ones to stick up for him.
So I just wanted to let you know, when I'm around, you and Kit don’t have to hide. ”
Surprise froze me, and when I unglued my tongue I said, “That’s a lot to take in all at once. You couldn’t ease into the conversation?”
James clapped me on the arm, and the little smile he gave me was short lived.
“Nah, I couldn’t. ’Cause the second thing is, Lorne hasn’t checked in for the last two weeks.
He went to Montreal with some friends a couple months ago to look for work and a clean slate.
We made a deal for him to call once a week.
I'm worried, and I don’t know who else to ask.
George is still in Quebec, right? Could you ask him to go look, see if he can find him? I don’t have much but I can pay.”
“You’re not paying me. I'll give George a call and we’ll find out what happened to him. You’re sort of family now, I guess,” I said, grudgingly. “That makes Lorne family too.”
A bit of tension released from James’s jaw. “Thanks, Gus. You're a good man. No wonder your mom’s so proud.”
My face went hot, and I covered it up by heading back toward the kitchen. “You might not be as awful as I expected you would be at first,” I called over my shoulder.
He laughed, and when I caught sight of Mum, she was grinning.
Kit
GUS SETTLED IN THE CHAIR BESIDE me, leaning his shoulder into mine.
A casual touch that could be totally innocent but felt like a marquee sign glowing above us proclaiming August North loves Christopher Lovely.
My gaze darted to Henry, who was busy with the twins, and James, who was hanging off every word Tillie said.
“It's fine, Kit,” Gus said under his breath. “I'll tell you all of what James said later, but we’re in trustworthy company.”
“Oh.” Wow. A tension I carried every day of my life eased its grip slightly. If Gus said we could trust everyone here, we could. Easy as that.
“So, let’s enjoy it for a while, and then let’s go home and spend the rest of the night curled up away from other human beings,” he whispered in my ear, sounding for all the world like he’d suffered through something much worse than a loud chaotic gathering of our friends and family.
“You did your duty,” I admitted, nudging him with my shoulder. “Thank you for making an effort.”
“It makes you happy to be around people,” he said, simply. “And making you happy is something I want to keep doing, long as I can.”
“Promise I'll make you happy later,” I murmured, grinning when he choked.
And I would. Because this relationship we were navigating, our lives merging, it came with compromise.
Learning to adjust our expectations, to talk instead of pretending our feelings didn’t exist, after seventeen long years doing the opposite.
It came with admitting we missed each other when Gus went on cases, to the point I’d begun going along as an assistant here and there when my own work permitted.
Broadcast and Radio Canada had changed their mind rapidly about my dismissal once Whitman wasn’t there to turn the screws, and I’d managed to drag a better deal out of them for less work when I graciously agreed to come back.
It helped that my supporters had written by the thousands asking where I was, demanding I be reinstated.
There had been rough patches where our schedules didn’t align, and they weren’t going to let up any time soon. But we’d work through them together, and neither of us would call it quits over something we could manage with some hard work. Not anymore.
Six months wasn’t forever, but it was a heck of a start and a whole lot of love.
The End