Chapter 15 Familial Questions #2
The kitchen felt smaller suddenly. The walls pressing in.
“What do you think about it?” The question came out before I could stop it. “About people like Billy?”
Rose and Alfie exchanged a glance. Some silent communication I couldn't read.
“I think it's rotten,” Rose said finally. “The whole thing. Arresting people for who they love when there's actual criminals walking about, actual danger everywhere you look. What's the harm in it? Two men wanting to be together? Nobody's getting hurt.”
“Rose.” Alfie's voice was warning.
“What? Tom asked. And it's true. Mrs Patterson goes on about sin and abomination, but she's also the one who reported the Kowalski family for having too many candles during blackout, so I don't put much stock in her moral judgments.”
“It's illegal, though,” Alfie said. “That's the thing, isn't it? Doesn't matter what we think. The law says...”
“The law says lots of things. Doesn't make them right.” Rose's chin lifted, defiant.
“Remember when Dad got fined for taking that bit of scrap metal from the bomb site?
Technically illegal. Was it wrong? He was going to fix Mrs Chen's gate with it, the one that had been hanging off its hinges for months. Sometimes the law is stupid.”
I wrapped my hands around my teacup, feeling the warmth seep into my palms. “So you wouldn't... I mean, if someone in the family was...”
Both of them went very still.
“What are you asking, Tom?” Rose's voice had lost its heat. Careful now. Watching me with those sharp eyes.
“Nothing. Just wondering.” I took a sip of tea that I didn't taste. “Hypothetically. If Alfie, or... or me, turned out to be... that way. Would you still...”
“Would we still what? Love you?” Rose's laugh was too loud, too bright. “Christ, Tom, you're my brother. I'd love you if you turned out to be a bloody Martian. Though I might have questions about the logistics.”
“Rose.” But Alfie was smiling now, some of the tension leaving his shoulders. “She's right, though. Family's family. Doesn't matter what else.”
“And Mum? Dad?”
The smile faded. Rose looked down at her tea.
“Mum would come around,” she said slowly.
“Eventually. She loves us more than she loves being respectable, even if she doesn't always show it. Dad...” She shrugged.
“Dad doesn't talk about feelings. You know that.
He'd probably just pretend nothing had changed and refuse to discuss it, which isn't ideal but isn't the worst either.”
“Why are you asking, Tom?” Alfie had turned to face me directly, his expression serious. “Is there something you want to tell us?”
The question hung in the air. I could lie. Could laugh it off, change the subject, retreat into the comfortable fiction that this was all just idle curiosity.
But I'd come here for a reason. Come here because the thoughts in my head had grown too heavy to carry alone, and these two people, this sister and brother who'd known me before I'd known myself, were the only ones I could imagine trusting with even a piece of the truth.
“I don't know what I am,” I said quietly. “I thought I did. Thought I was just... normal. Whatever that means. But lately...” I stopped, started again. “There's someone. At my posting. And I feel things about them that I've never felt about anyone. Things I don't know how to explain.”
Rose's hand found mine across the table. Her grip was strong, steady.
“Them,” she repeated softly. “Not her.”
“No.” The word felt like a stone dropping into deep water. “Not her.”
Silence. The clock on the wall ticked. Somewhere outside, a child was calling for a friend, voice high and carefree.
“Right,” Rose said. Her hand tightened on mine. “Well. That's... that's a lot.”
“I know.”
“And this person. Do they feel the same way?”
“I don't know. Maybe. I think so. But even if they do, it's not... it's complicated. Dangerous. Everything about it is dangerous.”
“Because of the law.”
“Because of everything.” I pulled my hand back, ran it over my face. “I shouldn't have said anything. Forget it. I just...”
“Tom.” Alfie's voice was firmer than I'd ever heard it. “Stop. You're our brother. You don't have to pretend with us.”
“He's right.” Rose was smiling now, a small, sad smile that made her look older than her years. “Though I have to say, you've got rotten timing. Couldn't have figured this out before the war? When there wasn't quite so much else to worry about?”
I laughed despite myself. “Sorry. I'll try to have my identity crises at more convenient times in future.”
“See that you do.” She stood, came around the table, and wrapped her arms around me from behind. Her chin rested on my shoulder, her voice soft near my ear. “I don't care who you love, Tom. I just care that you're happy. And safe. And that you come home when this bloody war is over.”
“I'll try.”
“Try harder.” She squeezed me tighter. “Now. Tell me about this mysterious person. Are they handsome? Kind? Do they deserve you?”
“Rose.”
“What? I'm your sister. I'm entitled to interrogate your romantic prospects. It's in the rules.”
“What rules?”
“The ones I'm making up right now.” She released me and went to put the kettle on again. “More tea, and you're telling me everything. Or at least everything you can without getting court-martialed.”
Dad came home as the light was fading, shoulders bent from the day's work, cap pulled low. He stopped in the kitchen doorway when he saw me, and something crossed his face that might have been emotion before it smoothed into his usual stoic expression.
“Tom.”
“Dad.”
He nodded once, hung up his cap, and sat down at the table. Mum set a plate in front of him without being asked, and he ate in his methodical way while the conversation flowed around him.
He didn't say much. Never had. But when supper was finished and Mum was doing the washing up, he caught my eye and jerked his head toward the back door.
I followed him into the tiny yard. Just enough space for the Anderson shelter that took up most of it, the corrugated metal mounded with earth and covered in frost.
Dad lit a cigarette, offered me one. We smoked in silence, watching our breath mingle with the smoke in the cold air.
“Your mother worries,” he said finally.
“I know.”
“Doesn't sleep proper anymore. Jumps at every loud noise. Keeps your letters under her pillow.”
“I try to write when I can.”
“I know you do.” He took a long drag, exhaled slowly. “You look tired, son. Different tired than before.”
“It's been a long year.”
“They're all long now.” He was quiet for a moment, staring at the shelter like it held answers. “Whatever's eating at you... it doesn't have to eat alone. That's all I'll say.”
I looked at him. His profile was shadowed, expression unreadable. But there was something in his voice, some gruff understanding, that made my throat tighten.
“Thanks, Dad.”
He nodded, stubbed out his cigarette, and went back inside without another word.
That was it. That was all he'd ever give. But somehow, it was enough.
I lay in my old bed, which was too short for me now, feet hanging off the end, and listened to the familiar sounds of the house settling around me. Alfie's breathing from the cot across the room. Rose humming to herself down the hall. The distant rumble of the city that never quite went quiet.
I thought about Art. About what he'd say if he knew I was here, talking to my family about things I could barely admit to myself. He'd probably be terrified. Would assume I'd revealed too much, put us both at risk.
But I hadn't. Not really. I'd spoken in hypotheticals and half-truths, tested the waters without diving in. And what I'd found...
Rose didn't care. Would love me anyway, was already planning to interrogate my “mysterious person” at the first opportunity.
Alfie was uncertain but loyal. Would stand by me even if he didn't fully understand.
Mum would come around. Eventually.
Dad would pretend nothing had changed, which was its own kind of acceptance.
It wasn't perfect. Wasn't the wholehearted embrace I'd dreamed of in weak moments. But it was something. A foundation. A place to stand.
And standing on that foundation, looking back at the man I'd been and forward at the man I was becoming, I felt something loosen in my chest.
I still didn't know what I was. Still couldn't put a name to the wanting that had taken up residence inside me. But I knew it wasn't wrong. Knew it wasn't broken. Knew it was just another part of me, as real and as valid as any other.
Art had said that once. That this wanting was the truest part of him. The part that existed despite everything working against it.
Maybe it was starting to become the truest part of me too.
I fell asleep with that thought, and for the first time in weeks, I didn't dream of blood and snow and all the faces of the men I'd killed.
I dreamed of grey-green eyes and ink-stained fingers and a voice teaching me words in a secret language.