39. Emory
Emory
On Emory’s first walk of freedom, sun slipping down off its peak and fresh autumn air swirling around him, a waterlogged poster board crossed his path.
Emory pressed his foot to the corner so it didn’t blow away before he read it.
I GERARD WELLS
The words were written in thick black marker, and the heart was bright red and coated in glitter.
Dirt and bay water crinkled the edges and smudged the ink, but the message shone through.
Feeling sentimental, he brought it home with him, thinking of it as his first act of community service.
He did promise Sergeant Adye he’d pick up litter and storm debris for the foreseeable future.
Surprisingly, none of the Ipingers wanted to press charges against him.
Earlier, Sergeant Adye had said, “Everyone was impressed by your grand apology. It took guts to confess the way you did. It was a little dramatic for my taste, but … in my thirty years of police work, I never seen such a display. Here on Iping, we value honesty, and we look after our own.”
Confusion had crunched in Emory’s chest, even as joy sparked in his stomach. “But I’m not an islander.”
“Some people are born on the island, and some people are called to the island. Don’t make much difference either way when we all get buried here at one time or another.” His gaze oozed empathy through the obscuring bars. “That’s how family works.”
“They consider me family after I scared them, and I stole from them?” he’d asked, wondering if he’d repented enough for this level of grace.
Sergeant Adye raised a bushy black eyebrow. “Nobody said family is perfect. Half the time you don’t even like ’em. But you look out for them just the same.”
Iping looked out for Emory by keeping his secrets, both his invisibility and his crimes.
The way Sergeant Adye saw it was that if nobody wanted to press charges, no crimes had been committed.
Since the power had been out, he hadn’t filed the proper paperwork regarding Emory’s arrest. No arrest, no charges, no record.
But there still had to be penance.
Emory wouldn’t have had it any other way. Especially if it meant securing a home among such good, forgiving people. People he’d written off as small and simple that he now owed his life and heart to.
Not only was Emory required to repay everyone he’d stolen from on the island, but he needed to do one hundred hours of community service to help beautify the island again. The tropical storm had done a number on it, but so had the monsoon of Wellies that had overrun the place earlier that day.
When Emory entered the apartment, he almost preferred the drab, dank grayness of the jail cell over the solitude of the space without Gerard.
Most of Gerard’s belongings were still there—that was a good sign—but Emory had known earlier that he wouldn’t find Gerard when he keyed inside.
The flap and drone of helicopter propellers had broken through the static hum of the holding cell right before Sergeant Adye visited him again, and in the same way he’d sensed his mom was long gone when he shivered on that bench outside the fire station decades ago, he’d sensed Gerard’s dramatic exit from Iping before he’d known anything about the viral video or the fans.
At first, he looked around the apartment, unsure of what to do with himself. Around that time every day for nearly four weeks, he’d cooked dinner for two, but he had no energy and no second mouth to feed. Except Marvel Jr.’s, but Emory quickly scrounged up some grains for his little friend.
Afterward, he puttered around, opened every drawer in the kitchen, and parted the doors of the wardrobe.
He catalogued and counted everything. All the vestiges of Gerard.
He even included Gerard’s scent, which lingered in the air, much to his delight.
But he had to be honest with himself: He was on the hunt for something specific.
If he knew anything for certain, it was that if Pascal was still there, then Gerard would be back. The longer he searched—everywhere from under the bed to the crawl space behind the bookshelf—and came up empty, the more the fan-made sign he’d rehomed became a bad omen.
Just when he was about to give up hope, there was a knock at the door.
Regina stood on the threshold. “I saw the light on. I take it everything worked out with Sergeant Adye?”
“As well as it could have,” said Emory, biting back the single question fighting to escape his mouth. Where’s Gerard?
“Good. Freshen up and come down for dinner. I made a roast.” She spoke without room for debate.
Isolating up there in that room would’ve only caused his thoughts to spiral. If Gerard was gone, he was gone. For now? For forever? He stopped the line of questioning before it devolved into obsession.
At least going downstairs with Regina meant he’d get a home-cooked meal, which was apt to be better than the meager frozen offerings provided in his cell.
Iping had clearly not had a jailbird in quite some time, given their lack of preparation when it came to bedding, processes, and meals, but he’d survived.
And in some ways, he was stronger for it.
Despite having lived in Regina’s house for nearly two years, he had never been downstairs.
Once or twice pre-invisibility and pre-Gerard, he’d knocked and asked if she had any salt or extra toilet paper because he’d run out, but he’d never made it past the threshold.
As she gestured him in, he took in the grandness of the Victorian house.
The boards creaked underfoot as if welcoming him.
It might’ve been eerie had Thanksgiving decorations not been tucked onto every shelf and hung from every banister.
She had wasted no time moving on to the next celebration with turkeys and pilgrims and wicker cornucopias.
The smell of the roast grew stronger as they approached the kitchen toward the back of the house. They passed through a sitting room where a piano, which he had heard her play on many occasions, sat up near the front window. A fire roared nearby.
“Would you mind setting the table while I go change?” she asked, once she’d ushered him into the kitchen.
He started to clear off the small table in the corner, which was littered with cooking supplies.
“Leave all that. We’ll be eating in the dining room.
” She retrieved a tall stack of fine dishes from a cabinet.
“Why so many?” he asked.
“For the company I invited. It’s a big roast,” she said with a sly wink, pressing the plates into his hands. “I figured you wouldn’t come down if I told you there would be others.”
A residual fear shot up his spine. A worry that he was going to be caught out or off guard.
He took a cleansing breath as she nudged him into the dining room.
People were not his enemy anymore. He brushed anxiety away like he brushed crumbs off Regina’s decorative gold-colored tablecloth.
Joe was the first guest to arrive. He seemed softer than he was on the Susanna, smiling and holding a flowering plant out to Regina. He greeted Emory with a brisk nod.
The next to arrive was the priest of the local parish, who was a balding, soft-spoken man whose mere presence made Emory bristle only out of habit.
The last to show, right before they sat down to eat, were Kellen and Angie.
Emory politely said hello and poured himself a glass of sparkling cider, wondering what all this was about.
The first course was a squash soup and fresh bread. Nobody touched it until grace was said.
Between clanks of spoons against bowls, Regina announced, “I gathered you all here so we could get to know Emory. Emory, everyone at this table played a role in seeing that you were released without charges.”
He looked around at all their nearly sheepish expressions, suddenly wondering if he was the one on the menu, not the roast. Did they want to deliver their own punishment? “I don’t understand,” he said.
“I posed the idea to Joe, who said you were the best and hardest worker he’d ever had out on the Susanna and that he would like to have you back come next season.
When Joe and I were talking, we were leaving a morning service where Father Daniels overheard us.
He said several Ipingers had come to him about their stolen property and felt conflicted about bringing any charges against you because they didn’t feel punishment was the Christian answer for someone so eager for absolution.
As vice mayor, Kellen rallied the troops and brought the idea to Sergeant Adye,” Regina said with a pleased smile.
“I know Sergeant Adye said Ipingers look out for one another, but still … I don’t understand. Why?” An unbudging part of him felt that he was unworthy of this meal, of this compassion. He wanted desperately to … disappear.
No, that was the old Emory.
Now he wanted to stay. He wanted to comprehend.
Joe said, “We know an Ipinger when we see one.”
“I was a transplant like you, too. Kellen wooed me on the mainland during college and then surprised me by wanting to move back here. It’s an adjustment, but you really grow to love it,” Angie said while buttering a piece of bread.
“I grew to love it, too. Don’t think I’d have stayed as long as I have after Quincy passed if I didn’t,” Regina said, not really paying attention to where she was cutting the roast. Emory worried for her fingers.
Joe stepped in with an assist before she could slice herself silly.
A flirtatious look passed between them that heartened Emory until it curdled by making him think of Gerard.
“We’re happy you stayed, Regina. Not only because of your superb cooking this evening, but the church choir would be in shambles without you.” Father Daniels’s soup was completely gone, and his spoon was licked clean.
“We might as well raise our voices in that house of worship for as long as it’s above water,” Regina said.
“We’re working on our appeals to Congress first thing in the new year. We need money for a second seawall, or in thirty to fifty years, we’re going to all be climate refugees,” Kellen said, to which Angie vehemently nodded in agreement.
Father Daniels clasped his hands in front of him. “God won’t let that happen.”
Emory didn’t think God was going to stop the rising sea levels, but then again, according to the Bible, He did send that great flood, so maybe He could manipulate the waters however He pleased.
Emory had shirked art in favor of science until Gerard taught him balance.
He could stand to be more open-minded when it came to religion, too.
“We’ve veered off track,” said Regina. “We’re here for Emory.”
Kellen smiled with genuine warmth in his direction.
“We could tell you loved Iping, too, on Halloween, and we realized we didn’t exactly make you feel welcome.
Not that we deserved our golf carts hot-wired or our groceries eaten, but we agreed that we wished we’d looked a little harder and realized you were one of us sooner.
Someone who might have done a good job hiding it, but also someone who belonged here. ”
Overcome, Emory tried to speak, but the words got caught in his throat, so he mouthed a thank-you to everyone gathered before him, to which they all nodded.
“Besides,” Regina added, “if they’d locked you up, who’d pay me rent?”
Everyone laughed—even Emory—before devouring the juicy, perfectly cooked roast.
The third course was a traditional English trifle consisting of almond pound cake, fresh raspberries, poached pears, custard, and amaretto and marsala wine.
Upon first bite, flavors mingling on his tongue, Emory knew it was the best thing he’d ever tasted in his whole life.
Thoughts of Gerard dulled to a low yet still-present ache.
After dessert, they moved into the sitting room, where Regina played the piano while everyone nursed cups of coffee.
Emory’s heart rate rose slightly with each tinkling note, which wasn’t unpleasant, until after her third song, Regina said, “Emory, did I hear you were learning the guitar? You should play something for us.”
He grew hot as everyone’s eyes landed on him. “It’s impossible to perform after you.” The compliment came out choked.
“Nonsense,” she said.
“I don’t even have a guitar to play…” Emory said.
“That’s all right. I’ve got one here for you.” She produced a guitar that had been concealed behind the piano.
It was a guitar Emory knew well.
Pascal.
There he was.
In all his painted, tuned-up glory.
Emory’s heart sped.
“What do you say?” Regina asked, clearly observant of the unadulterated gleam in his eyes. “James—I mean, Gerard—left this here for you to practice on. I believe his exact words to me were ‘I’ll be back to check on his progress very soon.’”
Floating with happiness, Emory took the guitar with the intention of singing “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” but at the last minute, he changed his mind when he recalled another beginner-level song Gerard had taught him. “I’m a little rusty, but here goes nothing. This one’s called ‘Wonderwall.’”
After he started, it occurred to him that while he remembered the feel of the lyrics and their main images—roads, lights, and a love that can save you—he didn’t know them by heart.
This didn’t prove to be a problem, because Kellen started singing along to Emory’s mediocre strumming, and Angie joined him with a harmony.
Suddenly, all three of them were jamming together, and his spirits lifted.
Later, when he put the guitar away, a quarter folded piece of paper resting inside the hard-shelled case caught his eye. It was a note from Gerard that read:
Dearest Emory,
I’m writing this quickly before I hop on a helicopter back to New York for Nomeys rehearsal.
You were right (about a lot of things). My old life found me.
I wanted to be here to welcome you home with bells on, but as we both learned when I moved into an apartment that I thought was uninhabited, life has a lot of unforeseen circumstances.
Too soon for invisibility jokes?
I just wanted to lighten the tone so you didn’t think I’d left and wasn’t coming back.
I’ll always come back, Emory.
I told my dad and brothers about my autism, my queerness … and you.
That I love you.
I love you.
I’m entrusting Pascal to your care. Don’t forget to feed him, water him, and strum him at least once a day. You’ll be a maestro by the time I see you next.
Speaking of that, have you ever been to an awards show before? They’re mostly awful. They go on forever in loud rooms with lots of schmoozing, but you get to dress up, and they give you a gift bag full of expensive shit when you leave.
I’m in need of a date. What are you doing next Sunday night?
Love,
Gerard