Free Enter, Night by Michael Rowe

turned right on Bloor, towards Yorkville;
Jeremy turned left on foot towards Cabbagetown, each in the direction
of their respective destinies.
    Arriving at the house on Sumach Street, Jeremy rang the doorbell.
Jack answered the door. Before Jeremy even had a chance to speak, Jack
pulled him into the house and hugged him as though he would never let
him go. Behind him came Christina and five-year-old Morgan. When she
saw that everyone else was crying, Morgan companionably burst into
tears, which made all of them laugh.
    Late that night, in front of the fireplace, he and Jack talked while
Christina and Morgan slept upstairs. Jack wept when Jeremy told him
about what they’d done to him at the Doucette Institute with the express
permission of their mother. He, in turn, explained to Jeremy that his
mother had tried to pay Christina’s parents to force her to get an abortion.
When they refused, Adeline Parr had warned them to be careful, because
a mining town was fraught with potentially fatal accidents. Christina’s
parents told Christina what Adeline had said, and Christina, in turn, told
Jack.
    Jack confided to Jeremy that they believed that Christina’s life—
and the life of the baby she was carrying—would be in danger if they
remained in Parr’s Landing. So they’d escaped that night much like
Jeremy had.
    “I’m so sorry I left you,” Jack said. “Forget our mother. Forget
everything you knew before. You can be yourself here. If you want to be
. . . well, you know, if you want to be with . . . men, that’s OK with me.
It’ll be fine with Christina, too. We’ve known . . . homosexuals before,
you know. There are some right here in this neighbourhood. They’re nice
fellas, run the antique shop on Parliament. We’ll make our own family
here. A new family. You don’t have to go back.”
    “What if she comes looking for me? What if she tries to force me to
come home?”
    “You’re turning eighteen in a couple of days, Jeremy. Remember,
last year they lowered the age of consent from twenty-one to eighteen.
She can’t touch you even if she wanted to, from a legal standpoint. She
can’t
make
you go back.”
    “You know she hired detectives to find you and Christina,” Jeremy
said fretfully. “She knows where you live and everything. She’ll know I’m
here.”
    “Let her,” Jack said defiantly. “I don’t care. Also, she didn’t try to
get me to come home, remember? She just wanted to know where I was.
She wants to be in control. That’s always been the most important thing
for her, our whole lives. Besides,” he added, “I don’t think she’ll come
looking for you. She’s probably happy to have you out of the way. You
can’t embarrass her here.”
    “She sent me away. She can do it again. If we get any hints that she’s
after me, I’ll have to leave. I just can’t go through that again. I’d rather be
dead.”
    “Don’t worry, Jeremy. I won’t let her.”
    Then Jack held him as Jeremy wept against his shoulder. When
Jeremy’s sobs had subsided, Jack took his brother’s hands in his own.
    “Stay here, Jeremy. Be an uncle to Morgan. Be Christina’s brother-in-law. Love whomever you want. I don’t care, and neither does Christina.
I’ll protect all of you. I’m never, ever letting you go again.”
    It was a promise Jack kept faithfully for the next ten years. He kept it
right up to that night in February, nine months ago. Driving home from
an out-of-town sales call in Guelph in a sudden snowstorm, he hit a patch
of black ice on an eastbound highway while trying to avoid an oncoming
snowplow. The car fishtailed, then spun into a three-sixty, crashing into
the guardrail. He hadn’t been wearing a seat belt. The outward trajectory
of his body was stopped only by the steering wheel, which crushed his
chest and lungs in a fraction of a second.
    Jack Parr died of thoracic trauma and internal bleeding while waiting
for an ambulance from