Free Vigil by Z. A. Maxfield Page B

prep school and I…”
    “You are an American boy whose mother wants him by her side until
    he’s ninety.”
    Adin bit his lip and rolled his eyes. “I get that, yes.”
    “I needed to bring her home, Adin. It was my responsibility. She was
    afraid.”
    “I know.”
    “The world is changing.” Keene took a sip of his own coffee. “Sometimes
    I think it gets smaller and angrier every day. Can you imagine the nineteenth
    century when that ship was built? You’re a young man, barely fourteen—
    your age—and you step aboard the Balclutha with nothing more than a
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    canvas sack with a change of clothes, a pocket knife, maybe a tin whistle.
    Everything you know about where you’re headed comes from the images you
    hold in your imagination and what you can see off her bow: the horizon, in
    all directions, limitless space, endless possibility, and the great unknown.”
    “Mother says you grow more and more like a PBS documentary every
    day.”
    “I know that. I believe I mentioned I’m obsessed.” He looked back and
    saw the shroud of fog still clung to the object of his desire.
    Adin laughed when two of his father’s students—attractive college
    girls—jogged by in short shorts, giggling.
    “Hello Dr. Tredeger.”
    It was as if they simpered in unison. Keene waved. Adin watched his
    father’s face. It seemed safe to say he had no concept of their attraction to
    him. Even at thirteen Adin knew when he saw the spark of sexual interest
    in someone’s eyes. He’d learned a lot from the far worldlier Edward, whose
    passion for the Romantic Movement in art was positively exacerbated by his
    quicksilver moods and an early and fateful reading of the poetry of Walt
    Whitman.
    Gods.
    Edward, in whose eyes he saw his own longings clearly and proudly
    displayed; Edward, who seemed to be an advance scout, a forayer into the
    hostile territory of adulthood, bringing back information and providing a
    source of comfort for Adin, who seemed destined to advance at a slower pace.
    Edward had already informed his family of what he knew to be his
    truth, and even though Adin was well aware he’d have to make the same
    declarations someday, he worried that his wouldn’t be met with the same
    sangfroid Edward’s parents and grandmother—who had known before he
    did—had displayed.
    In one of those remarkably perceptive moments that Adin never expected
    from his otherwise oblivious father, Keene asked him, “Is there anything you
    think I should know?”
    Adin’s eyes rose to meet his father’s. He hid behind his coffee cup and let
    the steam from the still hot brew rise between them.
    “Did you see those girls run by?” Keene murmured.
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    Adin grinned. “You know they have a crush on you. They probably don’t
    even jog as far as Pier 39.”
    “I know,” Keene admitted. “But it pays to play the absent-minded
    professor in these instances. Do you know what? I am a far more keen—no
    pun intended—observer of human nature than you think. And I think I
    know when a person is engaged romantically. Although you will never, ever
    see me look that way at anyone but your mother.”
    Adin felt uncomfortable with the subject and burned under his father’s
    close scrutiny.
    “My brother,” his father went on, “died in the early days of the AIDS
    crisis, right here in this city. He was attending a funeral every week and then
    finally, had one of his own.”
    Adin’s heart hammered in his chest as his father let out a lengthy sigh.
    “I’ve never told anyone that. Normally when we talked about his illness,
    or his death after the fact, my family talked about the diseases that were
    incidental to his diagnosis of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. The
    cancer, the toxoplasmosis, the PML, the pneumonia. The reason for his
    illness became a deep, dark family secret because it was my parents’s wish
    that no one know he was gay or that he was ill with what was then still
    referred to by the