twenty-something

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True North | A Story By Patrick Raymond
Conclusion

« Previous (Part Seven)

It was the summer before his junior year of high school. Ollie was fifteen -- sixteen in a week -- and the only thing on his mind was getting his Driver's License. He spent his summer evenings at hockey practice; his summer days watching TV, playing on the Internet, and baby-sitting Henry, then eight years old.

In the living room, Ollie sat in front of a fan, half-watching in Days of Our Lives, when Henry came in the house. The boy walked slowly, deliberately, over to his brother and stood in front of the TV.

"Move," Ollie commanded.

He didn't budge. He stared towards his brother, but didn't seem to be looking at him.

"Why are you such a little freak?"

Henry walked over to his brother and tugged on his shirt. The boy was completely silent and in shock.

Ollie immediately got up off the couch, his tone completely transformed. "Henry, what's wrong?

Henry continued to pull on Ollie's clothes, and led him out of the house without a word. On the back porch, Mike, Henry's best friend, was sobbing.

"What is going on? Is Mike hurt?"

"No," Henry said. "Just come with me." These were the only words he would speak for the rest of that day.

Henry led him into the woods. Once they made it past the wall of willow trees, Ollie knew what his brother needed to show him.

In the distance, he saw some alien shape hanging off of True North. It dangled, and swung back and forth a bit, though there wasn't even a hint of wind.

As they got closer, Ollie realized what the shape was -- it was a person, a man, and he was strung up to the tree house by his neck. With that realization, Ollie broke free of Henry's grip and ran towards the treehouse.

When he was about fifteen feet away, he finally looked at the man's face.

It was his father.

* * *
His father had left a note.

Ollie pressed his mother for answers after the police, the reporters, and the body were all gone from their property. She insisted that his father's death had been an accident, but Ollie wasn't stupid. He asked her incessantly for the note - he knew there had to be one - and finally, instead of denying its existence, his mother let slip, "You're too young to read it."

It was the day of the funeral. The widow June North held a reception at their house for family and friends. Ollie, forced to wear a suit he usually hated but unphased by it, dodged the family's priest -- they were Catholic then -- and avoided his uncles and cousins of his father's side, the True Norths of the family.

Using the reception as a distraction, Ollie snuck into his parents' bedroom and searched for the note. He knew that she must have kept it. The same masochistic need that drove him to find it had forced her to keep it.

He looked in her dresser drawers, in the nightstand, under the pillows -- finally, he found it between the mattress and the box spring.

There were three envelopes. One addressed to June, one to Henry, and one to --

There it was. A plain white envelope with one word written on it, printed in his father's handwriting --

O L I V E R
Weak-kneed, he sat down on his parents' bed. He loosened his tie and fingered the envelope. It was already opened -- by his mother, no doubt. Read only by her and then, certainly, by the police.

He imagined taking the note out, unfolding it, and reading it over. It began:

I know what you are, Oliver.

He chose not to continue the thought. He knew he could not make his father into a monster, despite his best efforts. It would've been much easier to mourn a father he hated -- who'd hated him -- but David North, calm, kind, and appropriately stern, was a good man and a good father.

In his mind, he opened the letter again. This draft read:

I love you, Oliver. I'm so sorry.

It offered no explanation, just an apology. Ollie knew it wasn't his fault, despite his Catholic conscience and attraction to self-blame. He knew it was money or marital problems, perhaps both. Or a hidden depression that finally overcame his father. Or it could've been a secret life that David had kept well-hidden from his family, a secret so big it drove him to suicide. The boy chose not to speculate any further.

He started crying for the first time since he found his father's body. He sat on the edge of his parents bed, the envelopes still in his hand, and sobbed.

He couldn't bring himself to actually read the note. Not then. Not ever.

* * *
There were a few boards still nailed to the tree, one or two which had once made up the ladder up to True North. Ollie still remembered the day his Uncle Rob came and took it down, not long after his father had died.

Ollie passed the tree, with Chris, as they strolled through the woods, wasting time before dinner. The hour or so that Chris has been at the North house had gone smoothly. His family greeted the new addition warmly, especially James, sniffing and licking, welcoming him to their home. Both his mom and Henry had been quite friendly and uncharacteristically normal. The four of them easily slipped into a conversation standing in the kitchen as June finished the meal. Ollie had brought his boyfriend home for Thanksgiving and it was no big deal. This was too much for him, and he had to escape from the house with his gay lover, lest it become too mundane.

There was something about having Chris there with him, at his home, in Vermont, out in the back woods, that made Ollie swell with guilt. Everything was going well, but he still felt awful about bringing him there. But still, it was a surprise to Ollie when, no long into their walk, he found himself blurting out: "My dad didn't die in a fire."

They stopped walking. Chris looked puzzled.

As detached as he could be, he revealed: "He killed himself. My dad killed himself."

Ollie gazed down at the ground, kicking around some dead leaves and pine needles. "I don't talk about it. We don't talk about it. My family, I mean. But I wanted to tell you, so you would know." He had planned to stop there, but he didn't. He found himself talking, about his father, about True North, about times before and after his death. He delivered a monologue for ten full minutes, never once pausing, never once looking at Chris. The whole time, he still stared down, relieved, overwhelmed, closer to the verge of tears than he'd been in ages. "I didn't mean to lie. I just didn't know how to--"

"Its OK, Ollie." Chris touched his boyfriend's arm, forcing him to look up, his eyes were filled with the threat of tears. And in the aftermath of truth, Ollie saw in his face, for once, no pity for him -- just compassion. Chris led him to a fallen tree nearby and, in the crisp autumn air, they sat, holding gloved hands in silence for a long while.

"Ollie," Chris finally said, "I have something to -- something to say." Ollie looked up at him, curiously. Chris immediately faltered. "Shit. This is so not the right time for this."

"For what?"

Chris ignored the question, and began talking to himself. "But there's never going to be right time, a perfect moment, is there?"

"What?" Ollie was puzzled.

His hand toyed with something inside his jacket. "I'm so bad with this kind of stuff."

"What are you--? Are you -- breaking up with me?"

"What?"

"Oh, God. You are. You're dumping me. On Thanksgiving."

"No! God no, Ollie! I'm not breaking up with you! I want to ask you to, um, to --" He dropped whatever he was fumbling with in his jacket. "Shit!"

Chris quickly fells to his knees and frantically searched for what he had dropped. He found it and hid it in his palm before Ollie could see what it was.

He shifted. On one knee, he looked up at Ollie. Suddenly serious, suddenly confident, Chris revealed the contents of his hand.

It was a ring.

On their way out of the woods, they kissed, under the willow trees, behind the house. Not far from True North. But far enough.

- END -

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