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Babe wakes to the sounds of his Ma tinkering around in the kitchen and smiles around the couch imprint on his face. She’s got most of her strength back. She’s still got the cast on her arm, the sight of which kicks him hard in the chest, but she’s here and she’s still the same and he can maybe get some sleep knowing that.
It’s been a month since the day he’d run from the train station to the hospital, thinking the whole time about how life without her would be, how he could possibly cut away his heart into any more pieces to sacrifice for grief. Somehow, against all odds, she made it through, but he hasn’t left her side since. He dozes most nights on the couch outside the old sewing room where she sleeps for fear of climbing the stairs. She doesn’t need him much anymore, but the sound of her breath in the middle of the night still brings a comfort that he’s unwilling to admit aloud.
He scratches his thumb against the fabric of the couch, trying to trace the lines of fate that have brought him, like a giant game of tennis, back across the continent. The fate that keeps throwing him impossible decisions, filling his soul and then ripping it open.
Maybe it was the weather in San Francisco that made him complacent. He’d assumed, incorrectly, that the many brushes with deprivation and death of friends would have dulled his senses when it came to loss. But when his boss said he had a phone call, every single hair had raised on his neck and forearms. Picking it up, he braced himself against whatever was coming.
“Babe. Your mother… she fell. Hit her head.” His stoic father’s voice broke over the words. “It’s bad, Babe. You should come home, son.”
Just like that, his new life in California, trying to make things work, was tossed into the air. The tears sprung up immediately as he reassured his father he’d be on the next train home, and the heaviness settled in his heart as he packed his rucksack with essentials and hustled to the train, begging God to let her hang on long enough for him to say goodbye.
On his way out, he slipped a note under the door down the hall that held a similar boarding room. One that was as much a home as his own.
Joe - Something happened to my Ma. Heading back to Philly. I’ll call soon. You and Chuck take care of yourselves, okay? -Babe
Sitting with his head against the window of the train, the midwestern sun beating down upon him with an uncomfortable intensity, he thought about Icarus. After the war, Joe had developed a penchant for borrowing books from the library to read while he waited for fares in his cab. Babe wasn’t a reader himself, but loved to listen to Joe recap his newest story while they smoked by the window in Chuck’s room at the veterans hospital. Some he’d remembered from his time in school, but many had been new.
Joe had a way of telling stories that made every character feel like someone he’d known, had just lost touch with.
Icarus had been one of his latest. A thick book of Greek myths, but that one story had stuck: a boy who’d flown too close to the sun. He’d been tempted by a taste of warmth, happiness, freedom. It should have been a sign. As soon as life felt like it might be more than the sum of its pieces, it’d all fall apart. Melt like wax under his fingertips.
“Oh dear, did I wake you? These slippers must be too big, they keep dragging when I walk.”
There’s a lilt to her walk now that wasn’t there when he’d packed his duffel and hauled ass out of Philly half a year ago. His Ma, who’s always been the strongest of them, refuses to let the accident slow her down. She laughed when they told her she’d been out for three days, still doesn’t believe them when they say they were terrified for her. Instead of dwelling on any of the pain, she just powers on, defiant in the face of stacked odds.
As she makes her way to the front door, Babe rubs the sleep out of his eyes. It seems every day he wakes with the same thoughts circling. Stuck somewhere between past and present.
The first time he’d taken a cross-country train, Babe had been terrified of what he’d find when he got to his destination; he knew, nonetheless, that it was a chance he needed to take. Instead of horror, he’d just found Joe, waiting at the station leaned against his cab. It wasn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it had been theirs . Babe had made it all of two months in the cold of Philadelphia before he’d given in, claiming the weather was doing a number on his hands. It hadn’t been a lie, per se, but he knew in his heart that he could’ve gone anywhere warmer yet chose San Francisco. He’d made a promise to Joe, and indirectly to Chuck, that he’d get there however he could.
Babe and Joe found rooms in a boarding house where they’d had to share walls and a bathroom with other men, and had to be quiet with their shared pleasure after one too many glasses of bad whiskey sitting on the floor next to Joe’s single bed.
Chuck, too, had made progress in front of his eyes. His wound was not one that a person usually survived, especially not at war, but Chuck was the best of them - a fighter through and through. They’d gone to see him as much as possible, lining up their shifts when they could, switching off when they couldn’t. Babe and Joe had grown closer as they’d watched Chuck’s eyes get ever sharper, coordination coming back slowly but surely until they’d all been able to laugh together while sneaking candy from the nurse’s station. It felt new, like those first stolen moments in Germany and Austria.
The day of Chuck’s release, they’d driven to get him in Joe’s Chrysler, but instead of bringing him the hour back to his family’s house, Joe had turned onto Route 1 heading south.
The three of them drove down the coast, from San Francisco to a little town halfway to Los Angeles called Morro Bay. One of Joe’s coworkers had recommended it, saying it was a sleepy town where he and his wife enjoyed the sun without the hubbub of the big cities. If he closed his eyes and concentrated really hard, he could feel the wind in his face from the rolled down window as he folded his elbows over the two front seats and leaned his head between them.
The concierge had looked sideways at three men in a single suite, but booked it and handed them their two keys nonetheless. Joe’d worked extra hours driving to afford that one trip, and they were going to make the best of it. None had known what to do with themselves, in terms of the suite they’d rented or the tension that was a palpable element in their midst. Babe remembered that look in Joe’s eyes, like he wanted everything but had no idea how to go about getting it. It had made him short tempered on the drive, and with the concierge.
“Edward, darling, can I make you some breakfast?” She asks, bring him back to the current moment as he comes out of the bathroom after a quick morning shower.
“I’d like that a lot, Ma. You need any help?”
“You know, I think I can handle it,” she says with a smile, gesturing toward the table. She’s got that way about her today, a twinkle in her eye like she’s got one over on him. Babe’s not sure what to make of it, but it sure is nice to see her happy. He knows now, how difficult recovery can be, but how good it is to come out the other side. And just like that, his heart picks up. He knows he should reach out, write them a letter, call Joe, something. Where is the line, over which there is no easy way back? A month with little to no contact feels precariously close to a lifetime.
“Edward, come keep me company while I cook.”
As it was with almost everything between them, Chuck broke the barriers first. Babe and Joe had a tendency to walk on either side of Chuck just in case he needed help or lost his balance. So, when they were caught by the narrow stairs to the second floor, Babe hadn’t questioned it when Chuck grabbed his arm as well as the bannister while Joe hurried ahead with all their luggage.
The smile came out as they rounded the landing. Chuck stopped, leaned against the railing, dragged the hand that was clasping his arm down until just two fingers encircled Babe’s wrist.
“You know the doctor cleared me for most physical exercise,” he said, smiling all the while like a cat who just ate a canary.
“Sorry. Habit, I guess,” Babe responded, glancing at his feet. He was suddenly mad at himself for underestimating the strongest man he knew. But then Chuck kept holding onto his wrist, until he looked up and saw that cocked brow. Babe’s smile felt so big it made his cheeks hurt. Chuck just laughed in response, before turning and double timing it up to the room.
When Babe finally got his wits about him and climbed the rest of the stairs, he was greeted by the sight of Chuck, leaned casually against the wall next to the door to their room, luggage on the floor and Joe with a look somewhere between terror and wonder.
Then Joe got the door open and Chuck slipped through with all the swagger and bravado that Babe lacked.
When Babe finally snapped out of it and made it inside, they were standing by the window yelling about seals. Joe with his hands cupped over his eyes against the window and Chuck leaning against the window sill, more excited about Joe’s smile than the spectacle outside.
“Come look,” Chuck said, laughing, holding out a hand. Babe stepped into the hold, slotting himself in between the two of them, Chuck’s hand on him and his on Joe like a train.
“Edward can you set the table?” she asks, single arm working overtime with the breakfast she’s making.
Babe turns from the window in the dining room to answer before glancing once more out onto the street. If he squints, he can almost conjure the view from that hotel. The feeling of Chuck’s arm around his shoulders while they laughed at the seagulls swooping at the beach stragglers.
Squeezing around the table, in the house that keeps shrinking with age, Babe grabs silverware and napkins while his Ma chats about everything he’s missed in the months he’s been gone. They haven’t had time like this together since he was a kid. If only he could appreciate it, but instead his head is 3000 miles away.
Against his will, the details have begun to escape him. He can’t remember who started what, whose body pulled them away from the window and toward the bedroom.
His eyes took in the more opulent details of the room: the crown moulding, the wallpaper nicer than any he’d seen, the bright lights and vanity in the bathroom, the look on Chuck’s face as they all tumbled together onto the bed in a tangle of limbs.
Joe honest-to-god giggled as they tried to pull his shirt off - Chuck’s answering laugh as loud as ever, unraveling all the fears he’d held onto. It was a mess; the three of them too eager for finesse as Chuck and Joe bit down on opposite shoulders once Babe was also divested of his shirt.
Babe and Joe had already established a certain level of intimacy and understanding by then, so they gorged themselves on Chuck. They took back everything stolen from them in Austria, one long drugging kiss at a time. Joe was aggressive when it came to being physical, Babe had always known that, but he hadn’t expected Chuck’s impatient hands gripping his wrist, his thigh, tangling in his hair.
Their battle scars, those both big and small, felt a little like mirrors as they laid skin to skin in the midafternoon sun that streamed into the room. The motions of their bodies were unhurried in the hazy light while dust floated like snow around them. Babe felt like he could reach back into time, to his former self, the scared kid standing in front of Doris, and ease his soul.
Then Chuck had put that perfect mouth on him, and as Babe closed his eyes and sank back into Joe’s chest his heart came back to the current moment, sat fully inside him.
The first plate clatters onto the table, making him jump, but she places a warm hand on his shoulder to apologize. He was jumpy last time he was home, but the thoughts that plague his mind have changed shape since then. When she turns back into the kitchen for the second plate, Babe bounds over to grab hot cups of coffee for the two of them.
“Impressive you can do all this one handed, Ma. Maybe you don’t need me afterall.” Babe smiles, cheeky at knowing she’d never kick him out anyway.
“You’d better watch who you’re doubting there, my love. I can still whoop you.”
The phone was ringing as Babe entered the house, exhausted from sitting next to her bedside all night. The house was empty, so he ran inside to pick it up, in case it was his brother at the hospital telling him he had to come back.
It wasn’t – it was Joe. Long distance from the office at dispatch. He must’ve sweet talked Louise into letting him make the call, which made something inside Babe’s chest somersault.
He barely got out a hello before Joe started rapid firing questions about his Ma, how she was, if she was okay. He only ever really knew her from her letters to Babe, but Joe was never quiet in his appreciation for her.
“She’s okay, I think. She’s gonna be okay.” Babe smiled then, knowing it was true and not some prayer to God.
“Good. That’s good.” Babe could almost see Joe nodding his head, silent on the other side, out of things to say for once in his life. “Chuck lit a candle for her yesterday, but I figured calling would put us out of our misery quicker.”
Babe hadn’t realized it’d been a whole week since he’d left. Everything felt like a blur. The ache of being alone had been constant, but hearing Joe’s voice made the pain acute. He found he couldn’t breathe.
“Still there?” Joe asked, and Babe let out the breath that had caught in his throat.
“Yeah. Look, I don’t know when I’ll be able to come back.” The words came out harsher than he’d meant them, pushed as they were past the ever growing lump in his throat.
They were met with silence, as were the nine other times he’d pushed off Joe’s questions about his plans in the months since that first call.
“When are you planning to get back to California? I do hope my clumsiness hasn’t caused too much of an issue. You still have the room in that same building?”
“Doesn’t matter Ma,” Babe shrugs, shaking his head. “You needed me.”
“I needed no such thing, but you looked so stricken I couldn’t just kick you out. Figured you needed some mothering.” She pats his hand and smiles. “And it’s been nice having you here.”
Babe smiles at her, but he doesn’t feel it where he should. He doesn’t know if he even still has a home in California. He doesn’t understand how this feeling keeps amplifying. The fear of losing his mother, of losing Joe and Chuck, it has him so petrified he can’t…
“You can’t see the forest for the trees, my love.”
“What?”
“Oh Edward. I wish you’d have a little more faith in me. I’m not stupid. You were – well, you were happy, weren’t you?”
Something uncomfortably hot lodges itself in his throat, behind his eyes, but he nods anyway.
“But I left, Ma.”
“Well, in all fairness I think even the cranky one would forgive you for thinkin’ I’d died, don’t you?” She smiles then, and it’s contagious.
He huffs a laugh, picturing that sour look on Joe’s face any time they were mildly inconvenienced, but it cuts short.
“I left them, Ma.” Babe’s fingers are tingling around his fork, starting to burn, and the familiar cramping takes over. He drops his silverware, wants to knock his hand into the table over and over again to make it go away but it won’t help, it’ll just make it worse. Trying to stretch whatever is in there that hates him, he splays his hand on the table only for her to reach over and grab it: tight, tighter, until something finally eases. “I ran away, Ma.”
“You did no such–”
The doorbell interrupts her before she can argue, which he appreciates more than he’s willing to admit. He doesn’t want to fight with her, because she just doesn’t know.
He can hear the clip clop of her slippers, the uneven gait, as she makes her way to the front door, and then the excitement in her voice as she swings the door open.
“You made it! Oh, I’m so excited, come, come in!”
The voices that answer are decidedly not his cousins. Instead, it's unmistakably Chuck's warm baritone that asks “Is he here?”