"Thirty, you ungrateful old man." Callahan points at his father, one finger, no room for negotiation. "Do not move from that chair."
"Then go. Run. Come back when you've stopped vibrating."
Callahan leaves a few minutes later. The front door closes harder than necessary. Will settles back in his recliner and sighs, satisfied.
"He's been like this since he was around seven." Will's gaze drifts to the door, fondness softening his expression. "Any time something goes wrong, he hovers. When his mother got sick with the flu, he slept outside our bedroom door for three nights before we found out. Just lay there on the hallway floor with a pillow and a blanket."
I press my lips together to keep from smiling. "That's sweet, though."
"It's sweet until you're a grown man trying to pee in peace and your grown son is standing outside the bathroom asking if you need anything." He cuts me a sideways look. "Thank you for coming, by the way. He won't say it, but he needs the break."
"That's literally why I'm here."
"Thank you. I mean it."
And just like that Will talks and I listen. He tells me about the town, how it used to be a fishing village before the summer people found it. The year the harbor froze and the whole town walked across it to the island for a picnic. He tells me about Callahan. Mostly small things, harmless details a father remembers that a son would die of embarrassment to hear.
Callahan at six, refusing to wear shoes for an entire summer. Callahan at ten, building a birdhouse so perfect Will kept it in the workshop as a reference piece.
Callahan at sixteen, driving to the next town to buy his mother flowers for her birthday because he wanted to pick them himself and Harbor Hill didn't have the ones he wanted.
Will starts laughing before he even gets to the next one.
"When he was eleven," he leans forward, like the story needs the distance closed, "the boy came to his mother and me with the most serious face you've ever seen on a child. Sat us down at the kitchen table like he was about to deliver a business presentation." He adjusts his cast on the cushion, already chuckling. "Said, 'Mom, Dad, I think I am gay.'"
I sit up straighter. "Shut up, he did not."
"He absolutely did. And his mother, God rest her, she kept a perfectly straight face and said, 'Okay, sweetheart, tell us about it.' And Cal said, 'There's this man. He's the most beautiful person I've ever seen and I think about him all the time and I think that means I'm gay.'"
"Who was the man?"
Will grins wide. "Barack Obama."
I press both hands over my mouth. The laugh that comes out is not cute. Not remotely dignified. A honking, helpless sound that makes my whole body shake. I'm never going to recover from this information. Never.
"The boy was obsessed," Will continues, clearly delighted by my reaction. "Had the posters on his wall. Watched every speech. Cried during the inauguration. His mother sat with him through the whole thing, and when it was over Cal looked at her and said, 'That's the best man in the world,' and she said, 'He might be, baby.'"
Wait. Was Callahan gay? Was that what this was? Was that why he flinched every time I said his name, couldn't look at me, left rooms when I entered? Was there nothing to fight at all?
Had I spent seven months reading desire into a man who was simply, fundamentally, not interested in women?
My stomach drops. "I didn't know Callahan was gay."
Will waves a hand, still grinning. "Oh, turns out the boy is perfectly straight. But the love for Obama was real. Lasted years."
Relief hits fast while Will looks pleased with himself.
"He's always been the best son." He tells me fondly. "Quiet about the things that matter most. He'll move mountains for you and never mention it."
I tuck all of that away somewhere deep and safe. Will talks about the workshop after that. A commission waiting for when the cast comes off. The grain of a piece of cherry wood he'd been saving for something special.
"You'll have to come with me to the workshop when I'm back on my feet." He pats the arm of his recliner like he'salready planning it. "I'll show you the cherry. You'll understand when you touch it."
"I'd like that."
Callahan comes through the front door breathing hard. Cheeks flushed, hair damp at his temples. His t-shirt is darker across his chest and shoulders, clinging in ways that should be illegal. He stands in the hallway pulling out his earbuds, and for a second, he doesn't see me watching.
So I watch. The sweat has turned his gray shirt almost translucent across his collarbones. It clings to him, to the flat of his stomach.
