The Night Listener : A Novel

keep quiet about the old man’s visit, knowing it would only cause additional tension. “I told him a little bit about it, yeah.”
    “He called you? He couldn’t have called you.”
    “They came through town on their way to Tahiti.” Jess grunted. “She must’ve heard they have a mall there.” I smiled at this, predictable as it was. Jess had been hostile to Darlie since the late eighties, when she’d vetoed an offer for us to spend a night under her roof. The offer, amazingly, had come from my father, when I’d told him Jess and I would be passing through town.
    He and Darlie would be in Italy then, the old man said, but the house was empty and we should certainly feel free to use it. I was touched—deeply—but not for long; the invitation was retracted within days.
    The official excuse was a previously arranged house-sitter, but my sister, Josie, told me that Darlie had told my father that she was afraid of “catching something off the sheets.” So the old man had to renege. He called my brother, Billy, and ordered him to offer us a place to stay, and Billy called us to say that he and Susan had two bedrooms (the italics were audible) that Jess and I were welcome to use, even though we hadn’t actually thought to call them first. We ended up staying at a hotel to regain our dignity. And Darlie moved to the top of Jess’s shit list.
    “She’s gotten better,” I told him. “She asked how you were doing.” Jess just grunted again, so I gave it up. I was tired of being the mediator between the wildly disparate people in my life. I’d learned that instinct from my mother, who seemed to believe that it was the only way she could ever be whole. Maybe she was right, but it took a toll on her.
    “Did you bring that letter?” asked Jess.
    “Oh.” I pulled my jacket from the back of the sofa, retrieved the letter from Jess’s father and handed it to him. “The moon must be in Patriarchy,” I said with a rueful smile.
    Jess didn’t react. He just thanked me soberly and tucked the letter under a book on his coffee table. “So why did I sound like him?”
    “Who?”
    “Your father. You said I sounded like him.”
    “Oh…I just meant…when you asked me how many times I’d talked to Pete. But it wasn’t for the same reason.”
    “What did he mean, then?”
    I rolled my eyes. “He thought it might look funny if a middle-aged queer spent too much time on the phone with a boy who’d been abused.”
    “Jesus.”
    “I know.” I acknowledged his indignation with a nod. “I let him have it, believe me.”
    “Good.”
    “It was more about appearances than anything else. He didn’t actually think…”
    “Oh, well, that’s good to know. Your father doesn’t think you’re a child molester.”
    I could tell he wanted me to join him in a good venting, but I didn’t feel like it. “The truth is,” I said, “Pete badly needs a man to talk to.
    Imagine having so little trust in your own gender.”
    “Your own gender, hell. Didn’t you say his mother was in on it, too?”
    “In on what?”
    “The abuse. The porn ring.”
    “Oh…his biological mother. Yeah, she was. But he’s got Donna now.”
    “Does she have a boyfriend or anything?”
    “Not that I’ve heard of.”
    “You think she’s a dyke?”
    “I kind of doubt it. She just sounds like…I dunno…a sort of world-weary straight woman. She had a husband once, I know. What does it matter, anyway?”
    “I’m just trying to get a handle on it.” I could tell that, and I was more than ready to encourage him.
    “Well, whatever she is, she’s one of us. The last time we talked she held forth on Trent Lott, and what a big homophobe he was, and how much she hated him. And she was the one who brought it up.
    She’s really great, sweetie. I’d like talking to her even if Pete weren’t…you know, part of it.”
    “I hope she has him on the cocktail.”
    “I asked about that. He says he’s too young for it.”
    “That’s bullshit. Who told him that?”
    “I dunno, babe. His doctors, I presume.”
    “That’s total bullshit. Lots of kids are doing it now. He should be on it as soon as possible.”
    “Would you tell him that?”
    “Me?”
    “Why not? You know how good I am at that stuff.” This was an oblique admission of guilt, since I had long before stopped tracking the particulars of his health. Jess wanted to be in charge of that, I told myself; he insisted on it, in fact, taking pride in the way he challenged