Michael Griffo - Unafraid

Michael splashed some water onto his face, and, as cool drops ran down his cheeks, onto his chin, into his hair, his mind took control of his eyes and he saw into the past. R.J. was standing before him, as lanky and relaxed as ever, sweat dripping down the sides of his face, his cheekbones reddened and moist. R.J.’s eyes barely opened, the sun was too strong, so he had to squint, but it was enough for him to see. “Ya lookin’ all grown up, Mike,” he said, his lips sliding into a smile when he was done talking.

Guess not everything about the past is so bad, Michael thought. Then he wondered what R.J. was really doing right now. Sadly, he figured he was probably still leaning up against the gas pump, motionless, sweating, waiting for the next customer to drive up, waiting for the next reason to move.

But where was R.J. going to go? The guy had never crossed the Nebraska state line in his entire life.

At least Michael had gotten out of there. Thanks to this father. Oh not again!

Grabbing his sneakers, Michael bounded away from the stream, his feet jamming into the earth, one angry step after another. “Why can’t I get him out of my head?” Michael asked, staring at the trees, a bit surprised that they didn’t answer. His right foot landed squarely on a rock, but instead of wincing or losing his balance, he pressed down hard. When he lifted his foot to keep walking the rock was gone, burrowed into the ground. “I’ll tell you why,” Michael said, answering his own question.

“Because every time I think of that car I think of him!”

And unfortunately it was hard not to think of the Benz since it occupied his world literally and figuratively. Regardless of where he went during the day—St. Joshua’s, the pool, some new, unexplored area of campus, even Eden—he dreaded returning home. Now, walking back from The Forest he felt the same way. At least when he reached the clearing that led to St. Florian’s he saw that the SUV wasn’t waiting for him alone.

“Nice feet,” Ronan said. “Looks like you stepped out of a page from Huck Finn. ”

Michael looked down and saw that from his ankles below he was almost completely covered in mud.

“How was your walk, love?” Ronan asked.

Sighing, Michael sat on the ground next to Ronan. “You know me,” he replied. “I’m just a regular country boy.” Michael leaned back and pressed his body into the rough stone of the building, allowing its cold to embrace his skin. “I see that it’s still here.”

“Like a blighter, it just won’t leave,” Ronan said.

Michael knew Ronan was using one of his British slang words again, and he wished he had memorized more of the book Saoirse had given him for his birthday. “Blighter?”

Smiling, Ronan grabbed Michael’s knee and played with the frayed trim of his khaki shorts. “Pest,” Ronan translated. “The Benz is like a pest that just won’t go away.”

“Isn’t there an exterminator we can call?” Michael asked. The cool stone and Ronan’s warm touch almost made Michael forget how annoyed he was, almost made him feel like he was just lounging with his boyfriend on a summer afternoon. Almost, but not quite. “Or a towing company?” Michael suggested. “I’m serious, Ronan, I don’t think I can go another day seeing that ... that ... thing!”

Ronan leaned back against the stone as well. He let his hand slip to hold onto the back of Michael’s thigh and realized that the car really had been parked outside for quite a long time now. “You know, it’s against school rules to have a car parked anywhere except for the lot by the headmaster’s office,” Ronan said. “Odd that David hasn’t told you to move it yet.”

There was nothing odd about it, at least not to Michael. His father and David were working together, in cahoots with each other, so of course David didn’t care if the presence of Vaughan’s gift broke school rules. The thing wasn’t even a gift anyway; it was bait, a bribe to try and get Michael to forget every heinous act that Vaughan had ever committed. It wasn’t going to work. “My father’s one of Them,” Michael seethed. “They protect each other.”

Ronan wanted to remind Michael that that’s what families do, they protect each other, stand by one another, but he knew that Michael didn’t want to hear that. He also knew that if anyone else had given him that car Michael would be driving it up and down every road in the United Kingdom. All he had talked about was getting his driver’s license and how driving to him was synonymous with freedom.

He hadn’t changed his mind simply because he had acquired alternative methods of transportation; it was still a dream of his to be behind the wheel of a car, and Ronan felt terrible that Michael was letting his contempt for his father stand in the way of fulfilling that dream. He had to say something that would allow Michael to see beyond his hatred. “Have to admit it’s beautiful, though,” Ronan said.

“Betcha it’s got a brilliant ride.”

In one quick, brusque movement, Michael stood up. Clearly, Ronan’s words had pushed him into action. Michael thrust his hand into the side pocket of his shorts and pulled out the car keys that he had been carrying with him ever since his birthday. He stared at them with such disdain it was as if he believed they would burn his flesh. Michael flicked his wrist, and the keys flew out of his hand and were caught by Ronan’s. “Then take it for a test drive,” Michael said. “I don’t want it.”

It was not exactly the action Ronan had been hoping for.

An hour later, sitting across from Ciaran in his lab, Ronan received yet another unwanted response.

“No, Ro,” Ciaran said, his right eye firmly pressed into the lens of a microscope, “I haven’t heard from Mum lately.”

Knowing Michael needed to be alone for a few hours to sort through his feelings, Ronan had wandered around campus until he decided to go to St. Albert’s lab where he knew he’d find his brother. Ciaran hadn’t changed that much. Just because it was a beautiful summer day didn’t mean he wouldn’t be hunched over his microscope conducting some complicated experiment. An experiment that he seemed to be more interested in than their mother.

“Don’t you find that a bit odd?” Ronan asked. “She used to always pop in from out of nowhere.”

The oldest, Ciaran thought, but definitely not the wisest. “Into your life maybe,” Ciaran stated. “But I’ve kind of grown accustomed to living mine without the constant appearance of our mother.”

Embarrassed, Ronan gazed at the red and white blob that was squashed in between the two small, glass plates clipped onto the microscope’s stage as if he knew what he was looking at, as if it held any interest. Although Edwige frequently visited Ronan and took an active part in his life, the same could not be said about how she treated Ciaran. Ronan had thought things would have gotten better after the family party he made her throw a few months ago, after she saw how all her children and even Michael needed her, but he was wrong. If anything, the party had the opposite effect, and lately, she was not only keeping her distance from Ronan’s siblings, but from him as well.

“I will admit to one thing, brother,” Ciaran said, tapping his notebook with the eraser end of his pencil. “It’s not like her not to meddle in your affairs.”

Ronan couldn’t agree more, and he also couldn’t push from his mind the disturbing thought that something terrible had happened to her, that wherever she was she needed her children’s help. Then again Edwige didn’t act like a typical mother so maybe she had just decided to spend a few months traveling and forgot to tell anyone where she was headed. “Do you think she went on holiday?” he asked.