Freestyle Love Read online

  Malachi placed his hands on top of Cole’s and slid them from his face. Malachi squeezed Cole’s hands gently and then let go.

  Cole stared blankly at Malachi for a moment, the man standing before unrecognizable but that didn’t matter. Cole was still in love, trying to find a way forward. “I still want you to come home.” When Malachi dropped his gaze, Cole said, with a hint of desperation, “Don’t do this, Malachi. Don’t give up on us.” He took a step forward and Malachi took a matching step backwards. Tears swelled in Cole’s eyes. “Maybe there’s nothing more for us to say. I think you’ve made up your mind.” He rubbed his eyes and then ran his hands through his hair. “Is this it?” His voice was agitated. “Isn’t there anything you’d like to say?” Silence. “Malachi, don’t do this.”

  Malachi lifted his gaze and said, “Perhaps you should go.”

  Cole’s eyes widened. “Malachi, please —”

  “Cole…” There was a newfound confidence in Malachi’s voice, as if he had suddenly found himself. “I can’t deal with this right now. I thought I could but I can’t.”

  “I see.” Did Cole really understand Malachi’s motives? Or had Cole simply reverted to the weak man he always thought himself to be, unwilling to take a stand, promote himself? “Is this goodbye?”

  “Something like that, yes. I don’t know.”

  Cole checked his tears. “I don’t know how this happened, how we ended up here.”

  Malachi sucked his teeth. “Yes, you do.”

  Cole’s eyes gleamed disbelief, and he swallowed hard. He dropped his gaze, and backed out of the living room. In the foyer, he shoved his feet into his shoes. Cole gripped the doorknob of the front door, and just before pulling it open, he turned to look at Malachi, but the living room was empty. Cole drew in a deep breath as he opened the door and then left the house.

  Malachi had retreated to the back veranda and, seated at the patio table, listened as the door to Cole’s rental car banged shut. The roar of the engine quickly faded away. Cole was gone. Was this the end Malachi had imagined? The tears Malachi had fought so hard to hold back rolled down his face. His breathing was shallow, and he felt pained, bereaved. Had he ever learned to really live inside hope?

  He sat there for a long time, staring abstractly about, disconnected from himself and the world. Malachi had told Sarah he was leaving but where would he go? Could he still go home to Cole or was that now impossible? And what about Chad? What was Malachi’s next move? Malachi was at a loss, and didn’t know how to proceed. He had become completely undone but had not recognized his own complicity in his undoing.

  “Malachi. Malachi.” Sarah shook her brother gently. “Mali —”

  “What?” Malachi’s voice was elevated, as if he had awoken from a nightmare. “Jesus, Sarah.”

  Sarah looked concerned. “I was calling your name forever and —”

  “I was thinking.” Malachi adjusted himself in his chair. “How’s Joshua?”

  “Oh, he’ll be fine.” Sarah smiled. “He’s still out of it because of the anaesthetic. I came home to freshen up a bit. Where’s Cole?”

  “He’s gone,” Malachi said, feeling both pained and relieved.

  “Gone? What do you mean, gone?”

  “I mean, I asked him to leave,” Malachi said harshly, his heart in his throat.

  Sarah winced. “But Malachi?”

  “Sarah, don’t start.” He was almost yelling.

  “Fine.” Sarah shook her head. She studied her brother, unsure of what had happened to him. He seemed so bitter at times, like now, as if he were mad at the world. She worried about him, and was desperate to help, to find a way to hang on to him. She smiled faintly, and then made her way back into the house and joined Mitch, who waited for her in the living room.

  As the screen door banged shut, large tears rolled down Malachi’s tired faced. “What a terrible mess,” he thought as the tears blurred his vision, no longer able to see himself, or the world he longed for.

  Sixteen

  Malachi said, “I can tell you how it ends,” and smiled at Joshua, who was stretched out on the Victorian-style brown wicker chaise longue. Malachi sat down in the matching porch chair and worked to make himself comfortable.

  “It’s homework.” Joshua closed the book that was resting on his lap and looked at his uncle. “Required reading for my English course in Canadian literature.” He sounded kind of irritated. “It’s sometime hard to imagine that my uncle wrote some of the scenes.”

  “It’s not erotica,” Malachi countered, shaking his head.

  “I’m not so sure.” Joshua winked. “But it’s good. It’s your third book, right? The one that was nominated for the Giller Prize?”

  Malachi said, “My second, actually,” and smiled.

  “My professor asked us to think about morality as we read it.” Joshua scratched his head. “I’m halfway through but I don’t get what she means.”

  “Neither do I,” Malachi said, coyly.

  “Ha-ha.” Joshua cut his eyes. “Why didn’t you study philosophy?”

  “I couldn’t make up my mind. English, philosophy, political science, they all interested me. But my passion for words, to write, dominated.”

  Joshua said, “Like you knew what you had to do.”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes.”

  Joshua, scrunching his eyebrows, weighed that up. “But you didn’t know you would succeed, as a writer, I mean.”

  Malachi shook his head. “No. All I knew was that I had to try. I had a dream, and I had to work towards it, make it real.” Malachi crossed his legs, leaning back in his chair and staring into the dull grey sky. The air was warm with a gentle breeze. Malachi felt relaxed, at ease, and aware that something was again shifting. Was it him and Joshua? Their relationship as uncle and nephew had been similar to Malachi’s relationship with Sarah, presents and cards exchanged on birthdays and at Christmas, without really knowing each other. Was this an attempt at them moving beyond the polite polemics that they were used to into a more authentic dialogue? Malachi turned his head slightly to the right and studied his nephew who, with his high brow and dark round face, favoured more Barry Preston than Sarah. “What’s your dream?”

  “I dunno,” Joshua said, defeated.

  Malachi sat up and moved his chair so he was facing Joshua. “You don’t know. There’s nothing you really want out of life? Nothing you really want to do?” There was a silence. “Then why did you go to university?”

  “Because —”

  “Because?” Malachi grimaced. “I think you can do better than because.”

  “It’s what we’re supposed to do,” Joshua said, annoyed. “Go to school, get a job, get married, have kids, retire and die.”

  “Ah. ‘It’s what we’re supposed to do.’ And that’s why you get up in the morning, because it’s what you’re supposed to do?”

  “How many people spend their lives chasing after a silly dream that never materializes? What will they say when they look back on their lives?”

  “That they tried,” Malachi said sharply, “that they dared to try.” When did we stop believing in dreams? Malachi contemplated Joshua, and worried that Joshua would not do much with his life. Was that an extreme belief? Maybe. Maybe not. But to be so young and cynical, was that the current modus vivendi of Joshua’s generation? What did that mean for society and for the future? “So you’d like to end up like your father?”

  Malachi had never liked Barry Preston, and still held a certain distrust of Barry although Malachi could not remember the last time he had laid eyes on his infamous ex-brother-in-law. Barry wasn’t a dreamer, or a man with ambition. Barry was ordinary, and as far as Malachi knew, still pumping gas for minimum wage at the Shell station on Quinpool Road. Malachi always believed that Sarah deserved better than Barry, and had wondered how Barry had managed to get her into his bed. And the pregnancy, it had been a sort of trap. An abortion was completely out of the question — not just because of their parents�
� religious beliefs but also because of her own. Sarah and Barry were too young to get married, but it was the only honourable thing to do to not dishonour the family name. And then, after Sarah’s second miscarriage, Barry walked out on her and Joshua. Although Sarah was initially devastated when Barry had left, Malachi knew that she was better off without Barry. It was as though Sarah, too, had stopped dreaming while she was with Barry, that she had somehow lost herself.

  “I’m not my father.”

  “But you are his son.” Malachi didn’t really believe that Joshua was like his father, whom Joshua saw only on holidays until he was sixteen when he cut his father loose. It was Mitch who Sarah wrote about in her Christmas cards to Malachi — the father and son ski trips to Mont Tremblant, the sunshiny summer days they spent golfing, or how Mitch always looked a little paler each time he returned from the driving lessons he was giving Joshua.

  “That doesn’t mean I’m anything like him,” Joshua said, his fingers curling into fists.

  “Maybe.”

  Joshua tried to shift his body a bit but he could not with the pain in his leg shooting through his body every time he moved. “It’s stupid, what I’d like to try.”

  “How do you know it’s stupid?”

  “I mean…” Joshua was frustrated. “It’s crazy.”

  “Tell me.” Malachi slid his chair a little closer to Joshua.

  Joshua, with his lips pursed, stared at Malachi and finally said, “I’d like to be an actor. I was part of the drama club in high school, and I was good. I had wanted to apply to the theatre program at Dal but Mom —”

  “Your Mom talked you out of it.”

  “Yeah. She said it was a good hobby but acting —”

  “Won’t put a roof over your head or food on the table.” Malachi ran his hand across his forehead and down the side of his face. “She said the same thing to me when I told her I was going to write full-time.”

  “So she was right?”

  “No, she wasn’t. I chose to teach. I wrote full-time for a bit, but I needed something more.” Malachi sat up straight. “I don’t teach full-time, either. I make sure that I have time to write, to do what I love.” He scrunched his eyebrows. “If acting is your first love, what’s stopping you from pursuing it? What about community theatre, at least until you finish your degree?”

  “I thought about that,” Joshua said, “but there’s no time.”

  “Yes, there is.” Malachi leaned forward. “Make time for what you love.” He glanced away and then looked somewhat harshly at Joshua. “What if you had been killed in the car accident? Would you have lived the life you imagined for yourself? If there had been a moment, before you died, to look back on your life, what would you have said?”

  “You make it sound so easy.”

  “It is easy. It simply depends on the choices we make.” Malachi pointed at the book laying on Joshua’s lap. “Pretend you’re Sean. What would he do?”

  “I’m not going to pretend I’m some fictional character,” Joshua spat.

  Malachi smiled faintly. “No, of course not. That would bring you closer to the truth, to who you really are.” What are we afraid of? Why do we allow others to dominate us, shape our view of ourselves and the world? Malachi was at a loss. He didn’t know what else to say to Joshua, to somehow bridge the gap, to talk to him. Malachi stood and made his way towards the house.

  “Sean’s a character you love to hate.”

  Malachi, about to open the screen door, stopped and turned around. “Why is that?”

  “Because he’s conceited and selfish.” Joshua spoke harshly. “All his friends treat him like a demigod.”

  “Why do you say he’s selfish?”

  “He does whatever he wants.”

  “He puts himself first.”

  “It’s more than that,” Joshua said, exasperated. “It’s like he doesn’t care about others.”

  “Because he puts himself first?”

  “Yes.” Joshua looked warily at his uncle. “He quits his job to go backpacking in South America, leaving behind his lover and the home they built together because he says he needs to find himself. It’s like he ignores the consequences.”

  Malachi sat back down in the chair. “It’s perhaps a question of free will.”

  “No. It’s pure selfishness.” Joshua was confident of his position. “You don’t do that. Just because you have a dream doesn’t give you the right to destroy someone else’s life. He made a commitment.”

  Malachi laughed. “You’re ignoring why Sean left.”

  Joshua shook his head. “To fulfill his dream of travelling the world.”

  “A dream his partner didn’t share,” Malachi shot back.

  “But he had it all,” Joshua protested. “A house, a good career, someone who loved him.”

  “So what does that tell you about happiness?”

  Joshua stared menacingly at Malachi. “Fine.” Joshua sounded like his mother with his indignant voice conceding defeat. “But I would have stayed if I were him.”

  “Really?” Malachi flashed a coy smile. “I think your professor asked you the wrong question. Don’t think necessarily about morality as you read the novel. The better question is does Sean have a moral core?”

  Joshua looked confused. “What do you mean?”

  “Keep reading. You’ll get what I mean by the time you’ve reached the end.”

  “Maybe.” Joshua gave the impression of a man who could be easily swayed from his position. What was his uncle really trying to get at? Joshua wanted to ask his own questions, like what had brought his uncle home. Joshua was certain that his mother knew specifics but she kept telling him, “It’s none of your business,” as if trying to protect Joshua from some lurid darkness. Joshua was, after all, a young man schooled in the ways of the world. He had once participated in a circle jerk with a group of guys during his first year of university but had bolted out of the room when one of the guys slapped him playfully on the ass, which seemed to break the rules. He had a couple of gay friends but did not hang out with them often, or on his own after the circle jerk incident. “That was quite the detour.”

  “What do you mean?” Malachi tried not to smile.

  Joshua stared at the darkening sky and said, “I mean, Mom asked you to talk to me, didn’t she?”

  Malachi said, “Yes,” and nodded.

  Joshua laughed. “She thinks I’m gay.”

  “Are you?” Malachi asked dryly.

  Joshua shook his head. “No, I’m not gay.” He dropped his gaze, took a deep breath, and said, “But I’m in a little bit of trouble.”

  Malachi crossed his left leg over his right. “What sort of trouble?”

  “I got someone pregnant.” There was a silence. “The one fucking time we didn’t use a condom —”

  “That’s all it takes,” Malachi said as he uncrossed his legs. He leaned forward in the chair, and then, ruefully, “Are you sure it’s yours?”

  Joshua looked up at him. “No. She tells me I’m the father, but we have an open relationship.”

  “Christ almighty!” Malachi drawled, and sat back in his chair. “I’m sorry. I’m not going to lecture you. I know times have changed since I was your age.” Malachi was shaking his head in disbelief. He saw the usefulness of open relationships, but he just couldn’t imagine himself in one. He didn’t see the appeal. He liked the adventure of getting to know someone, how to pleasure them. Like when Malachi learned that licking the inside of Cole’s ear made Cole moan, a deep moan from the pit of his stomach, Malachi felt his own manhood ready to burst. And when Cole suckled Malachi’s nipple, a tingling sensation swarmed over Malachi’s body and lingered. Or perhaps Malachi was just too much of a prude for group sex. “Tell your mother. And when the baby’s born, take a paternity test.”

  “It may never come to that,” Joshua said, with a suggestion of relief. “She says she wants to have an abortion, and wants me to pay for it!”

  Sarah, who had been listening
through the open window above the kitchen sink, rushed out onto the veranda. “Absolutely not,” she said as the screen door banged shut.

  “Mom…” Joshua, his eyes moist, again tried to sit up but the pain was still too intense.

  Sarah dragged one of the wooden patio chairs across the veranda and next to the chaise longue, and sat down. She contemplated Joshua with the compassion she felt her mother lacked when she had first announced her pregnancy. “If she wants to get rid of the baby, fine. She does it on her own, especially if you can’t say for certain that you’re the father. But if she keeps it, your uncle’s right. You’ll take a paternity test, and if you’re the father, you’ll live up to your responsibilities, and I’ll be there to help.”

  Joshua, sullen-faced, said, “I never meant to disappoint you.”

  “No, no,” Sarah said as a tear rolled down her face, and reached for Joshua’s hand and held it in hers. “You haven’t disappointed me. Sweetheart, I love you. And just like we’ve done all these years, we’ll get through this, together.”