Chapter 19
Once they got back to Bar Harbor, it was a matter of getting their stuff from the hotel and getting on their way down to Boston. They weren't going to make it all the way down there, but getting a start was good. Plus, they needed to have dinner now that they were on dry land and Tony insisted on a sit-down place to give Tim a chance to get settled again. Tim tried to claim that he was fine, but Tony wasn't having it, so they did, and this time, Tim begged off having lobster again. In fact, they went to a steakhouse instead. The meal was great and Tim had to admit that he was grateful for some time not moving. However, once they got into the car and started on their way, Tim's promised drowsiness manifested and he was out like a light before Tony had been driving for ten minutes. Tony smiled as Tim's head slipped back and his mouth fell open. Ah, the snoring. A road trip with Tim wouldn't be complete without some sonorous snoring.
He drove for a couple of hours, but, with the whale tour and the dinner, it was later that they started driving and he wasn't interested in pushing through the night, especially on unfamiliar roads in a place that wasn't exactly known for being urban. So when the signs began to indicate that Augusta was coming up, he was happy to stop there and just get an early start the next day.
"Tim! Wake up!"
Tim snorted once and then stopped snoring but didn't wake up.
"Tim! Probie!" He poked Tim hard in the side and Tim sat up.
"What? Where are we?" he asked.
"Almost to Augusta. I need you to find us a hotel."
"Augusta? Where's that?"
"Still in Maine, but it's getting close to nine and I don't want to drive late. We can head out first thing in the morning and still get to Boston before noon, easy."
Tim nodded and tried to wake up. He yawned a couple of times and, just when Tony thought that he was going to have to repeat himself, he pulled out his phone and started searching.
"So...drowsiness is a thing, huh," he said.
Tim yawned. "Yeah," he said. "Sorry. Boring drive for you."
"I can handle it. Hotels close to the road?"
"About twenty," Tim said. "At least in Augusta."
"And?"
"Hampton, okay?" Tim asked.
"Price?"
"A hundred," Tim said, with another yawn.
"Works for me. Get it."
"Got it," Tim said and then leaned back and closed his eyes again.
"So it doesn't do this to you every time?" Tony asked.
Tim shook his head. "Nope. Just some of the time. Actually, when I'm doing stuff all day, I don't usually get drowsy at all. It's the down time that kills me. I always sleep well overnight. Almost always. Now, you see why I didn't want to be driving."
"Yeah. We'd be dead."
Tim laughed a little...and yawned again.
"And now you know why I don't like to take it very often."
Then, he took a deep breath and brought the seat up. He shook his head, clearly trying to wake up and opened his eyes again.
"You can go back to sleep, Tim."
"Nah. Why bother when I'll just have to try to wake up again in twenty minutes? Hardly worth the effort."
Still, Tim was clearly a little dazed still as they neared Augusta. He didn't say much, but he did tell Tony when to get off for the Hampton. As Tony followed his instructions, Tim suddenly added something else.
"Maybe we could go and take a picture at the State House," he said. "We're in the capital."
"Tomorrow, Probie."
"Okay. Turn here."
Tony got off and then drove to the lot. Tim got out to go inside and check them in since it was in his name. Then, he came back out and showed Tony where to park. They got their stuff, went to their room which was clean and simple with two queen beds, and then Tony let Tim get ready for bed first. Tim lay down and seemed to be asleep in seconds.
Tony tried to follow suit, but he just couldn't. His mind had gone back to something Tim had said to him that morning, that it didn't matter what his dad had actually been like. He still was upset about his dad dying.
"What matters is that your dad is dead. You can't have that fantasy Leave It to Beaver family. It's gone. So instead of trying to force yourself not to care, let yourself care!"
After a couple of hours of trying to get to sleep, Tony finally gave up and sat up in bed. He looked over and Tim was motionless, not even snoring, amazingly enough. Tony smiled a little at that. Quietly, he slipped out of bed and walked over to grab his wallet. He picked it up and pulled a picture out of it. He sat down on the end of the bed with a sigh. Then, with the lights from the parking lot peeking in through the curtains, he looked at the picture. He didn't even actually remember what the occasion had been. The occasion didn't really matter. He didn't know why he had this picture, who had taken it or anything. But he knew who was in it.
Him and his dad.
He'd been really young at the time, which was why the picture existed at all. There was nothing special about it. Millions of people probably had similar pictures. The difference was that this was the only one Tony had of him with his dad. There must have been others at some point, but since he only had a few things from his mother and even fewer from his father, he didn't know if any of the others still existed. He'd found this one after his dad had died and had put it in his wallet. No one knew about it, not even Jo. He felt like an idiot for putting the picture in his wallet. It was a dumb thing to do, but he'd done it and he hadn't taken it out.
He looked at it and suddenly, a wave of intense anger swept over him and he found himself whispering at the photograph of his father, as if the man of so many years ago could hear him and somehow change what life had been like later.
"Why couldn't you have just been the bad guy? If you'd been abusive or a criminal or something like that, I could just hate you and get on with it. Why did you have be... uncaring? Why did you just have to forget I existed? Why couldn't you have rejected me instead of just not caring whether I was there or not? I'd know how to deal with that. Instead, I just waited for you to notice me. And you never did."
He swore almost silently, wanting to rip up the photo but at the same time, unable to bear the thought of ripping up this one photograph where he was actually with his father. He stared at the photo for a long time.
"Why couldn't you at least have pretended you were a real father? I would've gone along with it. But you couldn't even pretend."
His throat got tight as he stared at the photograph. He thought about what Tim had said to him that morning, that he was running the risk of not caring. If only Tim had known just how much that had hurt. Tony knew he'd never have said it if he had. It was the worst accusation he could lay at his own father's feet, and while it probably didn't sound like a big deal, it was. Not caring was almost worse than any other treatment Tony could have experienced.
"I'm never going to be like you," he whispered at the photo again. "I'm never going to not care about my kids. I don't want to be anything like you. I'd rather pretend that I didn't have a father at all than have a father like you."
Then, suddenly, he started to cry. He hadn't cried one tear since he'd found out his dad was dead and he'd been determined not to. He didn't want to cry for the man who barely even claimed to be his father. He didn't want to regret he was gone. He didn't want Tim to be right that none of his dad's behaviors meant anything, that what really mattered was that he was dead.
He didn't want any of that, but he couldn't stop himself from crying now. He crumpled the photo in his hand and cried silently.
Or almost silently.
Then, out of the silence of the dark hotel room, Tony felt a weight beside him on the bed and an arm around his shoulders.
And then, a voice out of the darkness.
"It's okay, Tony."
That was all Tim said. No questions, no platitudes. Just three words.
And those three words got to him as much as all the words Tim had said earlier and Tony couldn't make himself stop crying and pretend it was a misunderstanding. He kept crying and, for once, let Tim give him the support he desperately didn't want to need.
So instead of sitting up, taking a breath and stopping everything in its tracks, he just let himself lean on Tim while he cried out of the grief he hated that he felt.
And Tim didn't say anything else. He just sat there silently. Tony didn't know whether or not he wanted Tim to speak. But really, none of the things Tim might say would change anything. Maybe Tim knew that.
After a few minutes, Tony felt like he could stop. He sat up and took the deep breath he'd wanted to take before and turned to Tim. In the darkness of the room, he couldn't see the expression on Tim's face, but he could feel the support in Tim's arm around his shoulders.
Tony felt like he had to say something to diffuse the situation, but he had no idea what to say.
And with the same surprising understanding he'd shown before, Tim spoke again.
"It gets better, Tony. It sucks right now and you don't necessarily see the solution, but it'll get better. With time."
Again, Tony wasn't sure what to say. Right now, he was pretty sure that his voice would be more than a little shaky anyway. He tried to smile, but he couldn't force the expression. It didn't matter. Tim couldn't see him anyway. Instead, he held out the crumpled photo. In the small sliver of light, he saw Tim's free hand take the picture and smooth it out.
"How old were you?"
"I don't know," Tony said, keeping his voice in a whisper so the shakiness wasn't quite so obvious. "Six, maybe."
"You look happy."
"I probably was."
"I'm sorry."
"Me, too."
"Are you going to keep this or throw it away?"
"Can't throw it away yet...even though I want to. I never told anyone about it. I keep the stupid thing in my wallet."
"I know what you mean."
Another comforting squeeze. Then, Tim stood up and walked away from him for a moment. Tony was surprised that he was disappointed. He had actually liked having Tim being the one offering comfort instead of him.
But then, Tim was back. He sat back down on the bed and put his arm around Tony's shoulders again. Then, he held out a picture in the sliver of light. He saw a picture of a family. It wasn't an actual photo. It looked like it had been taken from a newspaper or something like that. It was a picture of a man and two children at a funeral.
"Why do you have that?" Tony asked.
"Because I can't throw it away yet," Tim said, repeating Tony's own words. "I never told anyone about it."
There was a silence as Tony tried to think of what to say, but then, Tim wasn't done yet.
"Sometimes, you have to keep the source of pain close to you while you figure out how to let it go. Sometimes, I can go days, even weeks without looking at this picture, but it's always there at the back of my mind. Tony, you'll be able to let it go eventually. You just need to figure out how, and you will."
Tim sounded completely confident and Tony was surprised to realize that it was comforting to know that Tim thought he would make it through.
"But if you ever need someone to be there, I will be. You call me and let me know. ...and you know that Jo would do the same if you would let her."
Tony took a breath at the thought of telling Jo about all this. It wasn't that she didn't know his dad was less-than-stellar. It was just that he'd always presented it as something that didn't bother him and whether she saw through him or not, she'd let it be the way he said it was.
Then, the picture of the grieving Jenkins family disappeared from the sliver of light. Tim stood up again and walked away. Then, he came back a moment later and sat down beside Tony again.
"You never have to deal with something alone, Tony. Never."
Tony's throat tightened again, but for a different reason this time.
"Thanks, man," he said, very softly.
"Anytime."
Another pause.
"I thought you were asleep."
Tim laughed softly. "I was, but I didn't tell you that sometimes, I'll be dead to the world for a few hours and then wide awake. I never know when it will happen. Can't predict it."
Tim didn't say anything about Tony trying to hide his grieving. He didn't say anything about resenting Tony's private tears. And Tony knew that he probably could have. He was glad Tim hadn't, but he knew that Tim would be justified if he did. Instead, they just sat there, silently, for a few more minutes, side by side. Tony was just glad that Tim was there. For once, he didn't have a clue what Tim was thinking, but he also could easily say that Tim didn't seem to need anything from him at the moment. He was offering aid not asking for it.
Then, finally, it was as if a crisis had passed, although Tony wasn't sure exactly what the crisis had been. He just felt as though he had got through something that was much worse than a stupid photo. He put his own arm around Tim's shoulders and squeezed once before standing up.
"Tim, thanks," he said again.
"You're welcome," Tim said. "You all right now?"
"Not perfect, but I'm all right."
"Good. Now, maybe we can both go to sleep."
"Maybe so."
He heard Tim walk back to bed and heard the rustle as he lay down under the covers and went seemed to be ready to try sleeping again. Tony looked down at the now-crumpled photograph. He considered what he wanted to do with it, and he knew he couldn't throw it away yet. He put it back in his wallet and then lay down in bed himself.
For a while, all was silent in the hotel room. Then, Tony heard the deep breathing that signaled Tim's slumber. And for once, it was a comforting sound.
He rolled over and was almost surprised that he was tired enough to go to sleep.