"Shit, Sethy," Gudmund said, his voice as serious as Seth had ever heard it. "And they blame
you?"
"They say they don't."
Gudmund rolled up on one elbow in the bed. "But that's not what they think."
Seth shrugged in an offhand way that more or less answered the question.
Gudmund lightly placed the palm of his hand on Seth's bare stomach. "That blows," he said. He
ran his hand up Seth's chest, then back again to his stomach and carrying on farther down, but
gently, tenderly, not asking for anything more again just yet, merely letting Seth know how sorry
he was through the touch of his hand.
"Seriously, though," Gudmund said, "what kind of country builds a prison next to people's
houses?"
"It wasn't really next to our house," Seth said. "There was like a mile of fencing and guards
before you got to the actual prison." He shrugged again. "It's gotta go somewhere."
"Yeah, like an island or the middle of a rock quarry. Not where people live."
"England's a crowded place. They have to have prisons."
"Still," Gudmund said, his hand back up to Seth's stomach, his index finger making a slow ring
on the skin there. "It's pretty crazy."
Seth slapped the hand away. "That tickles."
Gudmund smiled and put his hand back in exactly the same spot. Seth let it stay there.
Gudmund's parents had gone away again for the weekend, and a stinging October rain swarmed
outside, spattering the windows and raking the roof. It was late, two or three in the morning.
They'd been in bed for hours, talking, then very much not talking, then talking some more.
People knew that Seth was staying over at Gudmund's –Seth's parents, H and Monica – but no
one knew about this. As far as Seth knew, no one even suspected. And that made it feel like the most
private thing that could ever happen, like a whole secret universe all on its own.
A universe that Seth, as he did every time, wished he never had to leave.
"The question, of course," Gudmund said, idly pulling at the hair that tracked down from Seth's
belly button, "is whether you blame you."
"No," Seth said, staring up at Gudmund's ceiling. "No, I don't."
"You sure about that?"
Seth laughed, quietly. "No."
"You were just a kid. You shouldn't have had to face that by yourself."
"I was old enough to know better."
"No, you weren't. Not to have that kind of responsibility."
"It's just me, Gudmund," Seth said, catching his eye. "You don't have to pretend to be all wise.
I'm not a teacher."
Gudmund took the rebuke with grace and kissed Seth lightly on the shoulder. "I'm just saying,
though. You were probably as weirdly self-contained back then as you are now, right?"
Seth nudged him playfully with his elbow, but didn't disagree.
"And so your parents were probably happy they had this strange little kid who acted like an
adult," Gudmund continued. "And your mom thought – against her better judgment, we'll give her
that – she thought it's only a few minutes and it's an emergency, so our little Sethy can watch our
little Owen for just a second while I run back to the whatever –"
"The bank."
"Doesn't matter. It was her mistake. Not yours. But it's too big and awful to blame herself, so
she blames you. She probably hates herself for it, but still. It's a bullshit bad deal, Sethy. Don't
buy into it."
Seth said nothing, remembering that morning more clearly than he wanted to or ever usually
tried to. His mother had delivered a curse word so loudly when they got back to the house that
Owen had grabbed Seth's hand in alarm. It turned out she'd managed to walk all the way home
without realizing she'd left a thousand pounds sitting on the counter at the bank.
Seth wondered now, for really the first time, what that money could have been for. Everything
was done electronically, even then, cards and PINs and debits from your bank account. What was
she going to do with all that cash?
"I'll be right back," she'd stressed. The bank wasn't the one on the High Street, it was off of it
and up, a lesser bank his mother had never taken them to before on any other errand. "I'll be ten
minutes tops. Don't touch anything and don't open the door to anyone."
She'd practically sprinted back down the hall to their front door, leaving Seth holding Owen's
hand.
Ten minutes came and went, and Seth and Owen had only moved from their spot to sit down on
the floor beside the dining-room table.
Which is when the man in the strange blue jumpsuit knocked on the kitchen window.
"I let him in," Seth said now. "She specifically said not to open the door to anyone, and I did."
"You were eight."
"I knew better."
"You were eight."
Seth said nothing. There was more to the story than just the opening of the door, but he couldn't
tell even Gudmund that part. He could feel his throat straining, felt the pain rising up from his
chest. He turned away and lay there on his side, shuddering a little at the effort of crying and
trying not to.
Behind him, Gudmund didn't move. "I gotta tell ya, Sethy," he finally said. "You're crying and I
don't really know how to handle that." He stroked Seth's arm a few times. "I really don't know
what to do here."
"It's okay," Seth coughed. "It's okay. It's stupid."
"It's not stupid. It's just . . . I'm an idiot about these things. Wish I wasn't."
"Don't worry about it," Seth said. "Just the beer talking."
"Yeah," Gudmund said, agreeing even though they'd hardly had four bottles between them.
"The beer."
They were quiet for a second, before Gudmund said, "I can think of a few things that might
make you feel better." He pressed his body against Seth's, his stomach against Seth's back,
reaching around to grab parts of Seth that responded with energy.
"That'll do," Gudmund said happily into Seth's ear. "But seriously, though, why does there
even have to be a problem? He survived and they caught the guy and Owen's a nice kid."
"He's not the same, though," Seth said. "There are neurological problems. He's all1 . . .
"He's not the same, though," Seth said. "There are neurological problems. He's all1 . . .
scattered now."
"Can you really tell that about a four-year-old? That he was one way before and a different way
after?"
"Yeah," Seth said. "Yeah, you can."
"Are you sure, because –?"
"It's all right, Gudmund. You don't have to fix it. I'm just telling you, okay? That's all. I'm just
saying it."
There was a long silence as he felt Gudmund's breath in his ear. He could tell Gudmund was
thinking, working something out.
"You've never told anybody else, have you?" Gudmund asked.
"No," Seth said. "Who could I tell?"
He felt Gudmund hold him tighter in acknowledgment of the importance of the moment.
"It's nothing I can change, right?" Seth said. "But imagine there's this thing that always sits
there in the room with you. And everyone knows it's there and no one will ever say a single
goddamn word about it until it becomes like an extra person living in your house that you have to
make room for. And if you bring it up, they pretend they don't know what you're talking about."
"My parents found the wrong gender of porn on my touchpad last year," Gudmund said. "Guess
how many times they've talked about it with me since?"
Seth turned to look at him. "I never knew that. I'll bet they went ballistic."
"You'd have thought so, but it was just a phase, wasn't it? Nothing that churchgoing and
pretending it never happened wouldn't make go away."
"Aren't they suspicious about me coming over all the time?"
"Nah," Gudmund said, grinning. "They think you're a good influence. I tend to play up your
athletic abilities."
Seth laughed.
"So we've both got messed-up parents who just don't want to know," Gudmund said. "Though, I
admit, yours are a bit worse."
"It's not anything, really, good or bad. It just is."
"It's enough of an anything to make you cry, Sethy," Gudmund said softly. "And that's not
something that can be any good." He squeezed Seth again. "Not something I like to see anyway."
Seth didn't say anything, didn't feel like he could without his voice cracking just that second.
Gudmund let the silence linger for a moment, then he said, brightly, "At the very least, it made
you guys move out here from England. And if you hadn't, I'd never have learned about this."
"Quit tugging on it," Seth said, laughing. "You know what a foreskin is."
"In theory," Gudmund said. "But to think that I used to have one of these and someone had the
nerve to chop it off without even asking –"
"Stop that," Seth said, smacking Gudmund's hand away again, still laughing.
"You sure?" Gudmund moved an arm underneath Seth and pulled him back into a full embrace,
nuzzling his neck.
"Hold on," Seth whispered suddenly.
Gudmund froze. "What?"
"Just that."
"Just what?" Gudmund asked, still frozen.
"Just what?" Gudmund asked, still frozen.
But how could Seth explain it? Just what?
Just Gudmund's arms around him, holding him there, holding him tightly and not letting him go.
Holding him like it was the only place that could ever have existed.
Just that. Yes, just that.
"You're a mystery, you are," Gudmund whispered.
Seth felt Gudmund reach for something off the bed and turned to find Gudmund holding his
phone up above them.
"I told you," Seth said, "I'm not taking any pictures of my –"
"Not what I want," Gudmund said, and he snapped a picture of the two of them from the
shoulders up, just together, there on the bed.
"For me," Gudmund said. "Just for me."
He brought his face around to Seth's and kissed him on the mouth, taking another picture.
Then he put down the phone, pulled Seth even closer, and kissed him again.