“How’s things?”
“Fine. All I do is put sunscreen on children. Finish with one, start up on the other. Then back to the first to reapply. Ad infinitum. I swear, I should invent some sort of machine. I’d be rich.”
“I thought you already were.”
Patrick bobbed his head to one side. In truth, he wasn’t sure where he stood financially. Not exactly. Money had a way of going out the door fast, never more so than when there was none coming in.
“How are they? The kids.”
Patrick leaned on the wall so he wasn’t looking down on his neighbor quite so much; he was trying to be more aware of how he positioned himself with others. “Hard to tell. I think they’re sneaking into my room at night to sleep.”
“They feel safe with you.”
Patrick smiled. A memory, a sense memory: the total security of falling asleep as a child with adults talking nearby. “It’s weird having them around. Some of my DNA, mixed with Sara’s. They’re like a shadow of an alternate reality, another life, a heterosexual one, unlived.”
“That must be strange.”
He pulled at a branch from one of John’s lemon trees that hung over the wall. “I tried to engage them in conversation about their mom.”
“That’s good of you.”
“The only way past this is through.” He studied John. “How does your mustache stay that way?”
“Huh?” John hopped on one leg to clear water out of his ear.
Patrick mimed curling a mustache at both ends.
“Oh. I have a wax. Seems to hold up in the pool.”
“Where is your better two-thirds?”
“They went to the movies to escape the heat. I opted for a swim instead. Nothing really to see in the summer if you’re not into superheroes and such, people wearing masks.” John took the goggles off his head, his own mask, and played with the elastic strap. “I’m proud of you, Patrick. Talking to the kids. Now, that’s heroic.”
Patrick agreed, but he wasn’t really up for the compliment. “I’m not sure I’m as equipped to handle this as I thought. And I didn’t think I was all that equipped to begin with. It’s hard to get through to them. I can’t get them to relax. Everything I do seems wrong. Not how their mom used to do it.”
“They’re in shock.”
“Still, there was some part of me that assumed they’d be kids. Resilient, you know? They’d grieve, yes. But also fall for my charms and laugh and play in the pool and be . . . free.” Patrick had even hoped that perhaps he might learn from them. That they might know the path out and somehow light the way.
“You could have them talk to someone. A child psychologist, maybe. Someone like that.”
Patrick nodded and added a cough. There was a lump in his throat that he wanted desperately to clear. “They want to know about heaven. So, maybe a priest. If only we knew one.” He smiled, the thought almost ridiculous.
John wiped his forehead. “I was a minister.” The way he tossed it off so casually, solely as information without a hint of boasting, caught Patrick by surprise. He pushed himself back from the wall so hard, he almost fell off his chair. “Don’t look so surprised,” he added.
“How should I look, then? You’re kidding me.” Patrick thought back to their conversation the other day. “A coke-addicted, Burning Man–attending, polyamorous clergyman.”
John glanced down at his feet, kicking some of the gravel on his own side of the wall until it came to a rest near a succulent. “I know you think we’re silly people.”
“Oh, come on,” Patrick protested, but of course it was the truth. They were a throuple with a collective name.
“It’s okay. A lot of people do.” John craned his neck to look back at his house wistfully. “It’s an unusual arrangement we have. We’re the butt of a lot of jokes. We get it. But that doesn’t mean we’re not serious-minded.”
They were silent for a moment. Patrick looked up at the sky, hoping for a shooting star. Instead, the sky was frozen—not even the red lights of a passing plane—although they were enveloped in a warm, gentle breeze.
“What are you doing out here, Patrick?”
“Thought I could use an adult to talk to.”
“No,” John said. He unwrapped his towel from his waist and placed it gently over his shoulders like a capelet. “What are you doing in the desert?”
Patrick rubbed his eyes until he saw shooting stars on the backs of his eyelids. “I needed a break.”