It's working...so far...
------------------------------
She had no more questions and neither of us had any answers, plus I had to head back to the airport, so we left it at that. But while waiting to board, I did some research via my phone...and came up zeroes. Oh, there was plenty of crap about dad and Mira. And I found a couple of snippets about mom and this anti-gay branch of the Catholic church she's joined up with -- 18/20. I had enough Catholic in me to know it referred to the parts of Leviticus that condemned homosexuality. Good ol' mom.
I tried to find out something about my uncle, but there are thousands of Owen Taylors and Google was not doing the work in separating them. It wasn’t till I got to Copenhagen that I caught an idea of what might be going on. I'd kept the apartment there because it looked out over Koge Bay. You could sit on the balcony and watch the ships pass. Man, I loved that place. The eight months Tone and I had lived in it helped me rebuild my self-confidence...my meaning...and since I'd only recently become a citizen of Denmark, it also kept me as a legitimate resident.
Our landlady lived downstairs and always stacked our mail on the table right by the front door, no matter how high it got. She wasn't home when I arrived, so I grabbed everything and sat on the balcony to go through it. Most was crap, but mixed in were a couple of envelopes from Uncle Owen. One was five weeks old; must've arrived just after I left, the last time. In it was a house key and a printout of a note that read, You’ll need this when you come. O. #4870*. The other was postmarked a month earlier but must have just arrived. It had a printout that said, Dear Jacob, I need to see you, ASAP. O.
Dear Jacob? He never addressed me like that. And what’s this when I come crap? Even more, why was it sent here? He knew my address in Texas...hell, he knew everything about what Tone and I had been through in that fucking state. He could have got hold of me in no time if he'd wanted to and I could've been by his side the next day.
I tried to call him, again; his phone still went straight to voice mail. Another e-mail bounced back, so I contacted the service and found out his in-box was too full of unread messages for it to accept any more. Man, did I had a bad feeling...
I was just about to hit the shower when I got a text from Mira. My father finally admitted to her that mom called because no one had seen or heard from my uncle for three months, and she wanted him to use his influence to kick-start an investigation into his disappearance. He swore both phone calls were about this, nothing more.
Which was bullshit.
He knew as well as mom that Uncle Owen was also gay and had been cut off from mom and Uncle Bert for twenty years. The only reason I knew him was through my grandmother; she’d figured out early on that he should be available for questions once I started asking them. Which I did just after I turned fifteen. Then he and Nana’d been the only ones who backed me up once I got disowned. And sent to prison. And released on probation. And after Nana'd died, he'd seen me right through to my exoneration. He knew me too damn well to call me Dear Jacob.
Which meant something was wrong.
Which meant soon as I was done with Uncle Ari, I was headed for a talk with my mother.
Which I hadn’t done in years.
Shit, I'd rather be back in prison.
------------------------------
She had no more questions and neither of us had any answers, plus I had to head back to the airport, so we left it at that. But while waiting to board, I did some research via my phone...and came up zeroes. Oh, there was plenty of crap about dad and Mira. And I found a couple of snippets about mom and this anti-gay branch of the Catholic church she's joined up with -- 18/20. I had enough Catholic in me to know it referred to the parts of Leviticus that condemned homosexuality. Good ol' mom.
I tried to find out something about my uncle, but there are thousands of Owen Taylors and Google was not doing the work in separating them. It wasn’t till I got to Copenhagen that I caught an idea of what might be going on. I'd kept the apartment there because it looked out over Koge Bay. You could sit on the balcony and watch the ships pass. Man, I loved that place. The eight months Tone and I had lived in it helped me rebuild my self-confidence...my meaning...and since I'd only recently become a citizen of Denmark, it also kept me as a legitimate resident.
Our landlady lived downstairs and always stacked our mail on the table right by the front door, no matter how high it got. She wasn't home when I arrived, so I grabbed everything and sat on the balcony to go through it. Most was crap, but mixed in were a couple of envelopes from Uncle Owen. One was five weeks old; must've arrived just after I left, the last time. In it was a house key and a printout of a note that read, You’ll need this when you come. O. #4870*. The other was postmarked a month earlier but must have just arrived. It had a printout that said, Dear Jacob, I need to see you, ASAP. O.
Dear Jacob? He never addressed me like that. And what’s this when I come crap? Even more, why was it sent here? He knew my address in Texas...hell, he knew everything about what Tone and I had been through in that fucking state. He could have got hold of me in no time if he'd wanted to and I could've been by his side the next day.
I tried to call him, again; his phone still went straight to voice mail. Another e-mail bounced back, so I contacted the service and found out his in-box was too full of unread messages for it to accept any more. Man, did I had a bad feeling...
I was just about to hit the shower when I got a text from Mira. My father finally admitted to her that mom called because no one had seen or heard from my uncle for three months, and she wanted him to use his influence to kick-start an investigation into his disappearance. He swore both phone calls were about this, nothing more.
Which was bullshit.
He knew as well as mom that Uncle Owen was also gay and had been cut off from mom and Uncle Bert for twenty years. The only reason I knew him was through my grandmother; she’d figured out early on that he should be available for questions once I started asking them. Which I did just after I turned fifteen. Then he and Nana’d been the only ones who backed me up once I got disowned. And sent to prison. And released on probation. And after Nana'd died, he'd seen me right through to my exoneration. He knew me too damn well to call me Dear Jacob.
Which meant something was wrong.
Which meant soon as I was done with Uncle Ari, I was headed for a talk with my mother.
Which I hadn’t done in years.
Shit, I'd rather be back in prison.
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