The Cabin at the End of the World(20)
The woman behind him pats his shoulder and shushes him, saying, “It’s okay. You’ll be all right.”
Leonard leaves the dustpan on the floor next to the plastic garbage bin and leans the straw broom against the refrigerator. He asks, “Is Eric cleaned up?”
She says, “He’s cleaned up, yeah, but severely concussed.”
“Awake?”
“Yes, mostly.”
The two of them continue a quick and clinical discussion of Eric’s condition like he isn’t there. Andrew whispers Eric’s name. Eric tries to give Andrew a smile, to let him know that he’s okay, but he’s still crying.
Leonard tiptoes in from the kitchen and to the center of the common room. For a big man, he moves gracefully, but the floorboards betray him and creak under his weight. He bends from his great height and plants his hands on his knees. “Hi, Eric. Are you feeling better? Oh, Wen, I’m sorry.” Leonard deftly sidesteps to Eric’s left to keep from blocking Wen’s view of the TV. He says to Wen, “I’ve never watched this show before but I like it. And it seems like a very you show.”
Eric says, “What does that mean?” He sounds so loud to himself. Is he shouting?
Leonard clasps his hands together. “The characters are, well, you know, smart, and, um, good—”
Redmond, still on the couch, laughs and shakes his head.
Leonard gives Redmond a dark look and then crouches down so that his head is below Eric’s. This guy is young and he is someone who will always look young until the one day he doesn’t. “I get the sense the show teaches, or explores, empathy and tolerance.”
Redmond says, “Makes me feel all squishy inside.”
Andrew says, “Empathy and tolerance. Is that what you’re here to talk about now that you have the queers tied up?”
Leonard stands up and says, “Andrew, I assure you that we’re not here with hate or prejudice in our hearts. Not at all. That’s, um, that’s not us, not who we are.”
The others speak at the same time as Leonard. The woman behind Eric squeezes his shoulders and talks, but he only hears some of what she says. “—not one homophobic bone in my body.” The woman in the black shirt calls out from the deck/kitchen area, “I don’t hate anybody, just this friggin’ screen slider.”
Leonard drones on. “Not who I am. You have to believe me on that. We are not here because—”
Andrew says, “Because we’re fags?”
Leonard blushes, like a teen trapped in a lie. He stammers, sounding less and less confident with each syllable. “I know how this looks and I understand you thinking that. I really do. But I promise you that’s not why we’re here.”
Andrew isn’t looking at Leonard but at Redmond, who stares back at him with a cracked leer. He says, “You promise me, huh?”
“Yes, I do. We all promise, Andrew. We’re just normal people like you, and we were thrown into this—this extraordinary situation. I want you to know that. We didn’t choose this. We’re here because, just like you, we have to be. We have no choice.”
Andrew says, “There’s always a choice.”
“Yes, okay, you’re right, Andrew. There’s always a choice. Some choices are more difficult than others. We choose to be here because it’s the only way we can help.” Leonard looks at a thick, black-banded wristwatch with a white face as large as a sundial. “Hey, everyone come in here, please. It’s almost time.” He holds a hand out, wiggles his fingers in a come-here gesture.
Andrew asks, “Time for what? You don’t need us tied up. You’re here to talk so we’ll talk. All right?” He struggles against his restraints, pulling his legs up hard enough to make the chair jump in place. No one tells him to stop.
The woman in the white shirt steps out from behind Eric and stands next to Leonard. The woman in black walks in from the deck and slowly closes the screen door. Her care is overexaggerated and she says, “If it falls out again, I’m going to stab it dead.”
Redmond says, “Tsk, tsk, such violent language.”
She gives Redmond the finger, then says to Wen, “Hey, sorry. Poor choice of words and finger.”
The woman in the off-white shirt—or pearl, at least compared to the bright, starched-looking white of Leonard’s shirt—steps up and says. “Hi, Eric, Wen, and Andrew. My name is Sabrina.” She smiles and waves at Wen. She’s young, too, younger than Eric’s and Andrew’s almost forty, anyway, and thin but broad shouldered. Her brown hair is between a bob cut and shoulder length, and curly at the ends. Freckles dust across the bridge of a long nose that dives deeply beneath her large, egg-shaped brown eyes. “I live in Southern California. You can tell by my tan, right?” She smiles, and it disappears immediately. She folds her hands behind her back and looks up at the ceiling as she says the rest. “I live in a town you’ve probably never heard of. I’ve been a post-op nurse for almost five years and was planning to go back to school to become a nurse practitioner. I, um, used most of my savings to come out to New Hampshire, to come here to talk with you guys.” She rubs her face with both hands and says, “I have a little half sister back home, my dad remarried like ten years ago, and, Wen, you kind of remind me of her.”
Wen shakes her head no and continues watching Steven Universe.