Read Online In Mike We Trust by P. E. Ryan - Free Book Online Page B

would be covered with ceiling paint once it was dry. He’d also repaired the screen door, replacing the screen and properly anchoring it into its track with rubber tubing. Both jobs were somewhat slapdash (the new screen had a slight sag in it, and Garth noticed a couple of paint drops on the living room carpet), but why hadn’t it occurred to him to just do that?
    Over dinner, his mom asked him how work had been.
    â€œIt was fine,” he said. “Same old, same old.”
    â€œWhat do you do at this store?” Mike asked, turning his fork through his spaghetti.
    â€œA little bit of everything. Cleaning, stocking, whatever needs done.”
    â€œBut you like your boss,” his mom said. “Mr. Peterson. You said he’s nice to you.”
    â€œYeah. He’s great. A real joker, that guy.” Garth forced a smile onto his face, and stuffed his mouth full of pasta.
    â€œI have to say, I never had a boss I liked,” Mike told them. “Not even the nice ones. It was just the idea of having somebody lord over me, telling me what to do,that didn’t sit right with me.”
    â€œThat’s what most people call ‘work,’” Garth’s mom said.
    â€œMmmm.” Mike sounded as if he were half humming, half growling. “You’re channeling my brother, I think.”
    â€œIt’s true,” she said. “Even bosses have bosses.”
    â€œJerry didn’t have a boss. He owned his own hardware store.”
    â€œWell, he had investors…” She trailed off. Garth wasn’t sure if Mike knew the whole story. Not even Garth or his mom had known the truth until after his dad had died: the business had been struggling for some time and things had been much worse than his dad had ever let on. There was a bank loan his mom had no knowledge of. Personal loans from other businessmen. Of course, it had never entered his dad’s mind that something might happen to him. The fallout of all that shaped their daily lives now nearly as much as their grief and healing—if, indeed, there was any healing going on. Sometimes Garth wondered.
    â€œI guess there’s always someone to answer to,” Mike mused. He folded a piece of bread and dipped it into the sauce on his plate. When he was done chewing, he said, “So, not to change the subject, but Garth told me about his, uh, orientation.”
    Not to change the subject? It was all Garth could do to keep the pasta he was trying to swallow from funneling into his lungs as he saw his mom’s eyes cut over to him. “Mike’s family. You said it was all right to tell family,” he explained.
    There was a long pause while she thought about this. He knew she’d been put on the spot. Thankfully, she rose to the occasion. “You’re right, I did say that. And Mike is family. I’m sure he understands how…delicate…this topic is.”
    â€œOh, yeah, I totally get it,” Mike said, nodding. “I was telling Garth how I’ve had gay friends before, and how they struggled with being in the closet and with coming out.”
    â€œWe’re not thinking about it in terms of his being ‘in the closet.’”
    True enough, Garth thought. In the very few words they’d exchanged on the subject, they’d never once used the word closet.
    â€œWell, I’m just saying I’ve known people who’ve stifled who they were because they were afraid, and all of them, hands down, look back and wish they hadn’t.”
    Who could argue with that? Garth felt his embarrassment at Mike’s having blurted out the subject slipping away. Instead, he was beginning to feel grateful.
    But his mom said, “Garth is only fifteen; he’s notnecessarily ready to…defend himself…against people who might have certain prejudices, and we’ve agreed that waiting to explore this impulse is for the best.”
    â€œImpulse?” Garth