The Affinities by Robert Charles Wilson Read Free Book Online

fat.”
    â€œYou should get his hormones checked. See if he’s normal.”
    I said, “Of course he’s normal .”
    My father shot me a hostile glare. Aaron, across the patio table from me, rolled his eyes: Oh fuck, here it comes.
    â€œIs that your diagnosis?” my father asked. “What happened, did you get a medical degree without me knowing about it?”
    For most of my life I had revered or feared my father, depending on his moods or mine. Even after I grew out of the fear, I never argued with him. It had never seemed worth the trouble. And Grammy Fisk had always been there to rein him back when he stepped out of bounds. He would never have said what he just said had Grammy been at the table with us.
    â€œGet on inside,” Mama Laura told Geddy in a tight voice. “Put on a shirt for supper. Something short-sleeved out of your closet. Go on now. Go.”
    Geddy hurried into the house, shoulders hunched.
    My father dug a spatula under a beef patty and turned it. “Thank you for your opinion,” he said to me. “Not that I asked for it.”
    â€œYou humiliated him.”
    â€œYou think I hurt his feelings?”
    â€œYou think you didn’t ?”
    â€œAnd do you imagine that boy can go through life without getting his feelings hurt once in a while? He needs toughening up if he’s ever going to make it through school. I guess you think you’re protecting him—”
    â€œI guess I’m thinking I shouldn’t have to.”
    â€œWhat you have to do is show some respect. We need to get that straight, if you’re coming back to Schuyler.”
    And I said, “Am I coming back to Schuyler?”
    â€œAaron told me you talked to him about this. You know the situation, Adam. Your grandmother had some money, and that worked out to your benefit—and that’s fine, but whatever Grammy had tucked in the bank needs to help with her expenses now. I know we’ve disagreed on certain things, you and I, but I also know you’re not selfish enough to want that money for yourself. So I’m afraid you’re homeward bound, unless you can make some other arrangement on your own hook. And you’re welcome here and always will be. But that doesn’t entitle you to pass judgment on me. Not when I’m setting the table you’re eating from. Which is what we need to do right now. Laura, pass out the paper plates. Everybody line up! Aaron, get the corn out of the boiler.”
    Mama Laura, who had sat through all this with an inscrutable expression and her small fists clenched, said, “Shouldn’t we wait for Geddy?”
    â€œOnce he’s in his room it can be hard to pry him out,” my father said.
    So I offered to go get him.
    I found Geddy on his bed with his face buried in a pillow. He sat up and wiped his eyes when I came in. I helped him change into jeans and a fresh shirt. Then I took him out to the KFC on Main Street. I figured that way we could eat without choking on the food.
    *   *   *
    At the restaurant I told Geddy a secret: my father had asked the same question ( Is that normal? ) about me. More than once.
    I had never carried the kind of extra weight Geddy did, and boob-droop had not been among my otherwise comprehensive suite of adolescent concerns. But there had been plenty of is-this-normal moments when I was growing up. My incessant reading of books, my disinterest in high school sports. My father had never quite accused me of being (to use his word of preference) “queer,” but that inference had never been far away. I was not, as it happened, queer (at least, not in the sense he intended), but neither was I what he believed or expected any son of his should be. And for him, that was a distinction without a difference.
    â€œDid he hate you?” Geddy asked.
    â€œHe doesn’t hate either of us. He just doesn’t understand us. People like us make him