“I haven’t been avoiding you,” uncle Thomas insisted.
We were in his apartment in Brooklyn, the playlist I had made for him played in the background and we were just sitting down to dinner. I love being in his apartment, so much so that I try to recreate the aesthetic of his space on my own to varying results. Valeria likes my uncle Thomas’s style, but not as much as I do, not enough to rip it off wholesale like I’ve been trying to do for years and she very stealthily removes the items that I bring home in honor of my uncle that honestly don’t really fit the decor of our cozy mountain home. Like the floor to ceiling wall speaker that uncle Thomas has that through the magic of technology can make music feel as though it’s being performed live. The speaker fits very well in my uncle’s sleek, modern, Brooklyn apartment where everything is black and white and has some electrical component. Admittedly, the speaker looked stupid in my living room, but I saw it for cheap on eBay and got too excited.
Even despite the slight tension of finally meeting with my uncle after almost a year since the last time I’d seen him in person, I enjoyed being in my uncle’s apartment. I think it’s impossible for me to be truly upset when I’m there, it’s a place where I have processed a lot of my feelings over the years with my uncle, and I know that I can weather anything when I’m there.
It’s distressing to realize that this sense of security that my uncle provides for me isn’t the same for him. His apartment is his home, it’s not a place he can necessarily go to find the kind of council I find in him. It’s a place of comfort for him, no doubt, but it can’t be to him what it is to me because we don’t have the same needs.
I know that my uncle is a homebody. He’s outfitted his space with all the things that make staycations better than vacations or weekend excursions. He’s got a big screen TV and a video game console, he’s got his fancy speakers and access to any music he wants, he has a refrigerator full of ingredients to make into world class cuisine. But when I arrived at his house that day, it didn’t seem that he was taking advantage of those things. There was a pile of takeout containers on the counter, the lights were off like there was no electricity in anything inside, and there was a pillow and covers on the couch like he’d been sleeping there. His space seemed to have been a place of retreat, of simple comforts that didn’t add up to enough to avoid sadness.
He shook off his seeming sadness quickly after I arrived, whipped the bedsheet from the couch and fired up his gizmos and gadgets with the flick of a light switch. He pushed the takeout containers into the trash and replaced them on the counter with the ingredients for dinner that he insisted on cooking for me. I put on the playlist that I made for him as we exchanged pleasantries and caught up on recent news in each other’s lives. Then we laughed and made jokes as we sipped beers.
When we sat down to dinner, I asked my uncle about the friction with his friend Chuck.
“I know it’s none of my business and obviously you don’t want to talk about it or you wouldn’t be avoiding me…”
“I haven’t been avoiding you,” uncle Thomas insisted. “I’ve just been trying to deal. I really hope you haven’t been worried. I know you talked to Hugo, Chuck and I resolved all of that stuff amicably. Very amicably,” he said and lifted his eyebrows in a way that indicated that he was playing at innuendo. “But over the course of all of that stuff, all of the arguing early on, then the making up, I realized that I really love Chuck. Like, I think about that day you came over after you proposed to your first wife. I know it didn’t work out, but the look on you that day, I knew you were sure that you had found someone special that you wanted to be in your life forever. You had children with Loren because you loved her and you probably still do in a way. You met someone that you knew you could make a life with, someone you wanted to make a life with. And honestly, I had never felt that before. Not with Petar, not when we were together. But nephew, I feel it now. I love Chuck with all of myself. If I could have his babies, or give him mine, I would.”
My uncle was smiling. He looked genuinely happy when he talked about Chuck and I was happy for him. He spoke like his feelings had changed his whole outlook.
“That’s so awesome, uncle Thomas. So where’s Chuck now?”
Uncle Thomas took a deep breath and as he exhaled, his face became sad.
“I haven’t talked to him in a couple of days. I don’t know how to deal with it all. How do you love someone? What if I love him more than he loves me? Or what if he loves me as much as I love him but I’m not good for him? I’ve been so wrapped up in all these worries since he left…”
“Where’d he go?”
“He’s been helping out his parents. He’ll be in Ohio until next year and we talk over the phone, text, email. I told him I didn’t want to keep him from enjoying his life, so I won’t let him say we’re in a relationship, but we’re committed to each other. I don’t want to be with anyone else and I know he feels the same. But I’m freaking out. I’ve been freaking out since we resolved the garden thing, since I first met him honestly. I really do love him, Wes.”
“What are you afraid of though? If you love him, you should just be happy.”
“I think it’s fear that my life will have to change once he’s back. I’ve lived alone for a long time and I don’t think I can be in a relationship. Not the way I think it works anyway. What if we move in together and he doesn’t like sleeping with me? Or what if I want to go to Prague to visit Petar? Does he have to come with me every time I leave the country? Not that I don’t want to travel with him all over the world, but what about my life?”
I could tell that my uncle was spiraling and I felt so bad for him, but I have to admit that I was ecstatic. I was planning my uncle’s wedding in my head. It would be an awesome mountain wedding and a multiple day celebration with the best food anyone could ask for. I just had to help him through his anxieties about letting someone into his life.
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