Patrick covered the ice cream with its lid, pushing until he was certain it was on tight. It was one of those practical tasks you do when you don’t know to do anything else. “You think I’m selfish. You think everything’s about me. Me, me, me. Always have. But you know what? Self-love for gay people can be an act of survival. You think it made me unserious, while you toiled away in the nonprofit world, or raised money for any number of causes. But when the whole world is designed to point out that you’re different, it can be a way to endure.”
Clara looked down at the counter and flipped through a stack of Patrick’s mail.
“I’m teaching these kids. I have something to offer that others—frankly, you—don’t.” He hoped this would close the door on this ridiculous notion of them leaving with her.
Clara held up a letter. “Who is Jack Curtis?”
Patrick sighed. Once again, she wasn’t listening. “I am.”
Skeptically she replied, “You are.”
Patrick smiled and held out his hand in the way he remembered Jean Seberg doing once in a movie. “Enchanté.”
“See? I don’t know who you are. You preach self-love, but I doubt you really know, either.” Clara pushed the mail aside as if it were toxic and reached for her purse. She dug through the bag before giving up and emptying the contents on the counter until she found some lip balm. Patrick caught the tickets out of the corner of his eye. He reached out, grabbing them before she could stop him. “Give those back.”
“These are airline tickets. Three return tickets.” Patrick was dumbfounded. “This has nothing to do with parties or my drinking or YouTube. You were planning this all along.”
“Patrick. I came prepared. You want to put me on trial? That’s the markings of a good parental guardian. Preparation. Frankly, the fact that you weren’t prepared for someone else stepping in, the way you’ve been carrying on? It just goes to show how unqualified you are.”
“Oh, god. And you make a show of asking my permission, pretending I had some say!”
“Calm down, Patrick. We can talk about it again in the morning.”
Patrick seethed. “We’re done talking.” He flipped through the airline tickets until he found the one in Clara’s name. He handed it back to her while tucking the other two tickets in the pocket of his shorts. “You’re not taking the kids. One more word about it, and I’ll show you exactly who I am.”
He turned off the kitchen light, leaving his sister alone in the dark.
SEVENTEEN
They rose up, the three of them, in the rotating cable car, suspended far above Chino Canyon. The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway on the north edge of town was a tourist destination, a point of interest in the Coachella Valley, taking visitors to the peak of Mount San Jacinto; Mountain Station, their destination, was more than ten thousand feet above the valley floor (at least according to the pamphlet that was imposed upon Patrick when he purchased their ride tickets). It was also thirty degrees cooler—relief they all needed in the wake of Clara’s rocky departure. Patrick’s insides were jagged like the craggy cliffs, and they were only a few thousand feet into their ascent. Hadn’t he just lectured Maisie and Grant on the importance of siblings? Didn’t he promise to demonstrate that by example? Instead, Clara snuck in to say goodbye to the kids before he was even up, the creak of the front door and the sound of her cab driving away down his quiet road is what woke him.
“Why did Aunt Clara leave so early?”
“Why?”
“Yeah,” Grant added. “Why?”
“Work emergency.” Patrick ushered the two of them in front of his perch at the tram window. “Can you see my house?” The cables above them were suspended from towers; they were approaching the third tower of five and they were in the perfect spot in the car’s rotation to see the valley floor. The view below was incredible, brown, mountainous, and then endless dusty flats; it was like looking across the arid moonscape of distant, orbiting rock.
“What does she do again?” There was no cell reception here, but Maisie’s bullshit detector was pinging.
“I don’t know. Something with nonprofits.” He leaned down over her shoulder and pointed. “Look at the midpoint of the runway, see how it sits on a diagonal? Now follow that over and to the right. Somewhere in that area.”
“But what for nonprofits specifically?”
“Raising money. That sort of thing. Nonprofits always need money because they don’t have any . . . profits. Why the sudden interest?” Patrick wanted off the topic of Clara before they reached the top. Today was about clearing the air, returning to some semblance of normal, moving on. Mostly, he wanted to settle his guilt.
“That’s where your house is?” Grant asked, looking at the dotted horizon.
“YES.” Finally. Some traction. “That’s where you’ve been living.”
The car operator announced they were passing over tower four and advised everyone to hold on for support. Patrick guided Grant’s hands to the guardrail; Maisie already had a tight grip.
“Whoa.” Grant looked up at his uncle as the cable car swayed back and forth. “It tickles my tummy.”
“Mine, too,” Maisie added.
Patrick was about to intercede, but in the wake of Clara’s departure recognized he needed to work on letting things go. Besides, tummy was fine if you were six. “Mine three.”
“What are we going to do at the top?”
“Hike!”
“HIKE?!” They complained.
“Oh, come on. You know where PopPop took your father and Aunt Clara and me? Battlefields. Revolutionary and Civil War battlefields. I take you to see dinosaurs, to the zoo, swimming, on this tram—all of it much more fun. Believe me, you’d rather hike the ridge of these mountains with me than haul ass all
