“Was?”
“She passed away last year,” I said quietly, swallowing down the lump in my throat. “I didn’t even know she was sick. Apparently she had been for a while—she would have known when I’d made plans to travel here, and she was all for me to go. She never told me she was sick. She wouldn’t have wanted me to worry. In fact, she was excited for me when I told her I wanted to travel. She gave me some money and told me to have the time of my life.” I sighed. “I only found out she passed away weeks later when the solicitor contacted me about her will. I’d been here for a few months.”
Andrew paled and a wave of sadness washed over his face. “Oh man. Spencer, I’m sorry.”
“Me too.” I sipped my tea and took a moment to get my thoughts in order. It wasn’t easy to talk about this, but it seemed the last few days had reopened the wounds I’d thought I’d managed to heal. I took a shaky breath. “Anyway, I’d been living with Aunt Marvie for about four years—I could have moved out, but she was kinda old and she liked the company, and to be honest, I loved living with her. Anyway, it was my dad’s fiftieth. It was a big party, black tie, that kind of thing. I mean, I wasn’t surprised that I wasn’t invited. I expected nothing less. But he told Aunt Marvie she wasn’t welcome either, and there was a huge family fight. God, my grandmother cried for a week.” I shrugged. “Nan was torn between her sister and her son. I mean, it was just awful. Apparently Dad blamed me for the whole thing. Said it was all my fault because if I didn’t choose to be gay,” I imitated his voice, “then none of this would have happened.”
Zineb put our food on the table, and obviously detecting the seriousness of our conversation, she didn’t offer anything else but a kind smile.
“Anyway,” I continued, “he told me that in no uncertain terms they now thought of me as dead.”
Andrew’s mouth fell open, and without taking his eyes off me, he slowly put his fork on the table.
“But what hurt the most was not being told Aunt Marvie died. That was low. I mean, I would’ve gone to her funeral… I don’t even know if she had one.” I blinked back those all-telling tears that Andrew had seen too much of in the last two days. I laughed them off. “Man, you must think I’m a blubbering idiot. I haven’t cried this much in, well, over a year.”
He shook his head and squeezed my hand. “Not at all. My God, Spencer, I can’t believe how horrible this is. And then your brother turned up here?”
I nodded. “I hadn’t seen him in years. He’s four years younger than me, so I guess we weren’t that close. I left home when he was twelve, and only saw him a few times in the six years I spent with Aunt Marvie. Anyway, he was here on an end-of-college trip, or so he said. I had no clue he was even coming until he turned up.” I gave Andrew a sad smile. “It’s funny how hope never really goes away. I thought for a second it could be good, you know? But it, well it wasn’t. He gave me what was basically a cease and desist letter from my dad’s attorney. I was to never make contact with them again. See, I’d called them about Aunt Marvie and well, apparently my father didn’t like that. There’s other legal stuff about the family business as well, but yeah, basically I’m to never contact them again.”
Andrew sat there, staring at me with his jaw slack and a flush across his cheeks I think might have been from anger. He stabbed a pancake with his fork. “If it’s all right with you, I think I’d like to hate your family.”
That made me laugh. “You can take a number. That list is long.”
“They really did that to you?”
I nodded. “My brother didn’t know what was in the letter. Well, he said he didn’t, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t blame him for not wanting anything to do with me. He was pretty young when my parents would have brainwashed him, or whatever they did. And I don’t doubt my father made him give the letter to me just to hurt me. He could have just had his solicitor mail it.”
“Have you spoken to him since?”
“No. The solicitor’s letter was pretty clear. It was basically to cut me out of their money. Aunt Marvie left me a fair chunk of cash when she passed away, so I think my parents just wanted to be sure that didn’t happen again when they die. Aunt Marvie had it written in her will that my father couldn’t contest her final wishes because he was a bitter homophobic bastard,” I said with a laugh.
Andrew smiled at that. “She sounds like she was an amazing lady.”
“She was,” I replied simply. “Thank you for saying that.”
“I’m so sorry you had such an awful time. I can’t even imagine going through that.”