Holiday Milestones Joe had finally, after almost thirteen years of trying, managed to stay awake all the way through a midnight Mass. He had, of course, gone to bed for a few hours after he’d returned home and eaten the traditional end-of-Advent bit of maple candy with Julian and John, but he still suspected his success on Christmas Eve night was why he got tired earlier than usual on Christmas, because he didn’t have the slightest desire to complain when his mother told him to go to bed.
Christmas had been Christmas – getting up to the smell of the good breakfast foods being prepared in the kitchen, helping his siblings and parents decorate the tree and living room for the holidays, opening presents, writing thank-you notes to his relatives who lived far away for the presents they’d sent, eating a sumptuous supper…only one thing had been different this year, and that had been the introduction of a new player into the game. Julian’s boyfriend had come over and stayed for about two hours, explaining that he was between family parties. Julian had been over the moon, and Mom and Dad had appeared to approve, or at least not disapprove too strongly. Joe didn’t know what any of his brothers thought, though, or indeed what he thought about it all yet.
John’s feelings about sleep, at least, were a lot easier to divine. He was in bed already when Joe entered their room, but sitting up with one of his new books, a recent publication about magical birds of North America Stephen had gotten him. Since it didn’t look like there were ten other books around him, though, Joe thought he stood a good chance of getting to sleep in the mostly dark if he asked nicely. First, though, he wanted to ask his brother something else.
“What do you think about William?” he asked. John looked totally absorbed, but Joe knew John knew he was in the room.
John made a ‘wait a second’ gesture and, a few seconds later, turned a page. “Julian was happy to see him,” he said.
“I didn’t ask you what she thought about him.”
“Why are you asking me what I think about him?”
“Why don’t you just answer my question?” asked Joe, irritated, as he sat down on his own bed.
Pages rustled, John fidgeting with the edges of them as he calculated a response. “People aren’t my area of study,” he muttered finally. “I’m usually wrong about them.” He was still looking at his book. “Was it normal, him coming here today?”
Anyone else on the planet would have pointed out that when a sixteen-year-old talked with a twelve-year-old, the twelve-year-old was usually the one who was supposed to ask questions about what was normal for people who were dating, not his older colleague. Joe just shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “I mean, I’d think it was kind of...serious, though, coming to see someone on Christmas,” he said.
“Serious,” repeated John. “Define your term, please.”
Joe made a face at the mention of one of Mom’s catchphrases. “I don’t know,” he repeated. “But...if you’re trying to act like you’re part of the family...I don’t think you do things with the family unless you think you might...be part of it someday, do you?”
There was a moment of silence as John seemed to think about that one, but then his brother made a contemptuous noise. “Don’t be stupid,” he said. “Julian’s not going to marry him.”
“How do you know?”
“I told her to let love and reason keep good company right before we met him, and she said she didn’t love him,” said John, as though that settled the matter.
Joe took a moment to marvel at the fact that he was related, blood and book, to someone who could utter the phrase ‘keep good company’ with a straight face while not on a stage in a doublet. Then he took a few seconds more to control the urge to laugh at the image of John acting, or at least the image of how everyone at Sonora would react to John acting. John at school was a lot different from John at home. “They’ve been dating for a year,” he pointed out.
“They met a year ago,” said John sharply. “There’s a difference.” Joe didn’t answer him and John turned back a page in his book with what sounded like undue aggression. “Julian wouldn’t marry him,” he said stubbornly, and muttered something else, something that sounded defensive and not precisely friendly and possibly involved the phrase 'wouldn't leave us'. Joe couldn’t be sure of what it was, but guessed he had part of an answer to his original question either way. Unfortunately, though, John's opinions about people were just likely enough to be wrong for that not to be as helpful as Joe had hoped in sorting out what he thought about the current state of affairs.