"Why did we bring him along, anyway?"
I look at my husband and wonder - is that the hill you're dying on?
"Don't make this about Gilbert," I tell him, looking around to see if my boys can hear me. He walks off, annoyed, and helps Mark unpack. The silence he creates around his other son is unnerving, and sometimes I wonder if he suspects of my affair 19 years ago. Gilbert keeps to himself, I see him with his sad glasses and oily hair.
The hotel is as bad as I expected. I asked for an extra room, but Steve just went behind my back and booked the cheapest shithole in the backyard of a train station. I tell him this is not great, and he replies I'm ungrateful, and if not for Mark, he would probably no longer be with me.
Gilbert moves out of the way, letting Steve and Mark sit on the bed, talking about Sunday's big game. I know he is ashamed of not being a sports player like his brother, but I love him to death. It's late, and all I want is to sleep after a ten-hour drive. A hot shower would be great, but I just can't be bothered, and Steve won't touch me anyway.
I change into my nightgown and make a final trip to the toilet to brush my teeth, and Gilbert is there, so I wait outside. I can hear him peeing, and it always makes me feel like a dirty pervert, but it's a guilty pleasure to listen to that powerful stream. Mark's and Steve's are nothing like that. Doing laundry taught me one thing without seeing, and that is Gilbert is fathered by another. I knew it, anyway, but his size is something he shares with his real father, but he doesn't need to know.
He opens the door and smiles shyly as he sees me, nodding as I enter. There's a volume in his sweatpants - maybe that's why Mark is such a difficult brother.
I'm almost asleep when I hear them shouting. Not at each other, but at Gilbert. He normally doesn't come along, but this time was the whole weekend, and I put my foot down. It's a whirlwind how football took over my son's life and, with it, my husband's. He's his coach, always measuring his meals, counting calories, and tracking times. And we're all dragged into it.
But like all whirlwinds, things get pushed aside to avoid crushing, and Gilbert is no exception. The shy, big-glassed nerd understood that to survive his jock of a brother, silence is the best way.
It pains me to see such a kind soul, a gentle giant, being put aside like that. Sometimes I wonder where I went wrong.
"Get out," Steve shouts, "fucking weirdo."
Blood boils, and my temper snaps. I drag my body out of bed and appear in a nightgown, braless, big brown nipples showing through the translucence of the fabric, and pointing the finger.
"Mom, yuck!" Mark shouts, but I ignore him. He's beautiful, I give him that, he takes after his father twenty years ago. Shirtless, smooth, a sin-turned-man.
"What's wrong this time?"
"Gilbert," Steve says, pointing the finger just like I did, "upsetting Mark. You know how he gets anxious before his games."
It gets to a point where you just had too much from this so-called anxiety that shows up when his brother is around. Maybe is that big thing swinging around his legs when he has his pajamas on. Maybe is the planes - the reason why we drove half a day to get to this shit hotel.
"Get on with it," I say, "I need to sleep."
There's silence, and then Mark pouts. I've seen this before, and don't wait around for Steve to educate me on how my temper gets in the way of Mark's performance. I already know where we're heading, and I suggest that Steve sleeps with Mark, a more-than-expected routine at this stage.
"You know it helps him," Steve argues back at the tone of my voice. "That's why I didn't want him to come," he finishes looking at Gilbert. My heart shrinks with each syllable.
"He can sleep on the floor," Mark adds, a pang of evil.
Gilbert leaves the room, upset, and I snap back at them. "You sure deserve one another."
What kind of mother am I? It upsets me deeply, to feel such a way for my own flesh and blood. I don't want to have favorites, but it's like I'm forced to after the preferential treatment Steve gives to him. I find Gilbert locked in the toilet and knock gently, and he opens it. There are tears running down his face, which I let dry on my nightgown.
There is no way I could let Gilbert sleep on that small and suspicious couch. The bed is large enough for both of us, and I can already hear his gentle breathing under the blankets. Mark and his dad are snoring in the room next door.
He is so warm, I had to take off the blanket and sleep just with the bedsheet on. It's nice, for a change, to have someone who can provide some humanity to my night, a beating heart. Steve sometimes fucks me, but it's a two-minute thing, no contact other than his cock inside me, squirting out and panting, and that's it. I don't get to warm up or to finish, and you tolerate a few things because of love and because of your boys.
Things changed - very slowly, imperceptibly almost, and it's only when I compare what I had with him twenty years ago to now that I see the monster we became to one another. He reminds me of Mark, a tall and fit jock who played football. We met in college, he was my first. Nothing like Gilbert. Nothing at all. Outgoing, social, and able to sweep me off my feet, he loved to get lost in my large breasts.
Now, every younger girl takes his attention, and he lives vicariously through his son. His knee, the injury, the years he lost in physio and doctors, the realization he couldn't play anymore, and then Mark, and putting all his pressure on his son, until the ritual of sleeping in the same bed before the games, waking up at four in the morning to go and train, insane.
Gilbert was different. When I understood I was pregnant, I knew it wasn't Steve's. It was a dark period for us, but I still managed to fuck him one time before telling him I was pregnant. The worst of the secrets. And not one I can hide that well, because Gilbert's dark thick hair is nothing like Steve's, and looks so much like his best friend back in the day, a half Italian half Sweeden bad boy that was so hard to resist. It was the best lovemaking of my life, opening my eyes to what I was missing.
And it's a shame when someone opens your eyes like that, you are never able to close them again. But at least I got Gilbert and all the love he can handle.
A shy child, a shy adult, sweet, loving, nerdy, with big round glasses and an awkwardness it's complicated to describe. And Steve understood very well this is not his son.
Gilbert moves in bed and turns to my side. He smells of lavender after using my shampoo and makes me smile. I wrap one hand around his and fall asleep.
The sun ain't up, but already husband and son are awake. They don't make an effort to be quiet about it, but it doesn't wake Gilbert up. He sleeps like a rock, not a care in the world, on his stomach. I hear the room door closing and sigh.
When was the last time we made love for real? Too many years ago. I'm sure he's having an affair, but stopped looking for clues - the less I know, the better.
And who am I to judge?
Gilbert moves, startling me. Snoring gently, but manages to turn on his back, his leg kicking the blanket and bedsheet and exposing his pajama bottoms. In the slumber of the room, it's difficult to perceive shapes. I go to the toilet, drink some water, and on my return, have to stop before entering the bed. The bedside lamp that I turned on to see my way out of the room, reveals to me the immensity of my son.
Dirty perverted thoughts flash before my eyes.
It's trapped inside his clothes but, in a way, fully free. An arching erection, stretching his trousers, making the elastic band bend to its dimension.
I'm shaking, remembering his dad. It's been so long that the size makes me weak, and I've forgotten all about it.
