7 - Caomhnóir – Manny

 

Hamlin walked along the shore, smiling as Romper romped around and ahead of him. The dog was a new addition, something to keep him company while he tried to work things out in his head. Unfortunately, the working out part wasn’t happening.

 

He cared for Manny, more than he ever had for anyone, even Cerdic.

 

Hamlin had escaped his miserable childhood, living on the streets until Cerdic had found him and brought him to his home and into the fold. He did everything he could to repay Cerdic, even though he had been more than certain Cerdic was not one of the good guys so to speak. Hamlin had no illusions about people. They were out to take what they could by hook or by crook, and if Cerdic used that to his advantage to stir up trouble it was no skin off of Hamlin’s nose.

 

Then Manny had come into his life and things had changed. He’d discovered what it meant to love and have that returned. They had become lovers, keeping that part of their lives a secret from the others, as hard as that had been.

 

When Cerdic had sent him off to London he had wanted to say no. But you didn’t refuse an order from him. So he’d gone, and one year later Cerdic was dead. When he’d returned to the city and the house, Manny was there as always.

 

There but, Hamlin noticed almost instantly, somehow different, and Hamlin couldn’t put his finger on why. Just that he was. Manny had left the next day, promising to return, and to explain what was going on. He hadn’t.

 

After almost a month had passed, Hamlin gave up waiting. He couldn’t stand being there at the house, a place so full of memories of the two of them. Like a petulant child he had run away.

 

Now he was on the other side of the country and all he wanted to do was go back to the one real home he’d ever known. But he couldn’t, because now he knew what it was about Manny that had seemed so strange. Sitting down on the sand, heedless of the fact that it was still damp from the early morning tide, he took out his wallet and looked at the one picture he had of the boy he loved.

 

Taken soon after Manny had arrived at the house, it showed him laughing at something one of the other boys had been saying. Hamlin had snapped it without Manny being aware, and now he suspected that had he known he would have destroyed it somehow. Because, as Hamlin looked at it and compared it with his memory of Manny the last time he’d seen him, he understood what had bothered him the day he’d come back from London. In the three years since he’d first met Manny, the boy had not seemed to age one bit.

 

“Why?” Hamlin said softly, stroking a finger over the picture. “How, between the time you were fifteen and now, at eighteen, do you look exactly the same?” He closed his wallet, lying back to stare up at the clouds. “Do I go back and ask, and feel like the fool that I probably am for having such strange thoughts, or do I stay away because maybe I’m not crazy. Maybe he—Ooof, dog, damn it. You’re soaking wet.” Hamlin glared at the puppy who was now sitting in the middle of his chest, looking down at him as if he’d done something particularly special that warranted a treat.

 

Putting Romper back down on the sand, Hamlin got up, and after attaching the leash they headed back to the small beach house he was renting. As they did, Hamlin realized that this would be their last night there. He had to go back home and pray that Manny was there, waiting for him. And that he would be able to explain the unexplainable.