2. Chapter 

Greg was even basically okay with not seeing Douglas anymore, but it hurt to pay the price for their stolen time.

He fervently hoped that nothing had changed in their friendship that couldn't be fixed by a little distance. Erin wasn't stupid. It was possible that she was homophobic. But maybe she had just sensed that there was more than her husband had admitted. Greg poured himself a big glass of bourbon, downed it all at once and went to bed.

Sleep was out of reach, but he tried to calm down his rotten feelings with factual arguments. It didn't change the fact that he had the best sex of his life with Douglas. Which he had to admit to himself, was just sex from the beginning. Great sex, but just sex. Gregory had never met anyone where it was more than friendship plus sex. Mostly just either or.

In Alaska, it is hard to find a wife. To find a male partner, almost impossible. Still macho country. Hard work, hard, long winters, hunting, fishing, drinking, roughhousing, wilderness. There were no clubs and no scene to speak of, except for few places in Anchorage.

But if you love nature in the North, with its extreme climate, wild landscapes, and endless skies over the mountains, you feel free, free, and independent. No club scene and no big city life could lure Greg away from Alaska.

His grandfather had been stranded in Valdez after World War II, with his young wife from Russia. He had sailed on a Navy destroyer as a young cadet during the last years of the war and later container ships for many years. He had seen all the world, but he always came back home to his wife and son in Valdez, Alaska.

His wife had fled Russia for Alaska by very circuitous routes after the war ended. She had changed her name from Ekaterina to Catherine and given her husband one son. Harold, Greg's father. The Burton family was firmly rooted in Alaska, and Harold and Emily still lived in the house where Harold had grown up. Greg's grandfather had built it with his own hands. Neither Greg nor his siblings had ever seriously considered leaving Alaska for good. Greg had gone to college in Seattle, but he was always homesick and sometimes couldn't wait to finally breathe the cold, crisp air of the North again. He had few, very fuzzy memories of his grandfather, but many, very fond memories of his grandmother. As a child Greg had called her Babu, and in his mind he still called her that. He wondered if she would have liked her grandson to go to the land of her youth. To the country from which she had fled, after the Second World War, from the regime of Joseph Stalin.

Greg had learned to speak a little Russian and read Cyrillic from his grandmother. He was the only one of his siblings who had an aptitude for languages.

She had often cooked for the children and watched them when Emily worked. Greg was the youngest and undisputedly his grandmother's favourite. She had told him countless fairy tales and songs, cooked, and baked with him. Her warmth of heart was inexhaustible and so was her store of incredibly delicious recipes.

His grandmother was also the first to realize that Greg would never give his parents grandchildren. He would never forget the day she said to him in her charming accent, "Gregory, don't be sad. That's just the way life is. One is like this, another is different. Everyone has to find his own way."

He was sixteen years old and had come out to his parents that day. And as you would expect, his father had been deeply disappointed, and his mother had cried. It had taken months for the youngest son to look his parents in the eye again and for the relationship to slowly return to normal. It had been his Russian grandmother with her big heart who had picked him up. The same grandmother who did not tolerate bad table manners or swear words at all.

Greg slipped into a restless half-sleep as he tried to think about what he actually knew specifically about his grandparents. His last thought was, you’ll have to ask Dad about it tomorrow at lunch. Then he fell asleep. The next morning, raindrops drummed Gregory out of sleep. The day was grey. He had a headache and the remnants of an unpleasant dream flitted through his mind. Greg couldn't really remember it, but he felt sad and lonely. There was no reason for that. He himself wanted to end things with Douglas. Now Doug had just cleared the table, and everything should be fine. But it wasn't. Greg needed a hot shower and two large cups of black coffee to figure out why he felt so bad. He liked Douglas, still did.

Undeniably, the night Doug had pitched Erin that absurd story had not been one of his brightest moments, but Greg could picture the situation and Doug's panic when Erin showed up so vividly that he almost had to laugh: Doug in front of the computer, a juicy gay porn on the screen, his hand down his open pants, headphones on his ears, and his mind as far away as it could be! Yes, it was, quite unpleasant to be found like that by your wife! And exactly there was the sore point. Greg never had a partner who cared what he did, who he slept with, when he was sad or happy. He had never missed that until today either, but now he felt something important was missing in his life. The one person who would choose him, who would choose Greg. Who cared about being with him. He had never expected that from Douglas, but still it hurts that Doug had sided so clearly with his wife Erin.

Tomorrow Greg would talk to Martin about Russia and the thought of being away for a few weeks or months didn't seem as unpleasant to him now as it had a few hours ago. Surely it was good to sink his teeth into a new, challenging job for some time.

Sunday family lunches were always dear to Emily, Greg's mother, when they were all kids. Now the siblings took turns with their parents on Sundays, and Greg always enjoyed coming to his parents' house when he was in Valdez.

Today at noon, Cynthia, his sister, and her husband David were also at the table. David worked at Valdez Port, at the end of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, as a loadmaster. He filled huge oil tankers with crude oil. Since the catastrophe of 1989, when the 'Exxon Valdez' had run aground on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound off southern Alaska, leaking and causing an environmental disaster of unbelievable proportions, awareness of the environment and the safety of oil shipments had increased immensely. Especially in the port of Valdez.

By now, even in the far reaches of Alaska, it was considered very important not to poison the environment with oil. Greg's company had a big part in that with its maintenance work and overhauls.

It didn't last long and Greg, his father Harold and David were involved in a lively discussion about the job in Russia, which was, after all, about spills and environmental protection. Harold was against going to Russia. He still saw the Russians as the old nemesis who could not be trusted. David saw it as a chance to learn something new and see a little of the world. Greg came to the decision to first get a very thorough briefing on the mission and its details, and only then make up his mind. After afternoon tea, Cynthia and David said goodbye and Greg asked his father about his grandparents. He was eager to know more about his Babushka's escape and how his grandparents had met.

He only knew that she had fled across the Arctic Ocean, but nothing concrete of her origins. He didn't know very much about his grandfather either. Not where he had been born and where he had gone to school or what exactly he had done in the war.

Harold gave him only very evasive information. Gregory wasn't sure if his father didn't want to talk about it, or if he didn't know these things himself because his parents hadn't talked to him about it. When Harold was a kid, the cold war was still pretty hot and maybe his parents just wanted to protect him.

Greg didn't probe. He knew from painful experience that it would have no effect at all. His mother had not joined in the discussion, but as Greg was about to leave them, she said to him, "Think twice, son, about whether you really want to go to the Russians. You'll have to deny yourself; you realize that don't you?"

Emily never talked to Greg about his sexuality.

She had noted his outing at the time, but then never said another word about it. Nor did she ask him about his love life. So, this question came as a bit of a surprise to Greg now, but he answered her naturally. "I'll think it over, Mom. After all, it's mostly about work. For vacation, I'd go somewhere else."

The look on her face told him that she'd rather not think too hard about what Greg would do on a vacation, although she tried hard to smile. "All right. You can tell us what happens next, then."

"I will."

 

***

tbc    

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Hugs Reg Dixon