Love Comes in Threes by Marie Sincalir

Author:Marie Sincalir [Sincalir, Marie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2023-03-24T16:00:00+00:00

The place Leo had found for them was a beautiful, old ranch house in the middle of a vineyard in the Russian River Valley. It was a single story with a wraparound porch and a ramp that made it accessible for Leo without assistance.

Elliott still admired how Leo was able to navigate a world that wasn’t set up to accommodate his wheelchair or limited mobility, but he had learned to keep those thoughts to himself. The one time he said something, Leo — kindly and without rancor — pointed out that it was an ableist-centric way of looking at things. No one admires you for being able to walk from one place to another or navigate through a store without knocking things over, he’d said. Why should I be congratulated for doing what needs to be done to get myself around?

In the months since, Elliott had become much more aware of the barriers Leo had to negotiate every day to do things he and Luc took for granted, the obstacles they could walk around while Leo had to go out of his way or wait for someone to move the object that blocked his path, the aisles in stores that were too cluttered or narrow for Leo’s chair. Obstacles that had been placed in his way by people without mobility issues who didn’t consider the world from other points of view. At first, Elliott felt angry and had been tempted to rush to Leo’s defense or confront store managers and shove the ADA codes in their faces. Luc calmed him and said that had been his initial reaction as well, but now he recited Leo’s mantra — educate, demonstrate, legislate — and let Leo handle the situations as he deemed appropriate.

“Just be Leo’s friend. Don’t try to swaddle his world,” Luc had said, and Elliott did his best to curb his white-knight tendencies and concentrated on being a better ally.

He also tried very hard to think of Leo as a friend, but the more time he spent with the man, the more difficult that became. Elliott knew if he didn’t talk about it this weekend, it was going to create more problems down the road. With a silent prayer he would know when the right moment presented itself, Elliott followed Luc and Leo into the house.

Leo had insisted on driving, but the trip had taken enough out of him that he needed to rest before they did any exploring. That was fine with both Elliott and Luc. Their hosts had left them with a delicious assortment of cheeses, fruit, and charcuterie, along with a few bottles of their wines and freshly ground coffee from a local roaster, so no one felt the need to rush out to the store or drive to a tasting room.

By mutual agreement, they were sharing the large main bedroom. Luc had been the one to make the request, so he didn’t have to choose between his spouse and Dom. Since it was how they spent most nights at Leo’s condo, it wasn’t a big ask.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.