Head Above Water (Twilight)

Chapter 17

Kelby leaves Denali after a couple of weeks and he goes to Port Angeles to stay in the local homeless center while volunteering with the homeless at night. He helps feed them, keep them warm, gives them clean and warm clothes.

Kelby goes out to the streets after making a big kettle of chili. He sets up a table with a human named Pamela Rhodes and they give homeless people bowls of chili: men, women, elders, children, teenagers. They give formula and gallon jogs of purified water to pregnant homeless women and homeless mothers to babies under one.

"This is a great thing we're doing," Pamela says to Kelby.

"I thought I'd be helpful," Kelby says. "I like giving out to the community. I was born three hours away in Seattle." In 1937, but he can't tell her that. "I wanted to help out here instead of there."

"I hear that," Pamela replies. "My husband and I were homeless when we first moved here. I only wish we had people like us then. Craig is now a realtor and I'm a teacher when I'm not doing this."

Kelby can hear the fetal heartbeat in Pamela's stomach and knows that she and her husband, Craig Rhodes, are expecting a baby. She's not very along, she isn't showing yet, so Kelby says nothing. Either Pamela doesn't know yet, or she does and she and her husband are keeping it between themselves for now. Both of which are none of Kelby's business.

"My husband and I are expecting," Pamela says as if she can read Kelby's curious mind. "Our second. We have a son named Harlan. He's ten."

"Congratulations," Kelby says sincerely. "I'm gay. I'm... more open about it now that I used to be. My birth parents were homophobic."

Which is true. His birth parents were badly homophobic. He never told them he was gay.

"My adoptive parents are supportive," Kelby adds.

"Being gay isn't a bad thing," Pamela says. "I support the gays."

Kelby smiles, feeling at ease as she says this. They serve the rest of the chili and they head back to the shelter. Pamela invites him over and she introduces Kelby to Craig and Harlan and invites him to stay the night. He plays Battleships with Harlan and lets the boy win, and he plays Monopoly with Pamela and Craig once Harlan's gone to bed.