I was driving to a small reserve in the country’s north where the landscape was densely boreal, almost subarctic. It was a reserve I’d heard mentioned now and then in the news—a grizzly sighting one week, updates on a federal court case another—but hadn’t yet visited. The drive from the city was long, and there were vast stretches of road without cell service. During these stretches, I listened to downloaded podcast interviews with contemporary authors, some of whom I had met, sat on panels with. I retained very little of the particulars of the interviews. I was more interested in the thinking space they opened up in me. I always enjoyed listening to writers talk about their work and about writing more broadly, because it was a way to think about my own work without initiating the effort, without feeling bored by my own meandering thoughts. The truth was that I had stalled out creatively. My book had been published and I had promised to write another one, had signed a contract cementing that promise in legal terms. But it seemed that I had wrung all the worthwhile ideas out of myself already. There was little autobiographical information left for me to fictionalize, as I had done for my first novel. I was beginning to panic.

Then, on Facebook one evening I came across a post about a queer Cree couple, two men who had lived together for decades in a house on the reserve’s edge. The post was written by a niece of one of the men, who was commemorating some anniversary, the details weren’t really elucidated. The photograph of the couple is what stunned me: two native men sitting closely on a couch, holding hands, mouths open in laughter, a large cast of relatives around them. One of the men looked like how I imagined my older self would look: tall but hunched, round, a protruding stomach, a smile encased in deep wrinkles. I was moved, so much so that I wrote to the woman to ask, aware of the strangeness of the request, if I could be put in touch with the men. Miraculously, she wrote back quickly, almost instantly. She had heard me on the radio a while back and had been meaning to read my book. She promised she would reach out to the couple. I made sure to get across that I didn’t intend to write a book about their lives, but to simply have a conversation with them. I wanted to be in the presence of the literariness of their lives. I had been a writer for a relatively short amount of time, but a lesson I kept learning was that in order to write I had to encounter a certain literariness in the world. I had to be surrounded by it, by people defying reason, by events of sudden historical importance, by matters big and small that insisted on writerly attention. That is, I had to leave my makeshift bedroom-office, had to enact the writing with parts of my body other than my hands.

Weeks passed. It was autumn again. As I was beginning to let go of the possibility of the meeting and concede to the urgency of finding something else to write about, the woman messaged me with an update. The couple had agreed to meet me; they had decided to read my book first, which had taken them longer than expected. I could drive up during the long weekend, she wrote, which was just days away.

So there I was, in my car on a Saturday with the vague hope that I was nearing some kind of literary territory. The directions I had been given were of the usual nature for a house on the reserve: follow the dirt road after the bridge as far north as it allows, turn left and it’s the house on the right with the purple Jeep out front. I thought I would get lost but I found the residence easily. It was a grey day, the sort of greyness that always seemed to wear me down, to bore into me. I felt lethargic and hazy, but my feelings were hardly important. I was on a pseudo-journalistic mission. What’s more, the sight of the Jeep lifted my spirits, its purple so bright and joyful that I couldn’t help but delight in the sight of it. 

I knocked on the door and was told to come inside. The door opened into a stairwell that led down into the basement, where I could see a laundry room, and up into the dining area, where the two men were seated at a large oak table. 

The men looked just as they did in the Facebook photo. The house was meticulously tidy. It smelled like disinfectant, a lemony scent filling the air. Looking at the men in the flesh, intense admiration welled up in me. I could feel tears forming at the edges of my eyes, but quelled the emotional rush before it could burst forth. I did not want to come off as dramatic. I hurried up the steps and held out my hand to introduce myself to the men.

Their names were Norm and Richard, which I knew from the Facebook post, though they introduced themselves anyways. Norm grabbed my hand first. He held it loosely in both of his. I registered a gentleness in his caress that felt maternal. Then came Richard, who got up from his chair and walked around the table toward me. His handshake was much firmer, more assertive. He looked me in the eyes and told me he was glad to meet me and that I should make myself feel at home. I had the sense that the house was more his than his partner’s, that perhaps the land belonged to his family, had been passed down to him. I would later learn that this was indeed the case; Norm was from a neighbouring reserve and had moved into the house with Richard after an aunt had passed away. This mattered to me because I was interested in the ways queer couples constructed their domestic lives. I wanted to know about the specific details and mundane choices that added up to a home, because those details were so far beyond my experiences. 

After Richard shook my hand I became nervous. I wasn’t sure how to settle the small talk into something more formal but not overly constrained. I hadn’t done this sort of research before; the closest I had come to it had been reading about oral researchers in novels. The thought of those novels, novels I had spent innumerable hours with, calmed me down enough that I could explain what I hoped the conversation would entail. I explained to Richard and Norm that the Facebook post had struck a chord with me and that I hoped they could tell me their story. But upon saying “story,” I felt turned off by my own phrasing. “Story” was shorthand for something more intricate, more complicated. So I corrected myself. I told them I had encountered so few long-term gay native couples in my life and had wanted, out of both personal and sociological interest, to hear a first-hand account of the work it took to make a queer Indigenous relationship last.

I punctuated my sentence with a nervous laugh and Richard and Norm looked at one another and laughed too. But then silence fell over us, and in those elongated seconds I scanned the room more robustly. In the living area, the walls were adorned with an array of photographs, many of which were of the couple. I could surmise that some of the photographs were from the late twentieth century, and they seemed to me objects of deep sentimental and historical importance. I felt an urge to ask for one to take with me but I knew the urge was self-interested, and so I turned my attention back to the men.

Richard cleared his throat and said he wanted to tell me first that they were both glad to have read my book. He apologized that it had taken them so long to get back to me through his niece, but it had seemed urgent that they engage with my work as meaningfully as possible. Norm added that some of it went over his head but that he had connected with the emotional current. Neither had ever read anything about gay native men. 

We feel like we know you, Norm said. It’s fiction, yes, but we could tell a lot of you was in there too.

I wasn’t sure how to respond; I felt that it would be indulgent to say anything.

They noticed my trepidation and steered the conversation back to themselves. 

No one has ever asked to hear about our lives, Richard said. In fact, we didn’t think about our relationship as something to be discussed openly until we got wind of your message. It caused me to see our relationship differently, in a more, well, in a more appreciative light. Don’t get me wrong, he clarified, I appreciate this man a great deal, but it’s different when someone else, someone we don’t know at all, singles us out in this way. And when we read your work we knew you were a sincere and serious person. 

I smiled at Richard and then at Norm. My gratitude for them was already enormous. I could detect life stirring inside me, a feeling I knew was precious and rare. It occurred to me that maybe I’d always wanted to be seen as a sincere and serious person—in writing, in love, at all times of the day, even in the middle of the night.

Well, Norm said, placing his hand on Richard’s shoulder, we met when we were eighteen, barely adults, but somehow already mature, already eager to take on the world. Which I suppose meant not much more than moving out of our childhood homes, visiting the city more often. It was the late eighties, so neither of us knew anyone who was out. We were still closeted, still working through how to be gay and native and not in pain all the time. Obviously, the pain was internal, something we kept inside us. 

Norm paused, looked over at Richard. Is this all true for you? I’m aware that I’m speaking for us both, he said.

Richard nodded. A solemnity fell over his face. I tried to take note of it, to fully discern its intricacies. His was a face that held decades of emotion. A face that bore some measure of the world’s possibility and impossibility.

Richard said he still remembered very clearly the day he met Norm. It was spring and the forest was just coming alive with its multi-species splendor. Like every spring this far north, life felt newly amazing. Richard aspired to relocate to a city, any city, really, but before he was able to fully act on that desire Norm came along, showing up on Richard’s reserve one day for a community event. 

When I saw him, I knew, said Richard. I knew we were the same kind of man.

And what kind of man was that? Norm asked playfully.

Doomed, Richard joked. 

Our laughter filled the room. The room became blurry with our joy.

We were, weren’t we? Norm said eventually, still chuckling.

Well, until we met each other, Richard said.

My heart broke. Not because all love stories come to some form of conclusion, though I felt the sting of that, too, but because I felt at a remove from love’s many minor utopias. I thought of my ex-boyfriends, of all the men who’d afforded me similar bursts of passion—how fleeting it all was in the end. And how seldom the men turned out to be who they had pretended to be during those desperate and idyllic hours. I was, however, still my despair and my idealism, and most nights it seemed that that was my destiny, my inescapable allotment. 

Hey, you alright? Norm asked.

Oh gosh, yes, I’m just so moved, I said. Where were we? The eighties? 

I hoped I wasn’t too obviously flustered.

Yes, the eighties, Richard said. I’d say they were the best years of my life but I’ve been blessed with so many good years. We never did move to the city. I, for one, found what I would’ve gone looking for. 

Tell him how you asked me out? Norm said, his hand moving briskly to his mouth.

He loves when I tell this story, Richard said. I don’t know why. It’s not that exciting.

Just tell it, Norm chided.

I asked his auntie, Richard said. 

Of course he asked his auntie, I thought. There is always an auntie. Always.

I just walked up to her when she was smoking outside the venue, Richard said. And I said to her: “I know you’re Norm’s auntie. I think he is very handsome.” I knew I was being bold, and possibly ruining my chances, or worse, but I had to believe that she loved Norm no matter what; I could see it in the little time I had seen them together. 

He took me home later that evening, Norm said. Well, to his mom’s house, who was away. It was a magical night. I fell in love that night. There was no getting rid of me after that.

Not that I ever tried to get rid of you, Richard said. 

The rest of those first few years felt like that—a beautiful dream, Norm continued. Many nights together, between reserves. People let us be. We got some trouble, but we have big families. Influential families. That protected us. It was tough to be out, don’t get me wrong. But our families understood that we as a people had survived so much that it would be ridiculous to abandon your son or brother just because he was somewhat different. 

The late eighties, early nineties were harder, not because of what was happening to us personally but because of the epidemic, all those lost men, Richard said. Friends of ours, people we had met during our few visits to the city. The fear and grief drove us closer to each other, I think. It strengthened my convictions, my belief that I had to hold on to Norm for dear life. He was my world, he was my life. And he still is.

Oh, Rich, Norm said. 

But the deaths stuck with us, Richard continued. We couldn’t forget. It shaped our future in ways we couldn’t really anticipate.

I had heard this kind of testimony before. The nineties never quite ended for queer men; the decade lived on as memory and trauma and the looming threat not just that the government would desert us again, but that love wouldn’t save us after all.

As the decade was ending, we moved into this house, Richard said. We were nearing our forties and we settled down. We slowed the pace of our lives. We thought about children, but we were scared … I was scared. 

I was, too, Norm added.

We didn’t want to let a child down, Richard said. Native childhoods can be full of so much uncertainty. We wanted to adopt only if we knew we could do it without uncertainty. We didn’t have the greatest finances, alas. I was working as a school cook, Norm was the mailman. We didn’t make a lot. We didn’t have enough to start a family, to raise a kid. But it’s okay. We love being uncles. Norm’s brothers have a bunch of children. I have a few nieces, a nephew. We’re loved. I guess that’s what I want you to know. We’re really truly loved. 

We are very lucky men—old now, but lucky, Norm said. Richard swatted at the air near him, as if to gently and irreverently say, “Why bring that up?” 

We are old, Norm said defensively, smiling.

I never doubted that we’d last this long, Richard said, looking directly at Norm. As they continued to hold each other’s gaze, I receded into the background, into another, less immediate layer of the space.

I had always looked forward to growing old with you, Norm responded finally. But you know that already. I’ve told you enough times.

Sometimes I thought it was a threat, Richard said.

More laughter. 

I envy you both, I said. It felt like a secret I had at last owned up to. 

Oh, don’t envy us, Richard said. You will be loved. Hell, you’re already loved. We read your book, remember. Love has wounded you, but it has also spared you. Don’t forget that. You are a beautiful man. I mean it. It’s so obvious to me. 

I wanted to believe him. I wanted to become the kind of person who could internalize a compliment like that. I vowed to try. I turned to a small window in the kitchen and was able to glimpse the sky, which had darkened considerably. Time had gotten away from me. I still had to make the drive back to the city, there were no hotels out this way. 

Jeez, I said, I hope I haven’t stayed too long.

God, no, Norm said. We haven’t had this much fun at our table in a long time.

As I began to put on my coat and gather my few things, Richard stood up and approached me once more.

Come back any time, he said. We mean it. You’re our nephew now. He hugged me.

Heck, we might even make a Facebook account just to keep in touch, Norm said. He stood up to embrace me as well. But in case we don’t, leave us your email.

I knew that I would come back. I trusted that they were being genuine. I knew there was more they could teach me about love, more I could learn about being someone worth loving. My education in love was nowhere near any form of completion. I jotted down my email address on a small piece of paper Norm handed me. I folded it and placed it in his palm. He closed both of his hands over mine and looked me in the eyes once more. I did not know what I would write about the meeting, if anything, but in the brief moment our hands were interlocked I felt certain that I belonged in the world, that the world that made Richard and Norm’s relationship possible was a world I couldn’t turn my back on. The whole drive back to the city I couldn’t stop smiling. ⁂

Billy-Ray Belcourt is from the Driftpile Cree Nation in northwest Alberta. He is an associate professor at the University of British Columbia’s School of Creative Writing and the author of five books; most recently, Coexistence.