His Country

Chapter 10

CHAPTER TEN

“Do you still love him?”

Aiden wished he could say the question came out of the blue, but it hadn’t. Ethan had been wanting to ask him about Everett for a long time. Why he decided to do it now, when they were sitting on the back of his truck with their legs swinging and breath pluming from the cold, he couldn’t say.

He could say that he thought it had been on his lips for a long time. At times he’d glance over to find Ethan staring at him with this odd expression. If he had to guess, he would say consternation. Wanting the answer but afraid to rattle whatever fragile thing existed between them.

So really it was probably only a matter of time. Things never stayed buried, and after a meeting where Ethan and Frank talked about things Aiden didn’t understand—laws that sounded a whole lot more like an algebra problem than something legal—he must have decided enough was enough, stuck his shovel into the ground, and leaned on it with all his weight.

Aiden couldn’t even pretend to be blindsided. He’d been thinking about it a lot. Asking himself if he was still in love with Everett, picking at the question like a scab. You never start in the center, where the scab is strongest, you pick at the edges. Scraping a fingernail against it until you can get a good grip, wincing at the sting but picking and picking until eventually the whole thing peels off and you’re left with something raw.

No matter how raw, he didn’t think he’d ever be able to answer anything definitively about that time in his life. There was too much joy shrouded by pain and uncertainty. Too many nights where his cheeks hurt from laughing at Billy’s exuberance, only to be clouded over by heartbreak when he turned to see Everett smiling at Billy, his eyes sparkling in a way Aiden had never seen.

He could still remember his last football game. It was a good game. Under the bright lights he’d pulled off his helmet, sweaty hair flopping into his eyes as he looked up at the stands. They were full of people wearing their school colors, some wearing players jerseys or holding signs. Every number danced in the crowd except his.

Aiden shouldn’t have been surprised. His own parents couldn’t be bothered coming to the first game he had ever started in.

When he got home, he found his mother scrubbing a pot she hadn’t used and his father in his favorite chair, staring down at a watery drink. Aiden didn’t ask if they’d forgotten or if they didn’t want to come. He dropped his gym bag at the door and walked past his father’s desk, careful not to knock the pile of bills off its surface.

The next week his father told him he had to quit the team. He needed to do more around the farm. Aiden hadn’t fought him.

“I got angry at my father once,” Aiden said, tucking his nose into the collar of his coat and sliding his fingers under his legs.

Billy had encouraged his anger. Told him he was allowed to be angry. To hurt. That he needed to tell his parents the farm wasn’t his responsibility. But it was. Billy would never understand that. Billy wasn’t from there. He’s grown up in places that had the luxury of ‘not my responsibility’.

You never had a childhood, Billy had said.

Aiden didn’t see how that mattered.

“I got angry at him, and it was pointless. Nothing changed. I didn’t feel better. So I stopped being angry. I stopped being anything. All I had was this broken heart. I could feel that. That was mine.”

Ethan was staring at him, his eyes wide, breathing shallowly like if he breathed too hard it would remind Aiden that he wasn’t alone, and he’d stop talking. He’d play dead like the possum Ethan said he was.

Aiden had his broken heart, but he had the shame, too. That heavy feeling that clawed him with every thought he couldn’t moderate. The chaser to his desires. But Ethan didn’t like it when he talked about that. When he couldn’t say the words. The labels with all their permanence and meaning. He never said anything, but he could see him flinch, like Aiden had reached out and smacked him rather than just stuttered over some words.

“I think I loved the heartbreak more than I ever loved him.” Aiden lifted his nose to look at the stars. They were far away, little pinpricks of light in a blanket of black. They weren’t all that interesting to him, but he couldn’t look away. Couldn’t look at Ethan. Because if he looked at Ethan, he’d be looking back at him. “So no. I’m not in love with him.”

For a while they didn’t say anything. It was as if the words needed to settle between them. Like the first drifts of snow, waiting to see if they would stick or melt the moment they touched the ground.

Finally, Ethan breathed out and took Aiden’s hand, stuffing it into his pocket where he tangled their fingers together. “I’m sorry.”

Aiden didn’t ask what for. He didn’t take his hand back, either.

The meeting was held in a municipal building attached to city hall. It was a squat thing, built for use rather than beauty, Aiden thought it looked more like one of those buildings you repeatedly drove by and never noticed.

Frank parked his truck at the back and stared. They sat in silence, just the engine ticking to keep them company. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be feeling. For reasons that defied logic, he thought this would be more momentous. It would be more like a warrior suiting up for battle rather than a mostly empty parking lot in front of a one-story building.

Ethan spent the ride going over his talking points with Frank, making sure he could pronounce people’s names. Aiden hadn’t really listened. He didn’t think knowing these people’s names would help.

Apparently, it was the Bureau of Land Management that gave out grazing permits. Frank said they were trying to get a meeting with them, but he didn’t sound hopeful. What they were trying to fight today was the resort being built. If they could prevent that, maybe the BLM would give the permits back.

Aiden kept telling himself it wasn’t about winning. That no matter what these people said all that mattered was that he was going to be able to say he tried. That he fought. And maybe at the end of the day, he’d like his reflection in the mirror.

He told himself that a lot. Didn’t mean he believed it.

Or that he knew what he was going to say.

Eventually the cab grew cold, and Frank decided enough was enough. He jerked open the door and began walking toward the building without looking back. Ethan collected all his folders—he had them color coded and everything—and followed.

They hadn’t even walked up the short sidewalk between the parking lot and the front door and Aiden was already feeling out of place. Hands stuffed in his pockets, he looked down at his boots and wondered if he should have polished them. Or even cleaned them. His jeans were fresh, thanks to Isaac’s helpful and frequent reminders. So at least he had that.

Frank held open the door and they stepped into the one room building. Three rows of metal folding chairs had been set up facing a long table at the front of the room. They’d built a little makeshift stage out of untreated wood so that it was above the rest of the room by a few inches. On the whiteboard behind it someone had written an agenda in orange marker that was impossible to read under the fluorescent lights.

There were already a few people seated in chairs, scrolling through their phones as they waited for the meeting to start. Aiden didn’t recognize any of them.

Ethan picked a seat in the middle row and Aiden followed him like a scared dog, this close to putting his nose on his heels. Aiden had faced down raging bulls weighing over a ton without blinking but standing in this bare little room had him shaking in his boots.

It was probably the walls. They were white. Painted without care, specks flicked onto the thin gray carpet and smeared in the corners. It smelled harsh too, like concentrated cleaner that hadn’t been properly diluted. Aiden flopped into the chair and ducked his head, wishing he’d worn his hat. He felt exposed, a soldier in the middle of battle without a helmet. There was something about that sweat crusted cap that made him feel stronger. Less seen.

Beside him, Ethan was muttering to Frank. Once again going over their game plan. He’d stopped trying to talk to Aiden about it when all he got was narrowed eyes above the zipped-up collar of his coat.

The Mulligans came in a few minutes later, taking a seat on the other side of Frank. They looked as nervous as Aiden felt.

It wasn’t that long ago that Aiden said bullshit and shoved Ethan and his savior complex out of his mind. Told himself it didn’t matter. The Mulligans farm, Everett and Billy’s wedding, none of it had anything to do with him.

Yet here he was. Sitting in an uncomfortable chair next to people he should know, preparing to talk out of his ass about something he’d rather never think about again. All because of a kid with a fucking ratchet.

And a vet who kissed the wits out of him.

Crossing his arms, he let his legs spread so he could sink down in the chair. It was easier to tune out the chatter than he thought. Even when the doors opened and five people wearing shoes that didn’t look even remotely appropriate for the weather took their seats up on the stage.

Aiden didn’t catch their names, but he did see the fear in their eyes when Ethan stood up with his color-coded notes and thick folders. They stared on in horror as he began, voice steady and clear. He backed up his points with sources, and by the time he’d flipped through his paperwork everyone in the audience was staring up at him as if he was some kind of magician.

And Aiden couldn’t argue. He felt like a kid again, watching a man in a cheap polyester suit knock two rings together at Ollie Meyer’s sixth birthday party. He couldn’t take his eyes off him. Not just because of the way he spoke, but because of him. How even under the ugly lights he was still handsome, thick brows shading his coffee-colored eyes as he gesticulated just enough to get his point across. He spoke articulately but without any of the arrogance. Like he was one of them. Another guy who put his boots on one foot at a time and swore at the TV when his team lost on Sundays.

He was a neighbor, a friend. A man who they could call when they needed to borrow a cup of sugar. And because of that, they listened.

And once Ethan had you listening, he already had you under his spell. Abracadabra.

Aiden was so entranced with Ethan that he didn’t realize he was being called upon. It wasn’t until Ethan laid a hand on Aiden’s shoulder and squeezed that he looked up to see the room waiting on him.

His lips were dry as he stood up, squinting at the lights reflecting off the whiteboard. He wanted to close them. If he could just close them, he could pretend like he was back in the truck. Nothing but him and the static from the radio, Sugar hanging out the passenger window, and the wheel sticky under his fingers.

He didn’t know what to do with his hands. They hung uselessly at his sides. Did they always just hang there? That didn’t seem right?—

Someone cleared their throat, he thought it might have been Frank, he shoved his hands into his pockets. Sweat prickled at the back of his neck and arm pits. But he didn’t want to take off his jacket. Not when he could hide his hands in the pockets and pick at the seams, pulling one of the threads until he felt it unravel.

“Uh,” he began, his voice catching like he was a pre-pubescent kid again. He took a deep breath and tried again. “I um, I’m not real s-sure what I’m supposed to say, I’m not good at this shit. I figured I’d just tell ya’ll the truth but uh—” he cut himself off with a wince. Could he say shit? His mom would smack him for saying that. This is a Christian house, Aiden.

He always wanted to ask if the fields were Christian too, because his father said a whole lot worse than that when they had to move cattle.

Ethan tugged on his jacket, and he looked down to see him watching him in that way he did. He was reminded of the times they sparkled in the light of a fire, as bright as any star in the sky.

He didn’t mind being seen by Ethan.

“I hated the mailbox,” he told him, letting everything else fade away into a fluorescent void. “Every morning my dad would wake up determined, ready to make it a good day. And then sometime in the afternoon he’d go to the mailbox. The man that came back wasn’t the same as the man who left.”

Aiden remembered watching him trudge down their long driveway, hands swinging by his side. Sometimes he’d slow down part of the way there or stop all together, hands still at his sides and head tipped up, like he was looking for some kind of sign. If he found one, he never said because he’d always come back with a mean look on his face.

“So like a dumb kid, I figured the mailbox was the problem. I tied one end of the chain we used to haul posts up with the tractor to the mailbox and the other to my bike. Pedaled hard as I could. I was going to rip that mailbox right out of the ground.” He huffed, thumb rubbing the thread in his pocket into a knot. “All I ended up with was a face full of dirt and a missing tooth.”

It was the first baby tooth he’d ever lost. Put it under his pillow and everything. Took him a few weeks to realize the tooth fairy didn’t come to that part of Texas. Must be all the churches. Jesus didn’t like the tooth fairy. Aiden never figured out why. Jesus had teeth, didn’t he?

“Wasn’t til I was older that I realized the mailbox wasn’t the problem. It was the letters.” They all looked the same, with their plastic windows and crisp corners. Wasn’t til I was even older that I realized bills had to be paid. And when you couldn’t pay them, sometimes the bank lent you money. And they got real angry when you couldn’t pay it back. Then the government decides you’re not paying enough taxes. They never tell you why or what they’re for, but you’re not paying enough. And it doesn’t matter if you can’t. They’ll take it anyway.”

“Eventually all those letters pile up. They get heavy. Fall over and slice you with those crisp corners. Cut and cut until there’s nothing left to bleed.” Laying it all out like this, putting words to the memories and feelings, it painted a picture he didn’t like. Like one of the paintings his teacher showed him once, the kind that were worth a lot of money but made him uncomfortable to look at.

“My dad grew up on that farm. Just like his dad. And his dad before him, and his mom before him.” It had been in their family so long that they began to think of it as another grandparent. The one who sat in the corner old, dusty and mean. Hard to imagine a life without them taking up space and cutting you with their comments.

“He tried to fight it. Sold off pieces, even though it was like cutting off his own limbs. Sliced off pieces of himself just to keep the rest healthy. But prices kept going up. Big feed lots were built, and they cut out the little guy. Sold beef at a fraction of the cost, even though they destroyed the land to do it. Abused the cattle and stole water from the cities. Didn’t matter. Not to them.”

He looked away from Ethan because it wasn’t about him anymore. Wasn’t about Aiden, either. It was about that little boy with the ratchet and all the kids that would come after him.

“Not to ya’ll, either,” he said lowly, making eye contact with the people sitting around him. “You don’t care about the long-term effects. Ethan just spent an hour telling you why it’s wrong. He got people who are much smarter than me to say why you shouldn’t let them—the ones sitting a table raised just a little higher than us because they never want us to forget who’s in charge—do whatever the hell they want. Take land from farmers who have worked it, loved it, for years. Just so they can build some ugly ass resort full of assholes who don’t know how to drive in winter.”

“So if ya’ll don’t care about the cows, don’t care about the land, about all the stuff Ethan just explained, then I don’t know if what I say matters. But I want you to imagine what it would be like to watch your father bleed out. Watch nameless, faceless men talking through a mailbox cut him until he has nothing but watered down whiskey in a glass.”

Aiden’s hands had slipped from his pockets to clench the chair back in front of him. He was leaning forward so he could look at these men and women. Let them see him.

“And then I want you to look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t care.”

By the time he finished speaking, his mouth was dry, and his throat burned. His knuckles were white where they gripped the back of the chair. Pushing himself off, he gathered up what was left of his dignity and tried to calmly walk out the room.

He waited until the door slammed shut behind him before he took a large, shuddering breath. Stumbling through the slush, he rounded the corner of the building to lean against the brick. His hands were shaking. He still didn’t know what to do with them.

Forget speaking about losing the farm, Aiden had never really allowed himself to even think about it. It was easier to limit it to flashes of memories and generalized feelings. Like a caricature, all broad strokes, and overt lines. The details lost in a haze of bitterness.

Hands on his knees, he tried to regulate his breathing. His lips were numb, and the cold was spreading to his limbs, fingers looking ghostly splayed out across his jeans. But he needed that bite of cold to keep him from spiraling out.

Billy said he never had a childhood and Aiden told him he didn’t understand but now he thought that maybe Billy didn’t need to understand. He saw it. Billy had lived in the old bunkhouse where his father used to sleep. He’d have his meals with them and hang out in Aiden’s room, teasing him with his lip between his front teeth and laugh lines around his eyes.

In some ways Aiden vilified him. Made him the bad guy in his heartbreak tale. Because that made it easier to leave. And he told himself that Billy wouldn’t care if he left. He had Everett and a future. He’d never miss him.

But then Billy came back, and he’d said Aiden with so much relief that it stung worse than the cold in his lungs. Because Billy had been his friend, he’d learned to work the farm even though he hated sweating. And he’d told Aiden he was allowed to be angry.

Billy tried to tell him. But Aiden was so busy holding onto his heartbreak that he didn’t see it.

For all of the years Aiden had spent angry, he never truly blamed his parents. It was always the bank or the government. These nameless entities that were so easy to accuse. And they were guilty. Of so much more than the sins they committed against Aiden.

But it was his parents who let it trickle down to affect a child. A child who shouldn’t have had to shoulder the unbearable weight of adulthood before he was ready. A child who shouldn’t know what a bill was or go to bed wondering if he was going to lose his home.

It wasn’t the banks who forgot the tooth underneath his pillow. It wasn’t the banks that made him quit the football team. It wasn’t the banks that made him feel like he was built wrong. They didn’t fill him full of shame.

The bills took his farm, but it was his parents who took his childhood.

Around the corner, he heard the front door open again. Aiden stood as the first few people began trickling out toward the parking lot, unwilling to stick around in the weather. Standing up, he let his head drop back against the brick and opened his eyes. He didn’t know when he’d closed them.

“Aiden!” Ethan rounded the corner, his face lighting up when he caught sight of him. Before Aiden could say anything, he was wrapped up in his arms. He tucked his face into Ethan’s neck, sighing when a kiss was pressed to his head.

“That was amazing. You’re amazing.” He squeezed him tighter. “I’m so proud of you.”

Aiden huffed and grabbed onto the back of Ethan’s jacket. He smelled like paper and the gum he chewed to help him with his cravings. He didn’t know when he’d memorized Ethan’s scent, or why it mattered to him that he did, but for a long moment he allowed himself to have this. To let Ethan hold him without worrying about what it meant or if he was allowed to have it.

At some point you’re going to have to figure out there’s so much more than being fine, and you can want that.

And Aiden did want that. He wanted to hug Ethan and let Ethan hug him back. He wanted to kiss him when he saved tortoises and brush their pinkies together. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to be angry.

He wanted to be more than fine.

“I think I’m angry at my parents.”

Ethan’s hand froze where it had been rubbing his back. “I’m angry at your parents, too.”

“What am I supposed to do with that?”

Shifting, Ethan lifted his chin with a gentle hand and bent down to kiss him softly. “Be angry.”

Aiden kissed him back, getting up on his tiptoes so he could do it right. They pressed together, sharing warmth and breath. Because they wanted to.

“Hey!” Frank’s voice cut through them, and Aiden nearly fell over backwards in fear. Ethan caught him and glared at the parking lot. He took a step forward, placing himself between Aiden and Frank.

The move didn’t go unnoticed by his boss. He looked between them, mustache bristling before rolling his eyes. “Hurry up, I’m hungry and I want tacos.” He shook the keys over his head as he walked back toward the truck.

Frank caught them kissing. He’d seen him. Aiden waited for the shame. Waited for the horror to come clawing up from the ugly place it lived in. For the instinctual need to run. To put another mistake in his rearview mirror and start all over again.

But it didn’t come. It didn’t come because Aiden didn’t want it to.

He laughed as he dropped his head against Ethan’s back. Tacos sounded great.