Chapter 39 #3
“I did,” she retorted, speaking a bit more forcefully.
“I know you, Abe. Well, I knew you. I knew exactly where you were, every Christmas. I know about your booth at the fairgrounds—I know—” she stopped and shook her head.
“I should have reached out. I forgot that you were there as well. That whatever hell I was in, you were right there along with me.”
Aberlour didn’t say a goddamned word. He thought about that shrink and her weird cuckoo clock, about all those ghosts behind his eyelids.
“He was rooting for you two to figure it out.”
Aberlour glanced over at her, wondering about the abrupt change in subject, but she wasn’t looking at him. Instead, she was staring at Oliver.
“I’m glad you did. Even if—” she stopped again. “He’d be glad you did,” she finished, with a bright smile.
There was so much Aberlour wanted to say. So much, but he had so few words left in him.
“I was a dumbass for far too long,” he said. It was all he could say in that moment.
Sabine snorted and nodded.
“Yeah, he said that, too.”
For a moment Aberlour thought she might leave it at that. He thought she might spare him what was coming next and leave now with a simple hug and a wave. But she didn’t. Instead, she smiled and turned to face him directly.
She stared right into his eyes, and Aberlour was terrified she could see right through him.
The words came out despite his best intentions to hold them in.
“I’d have traded places with him. Anytime, any fucking second.
I tried. I wanted to. I’d have done anything.
Given anything. I wanted nothing more,” he confessed roughly.
There should have been tears and sobs, but there was none, because he’d cried all he could already.
He was just empty now. Just hollow. “I’d have traded places with him, Sabine.
He deserved to live. They all did,” he repeated, and he saw her smile.
Beautiful as the day she got married, right before she pulled him close.
“I know,” she whispered softly, pulling him close to her.
He wrapped his arms around her. To the casual observer, it might have looked like he was holding her up, but in truth it was actually the other way around.
“I know,” she repeated a few more times.
“I—” he broke off, discovering suddenly that there were some tears and sobs left in him after all, breaking his voice and heart into pieces. “Anything. I’d have done anything.”
She shushed him and petted his hair and smiled against his head.
“He’d have loved this sob fest,” she said shakily.
“Soft motherfucker,” Aberlour agreed.
“Pansy,” she replied.
“Pussy,” he responded.
“Little bitch boy who liked to cry,” she said challengingly, continuing to hold him tightly as he fought to hold back his sobs.
“Emotional faggot,” he replied, which was just far enough along the line of insults that it made her laugh.
They finally drew apart, neither of them saying anything as they watched the party carrying on as though nothing had happened.
Sabine hooked her pinky around his after a minute and gave it a shake.
“He’d have loved this,” Aberlour said, echoing her previous statement.
She merely hummed in agreement.
“Are you—have you talked about the after?”
Aberlour had thought it was over. How foolish of him.
“The after?” He echoed, mystified.
“The after,” she repeated, nodding towards Oliver. She was biting her bottom lip, looking apologetic even as she asked.
“Everything’s already set up with his wife. The will, funeral, all that’s done,” he said, still confused.
“No,” she said, gently, shaking her head. “Your after, Abe. What will you do?”
Aberlour shook his head. He cleared his throat and looked away, afraid she’d see clear through him if he looked into her eyes.
“There is no after,” he said. “There was a before, a now, and then there will be—” he shrugged, like it didn’t matter, like it didn’t exist. “Then I’ll wait.”
“Wait?” she asked, frowning.
“For my turn.”
The seconds stretched by while she said nothing. Then she laced her fingers in his and squeezed. Hard. Harder than she seemed capable of.
“Then we can wait together,” she responded with a sad smile and, for some reason, Aberlour believed her.
The gargoyle sat alone on its little shelf.
Aberlour hadn’t noticed it until now. He’d been too busy with the kids and the party, but he saw it now.
It hadn’t changed. It was just as ugly as he remembered.
Its deep-set, empty eyes stared back at him.
Before, when he’d been cocky and young, they’d seemed to challenge him.
The bulbous orbs baiting him into yet another contest. He’d been so dumb then.
He’d answered its call and pretended to be confident—he wondered if the damned thing could see right through him now.
He didn’t remember the last contest. Probably something stupid. When hadn’t they been? He wished he could remember. If Aberlour had known at the time that it would be their last, he’d have committed every second to memory. How many things had he taken for granted in the name of cocky youth?
“I blamed you,” Aberlour said, because honesty had been the theme of the day.
“For convincing you not to take the shot,” Oliver replied with a nod of agreement.
“For lying,” Aberlour corrected.
The fireworks were nearly over, and they’d retreated indoors.
Just the two of them. Like good little PTSD vets.
They weren’t exactly triggered by them, but the day had been hard enough without them having to test their limits.
To be on the safe side, they’d taken refuge in Sabine’s living room, and so had the gargoyle, apparently.
He wondered if Sabine knew what it was. Why they’d had it. He wondered why she kept it.
“I was hoping,” Oliver said, weakly.
“You lied,” Aberlour replied, and Oliver ducked his head, answering silently.
“I blamed me, too,” Oliver responded, playing with the blanket in his lap. It was fraying at the edges, and he was pulling the strings like a kitten. A sickly-looking kitten. “They’d have court martialed you.”
“They might have lived,” Aberlour replied, cold and angry. “They might have—their kids might’ve had dads,” he added, because it needed to be said, and Oliver had to hear it.
“You’d have been in prison,” Oliver replied, weakly.
“I’m in prison, either way,” Aberlour replied quickly enough that it couldn’t be anything but genuine.
Oliver stared at him like he’d never seen him before. Aberlour didn’t even bother giving him a smile.
He rose from his seat on the couch and walked over to the gargoyle. He picked it up, the weight of it unfamiliar and heavy. It had felt so much lighter before. Now it felt like every edge of the concrete was digging a hole into his skin.
“It’s a trap. It was always a trap.” Aberlour appeared to be speaking his thoughts aloud, not really directing them towards Oliver.
“They make us care. Ask us to hold each other’s dick, watch each other’s six, make brothers out of strangers, and then they send us out there, knowing goddamned well most won’t come back, and that those who do will have lost a brother,” Aberlour said, shaking his head.
“It wasn’t your fault, Abe,” Oliver reassured him.
“It doesn’t help. Never made it better. I wish it had been my fault. I wish I’d taken the shot and missed. I wish I was in jail, rotting away for my crimes. Instead, I’m a free man imprisoned by my guilt.”
For some reason, Aberlour felt the urge to smash it.
This ugly little thing that had somehow survived the test of time.
It had been everywhere. Everywhere they’d been, it had been there, too.
The desert, the rainforest, bars, strip clubs, hell, heaven.
It had seen the world and made it back. He clenched his fist around it, not hard enough to break anything, but enough that it cut into his hand.
He turned, the gargoyle still in his grasp to show it to Oliver.
Oliver said nothing. He looked almost grey in the overhead lighting of the living room. Frail, pale, and fraying around the edges like the blanket wrapped around him.
“I never knew you were a poet,” Oliver said, with a hint of humour.
“You always knew me in secret,” Aberlour replied.
“I’ve already—” Oliver began to speak but Abe cut him off.
“It’s all in the past. I’m just saying.” He interrupted Oliver before he could issue an apology.
“This was supposed to be a celebration,” Oliver said, sounding tired.
“It is,” he replied, looking out the bay window at the kids still running around, high on sugar and the excitement of fireworks exploding in brilliant colors in a summer sky. “I just have nothing to celebrate.”
And wasn’t that just the kicker.
“That’s not true,” Oliver denied quickly, another lie slipping past his lips with ease. Maybe he’d always been a damned good liar and Abe just hadn’t noticed it until now.
“No children, no spouse, no home, no nothing to take the edge off.”
“You have me,” Oliver stated with a faint smile.
Aberlour turned from him, unable to restrain the laughter that burst free. He placed the little gargoyle back on the shelf. It sat there, all alone, staring at him—eyes lonely and cold. Fucking cold and emotionless.
He huffed at Oliver’s words and turned. This wasn’t a romance novel, and he wasn’t a young kid. It was a stupid line. A meaningless line coming from a dying man who’d already gotten everything he’d wanted.
“You’re dying,” Aberlour said, as cruelly as he could. Oliver didn’t blink, maybe he was too tired to, or maybe he’d been expecting it. “You came back to me dying, having already lived,” Aberlour said like Oliver wasn’t getting the point.
“I’m still alive.”
“Yes, great. That’s exactly what I needed, Oli. Another guy to mourn.”
Maybe it was a step too far, or maybe Oli had gotten tired of his moping. Whatever it was, next thing he knew, he was smacked upside the head with a pillow.
“The fuck,” Aberlour snarled, although it lacked any real heat.