Chapter 14 #3
He begins, somewhat relieved to turn the subject to lighter territory for a moment, to tell Casey the story of Anthony and the iguana.
Casey’s a good audience, better even than Selma—Will loves telling Selma a story, but sometimes she grimaces in a moment that makes him incredibly self-conscious, or raises an eyebrow in response to some action Will took in a way that lets him know, to his bones, that it wasn’t the call she would have made.
She’s not doing it on purpose and Will doesn’t blame her for it, but it does mean he holds back details that he thinks Selma would find particularly egregious.
Casey, on the other hand, is incensed for Will and entertained by turns, somehow tuned into every moment of the tale Will is hoping to hear a laugh, or a gasp, or see a horrified shake of the head.
For this reason, Will shares details that even Selma doesn’t know, like the fact that by the end, the iguana was responsible for roughly a third of Will’s grocery expenses, and had peed, at least once, in every pair of dress shoes he owned.
“Only the dress shoes,” Will complains, as they climb out of the truck, mostly because it’s high time they did; there’s only so long two men can sit in a truck in a parking lot before it starts to look like maybe it’s a drug deal.
At least, that’s why Will assumes they’re doing it; honestly, he mostly is following Casey, who, laughing at the exploits of the lizard, turned off the engine and hopped out of the driver’s seat a minute ago.
“Sounds like that lizard had very expensive taste in toilets,” Casey says, with a shrug, as he rounds to the rear of the truck.
“Probably he was trying to tell you he wanted you to buy him a lizard bidet.” He flips the pickup’s back gate down, hops up to sit on it, and then, legs dangling, says, “Come on, come chill with me for a second. I was starting to feel like an idiot, sitting in the cab when it’s such a nice day out. ”
“You’re not wrong,” Will admits, and hops up next to him. Lifting his arm to block the glare of the sun, he adds, “It has always been beautiful here; I missed it. I didn’t want to, but I did.”
Casey murmurs an assent, and as Will’s legs kick back and forth in the air, he’s swamped for the second time this morning in a thick cloud of memory.
This one is briefer, but older and more weathered, less recently unearthed.
To be honest, Will’s not sure he’s looked at it since it happened, it’s so early, and unremarkable, and commonplace.
He was young, young enough to be picked up, and his father had lifted him and plopped him down onto the back of his old pickup, the one he drove when Will was small.
It had been daytime, and they’d been parked in some family friend’s driveway, attending a block party for some holiday or another—Memorial Day, maybe, or Fourth of July—but Will thinks he must have been too little to know, even then.
All he remembers is that for once, everyone was in a good mood.
June was smiling and laughing, and Old Bill was having as cheerful a conversation as he ever did with some old friend, and Will’s father brought him a Rocket Pop, which was so delicious that Will didn’t care that it left behind a sticky red, white and blue residue as it melted down his hand.
Thinking of it now, Will wonders if it isn’t a glimpse into what they would have been like if any of them, Bill or June or even Old Bill, even the first Bill, had been a little happier with themselves, or with each other.
Maybe what had made it all so hard was the ways in which they’d chosen to make it hard, or, at least, refused to try to make it any easier.
Refused to do the necessary work, to share the necessary truth, to express the necessary emotion to make “less difficult” even an option.
“I never wanted to come back here,” Will says.
He’s afraid it’s going to come out sounding choked, thick with feeling.
Instead, he’s surprised to hear an edge of weary, raw amusement to it, like some part of him he’s not yet ready to face thinks this is all a pretty solid joke.
“That night, I packed up my duffel bag with everything that could fit, and I took all my savings from my summer jobs, and I thought: I’m never coming back .
And I never did come back, Casey. I never did.
I found an apartment, and then a job, and then I applied to college, and got in, and found another apartment, and other jobs, and built a whole life without this place.
By myself! My mother died and I went to her funeral, up in Canton, but I didn’t drive a single mile further south.
I told myself it was what I wanted, you know?
That I was better off not seeing it; that coming back here would hurt my feelings, and make me feel guilty.
I never thought… I me an, I was dead to him, that’s what he said, so.
Might as well be a ghost, right? I never thought there’d be any reason to come back. ”
“And now?” Casey’s voice is mild, inquisitive.
When Will looks at him, he’s looking away, his gaze fixed on something far in the distance.
Will follows his eyeline to the tops of the third orchard apple trees, leaves still green in a sea of autumn oranges and maroons, rippling like the surface of a strange, otherworldly ocean.
“Now…” Will chews the edge of his lip, shakes his head, sighs.
“I guess I just. I didn’t know. I hadn’t realized that it could be like this.
The way you’ve made the farm so different from what it was, and so much closer to the place I used to like to dream it was, to tell you the truth.
When I was small.” He swallows hard, feeling small, not able to look at Casey or the apple trees or, if he’s honest, himself, as he runs a hand through his hair and, voice raw, adds, “And the longer I stay, the less sure I am that I know what Bill meant by leaving it to me at all, or even, Christ. Even what he meant that night I left. I’m not even sure I know what I want anymore— is selling the right decision?
Is going back to Chicago the right decision?
Who knows! What does it matter! It’s not like there’s anyone else left alive to keep score!
” He presses his knuckles against his forehead briefly, trying to push off a sharp spike of stress-induced anguish, and finishes, “Sorry, just. I never wanted to get you, or anyone , involved in any of this. I wanted to leave it behind me and walk away clean, but.”
Will takes a breath, his eyes fixed on the rolling sea of apple trees, the blurred vista of gold and burgundy beyond.
This time, he does nearly choke on it, noticing how each word comes out unmistakably and heavily weighted, like pieces of laundry pulled, still dripping, from the bucket.
Still, he makes himself say it: “If I’m honest?
I never did really get clean. Not ever. I think part of me stayed here, when the rest of me went.
It never left—not the farm, not even that specific night, that stupid pull-off from the road next to the fence by the back field.
It stayed right here, where I left it, wandering around like a stupid ghost , and I’ve…
” Will stops, and swallows, and steadies himself before he shakes his head, forces himself to finish: “God. I’ve felt it pulling at me, screaming sometimes, all these years in Chicago. ”