Chapter Eleven
Elliot
Iwasn’t usually a paranoid or anxious person. But apparently I needed to be, because I didn’t see the guy until he stood in Gary Hopkins’s kitchen.
Gary Hopkins was a sassy old man I lucked into taking care of on Sundays and Tuesdays. He was in a wheelchair most of the time, though he didn’t need one. I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone he could walk because he liked being pushed around. He fell sometimes, so a wheelchair was safer for him.
He had round-the-clock care as of a couple of months ago. Lung cancer was a bitch. That was all I was saying.
He was my neighbor and one of my best friends, as I mentioned earlier.
I applied for a job helping older adults and got lucky when they assigned me to Gary.
I was only paid to help him two days a week, but I went over there every day.
Sometimes he’d call and have me wheel him over if he saw me heading to my workshop.
On the day when all that terrible shit went down, we were working together on my client’s table. Gary insisted on helping, so I gave him something to do. He taught me something new all the time, so it was a win for both of us.
“I used to be a carpenter.” He stopped sanding and gazed at the ceiling as if his memories hung from the rafters.
I’d heard him tell the story a thousand times already.
I never said a word. I just let him have his moment.
I smiled when he changed the year from the last time he’d told me.
“Nineteen forty-six to nineteen sixty-eight. I was a young buck back then. I followed my granddad around like a puppy, and he put me to work. Taught me everything.”
I made sure there was a chair nearby for Gary.
He might have wanted to help, but he grew tired.
He did a damn fine job, paying close attention to the details, especially when he sanded.
Hell, he did a better job than I did, which was why I appreciated him and didn’t mind him in my space.
He was an asset and deserved to be paid for his work, though he wouldn’t accept the praise or my money. He was a prickly bastard about that.
But he sat in the chair I’d placed next to him so he could take all the breaks he wanted. Hell, he could have just sat there and done nothing but chat me up, and I would have been happy.
“Cancer sucks.” He shook his head and took a moment to catch his breath.
Yeah, cancer really did. “You’re gonna beat it.”
He scowled. Usually, he wouldn’t say anything after I said that, but I knew he didn’t believe it. He still needed to hear it, so he’d keep fighting. But he changed his mind and spoke up. “No, I’m not either.” His tone was somber, not sad. It carried an undercurrent of resignation.
I stopped what I was doing, carried a chair over, and sat so we faced each other. “Do you need a pep talk, old man?”
He shook his head and looked away. “I need to collect my thoughts.”
I nodded and stood, intending to return to my work, but he grabbed my hand. His fingers were surprisingly strong, gripping me until it hurt. “It won’t be much longer. I need you to accept that.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat and didn’t contradict him, even though everything in me wanted to reject his statement.
His grip lightened, but he didn’t let me go. “You know what it’s like to live over a century. It’s a long time. Too long at this point. But I can feel my time coming to an end.”
His mind was still sharp in some ways, even when the rest of him wanted to give up. It was something I appreciated most about him. “I don’t want that to be true.”
“Well, it is.” His scowl and harsh tone made the words sink into my soul and take hold. Acceptance was a slow process, creeping over me like a rain cloud. With it came the tears I didn’t want to shed in front of him. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to me.
I took it with a thank-you and wiped my cheeks. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. No one else is going to cry over me. I’m too ornery.” Despite his words, he was actually a cool guy with plenty of cool stories.
Somewhere in the last three years, he’d become family to me. He was the only male role model I’d ever had. The universe might have made me wait a long time for one, but the wait was worth it. They sent me the best guy on the planet.
“Don’t shed too many tears after I pass.
Give yourself a day, then move on with your life.
” He leaned forward. His watch clinked against his oxygen tank.
“There’s a box in my bedroom closet. Top shelf, all the way to the right.
It’s metal and has a lock. The key is in the kitchen junk drawer. You’ll have to search around a bit.”
“What’s inside?”
“My will, for one. But some other things, too. The coin inside looks like a normal half-dollar, but it’s not.
Don’t go spending it until you get it appraised.
The lighter is...” He smiled as if a memory had just assaulted him, but it was the best kind of memory.
“I’ve waited a long time to see Charlie. But my wait is finally ending.”
“Did the lighter belong to your friend?” I hadn’t heard this story before.
“He was more than my friend. He was the love of my life.” Gary didn’t have to say they were lovers.
The smile was still there, but with it came a gentle pain visible in the creases of his face, as if losing Charlie had left a wound that might have scarred over throughout the years, yet the scars still ached sometimes.
“I’m sorry you lost him.”
“We’d talked about living on the West Coast, on the beach. Charlie loved the water. I teased him all the time for being salty because he was an ocean baby, and I grew up here, near the lake, salt- and shark-free.”
I smiled. I had a shirt that said something similar. It was a few years old and a little beat-up. I wore it only when working in my shop. I didn’t have it that day. Instead, I wore a faded black T-shirt with a small hole on the side.
Gary shook his head. “It wasn’t safe for same-sex couples back then. Sometimes I think I’m back there, lying beside him. He talks to me in my sleep. Just started that. He’s the one who told me death was coming for me and to make sure you had the box.”
Whoa, was Gary getting a little senile? Maybe.
Or maybe he really saw his dead lover in his dreams. Gary had lived longer than most people, surpassing the average life expectancy by twenty-seven years.
The poor guy had gone a lifetime and then some without him, grieving every day.
So if he said he saw his dead lover in his dreams, who was I to say he didn’t? “Why me?”
Gary tightened his grip on mine. “Because I love you like you’re my child. Hell, I’m old enough to be your granddad.”
I stood and hugged him. “I love you, too.”
He stood and sighed. He was already an old man, yet his skin had taken on a gray pallor that made him look even older. “Do you mind walking me home? I’m worn out.”
I picked up the oxygen tank. It was in one of those green bags you could carry like a purse. Then I held him around the waist and guided him to the wheelchair. He walked more slowly than usual, taking each step carefully.
When we entered his house, I helped him into bed and tucked the covers around him. He was nearly asleep the second he laid his head on the pillow. “I’ll get you a glass of water.”
He nodded but didn’t respond. I was almost out of the room when he finally spoke. “Send Silvia to check on me. Just in case.”
Just in case of what? Just in case he didn’t wake up from his nap? God, I hoped that wasn’t what he meant, but it probably was. “I’ll call her.”
I’d honor his wishes. Siliva was one of the best nurses he had. If anyone knew how to help Gary as he was declining, it was her. I didn’t want to find him if the worst happened, but it wasn’t about me. “Maybe I should start staying with you.”
Gary didn’t open his eyes. “Have Silvia stay tonight.”
I rubbed his arm, then left the room for a glass of water. He was asleep when I set the glass on his nightstand.
I called Silvia from his landline. Yeah, Gary was old-school about technological advances. He was one hundred two years old, so he got a pass on most things, including technology. “How’s he doing, hon?”
“Not well. We had the talk.” We’d discussed Gary’s situation and what we would do when the end came.
But I didn’t tell her about the box. Not because I didn’t trust her.
For all I knew, the box could contain a collection of stuffed animals and nothing more.
What was valuable to one person might not be to another.
And besides, it wasn’t like I’d ever sell or get rid of whatever was inside.
Also, the box wasn’t relevant to the conversation.
Gary was alive and as well as he could be, with cancer eating away at him.
But Gary always called Silvia a good egg, so I’d tell her about it eventually.
“So, he said goodbye then.” There was silence, and then I heard sniffling.
Her crying brought tears to my eyes, but I didn’t let them fall. I felt the emotion in my throat as I said, “He might be okay, you know.”
“He might,” she agreed, but neither of us believed it. The truth sat in the pit of my stomach.
“He wants you to stay with him,” I whispered. If I spoke any louder, I’d let the tears come. It was as if my volume controlled my grief. There was no sense in mourning a man who was just in the other room, asleep. “I’ll stay until you get here.”
That was the last thing I said before I heard the kitchen floor creak under someone’s footsteps. “If you had needed something, you should have just yelled.”
When I turned, it wasn’t Gary. A man in a black cloak stood in Gary’s kitchen. I sucked in a breath. That was when I remembered meeting Grym. He’d worn a black cloak, and we’d been in a dark, smoke-filled room. Then a door appeared. I’d had a chance to see my mom again, but I’d chosen not to.