Chapter Eleven - Paul
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Paul
HE ISN’T HAPPY to see me.
I don’t know why I expected any different. Even while I was on the bus. Even while I told Aunt Amy I needed to borrow her suitcase again, and she got her hopes up, thinking I was going to visit Pops, but I said no. No. A friend.
A pal .
And she said that was nice and didn’t ask anything else. But I told her my friend’s father had passed away, and she insisted on making a dish. She said it was the polite thing to do. I can’t just show up empty-handed. And so I showed up with my hands full, my mind full, my heart full. And still…
I think I saw the glimmer of something in those blue eyes when their gaze fell on me.
Just that bit for me to hang onto while I slide down the cliff.
He’s quiet on the cot beside me and eventually he sleeps, but I don’t.
Somewhere there’s a grandfather clock ticking, and I try to imagine him here as a child.
It doesn’t fit him. I see he gets his eyes from his mother and his brother has his smile.
I see this is where he grew up and spent his most formative years. And I’ve intruded upon it.
I must end up dozing a bit because hours later I startle when I hear someone on the stairs. I squeeze my eyes shut and pretend to be sleeping while the smell of coffee comes from the kitchen. Asher gets up. There are low voices talking and then a screen door closes.
This would be the time to go. I could get up, get dressed, and sneak out before anyone knew. It’s what he wants. And maybe this was enough. Just for him to see I’d search for him if he ever went away.
Then I feel a distinctly feminine presence bedside me and a hand on my arm.
“Would you like some breakfast?”
I pretend to wake. “Hmm?”
“Are you hungry?” His mother’s kindness is warming, like a ray of sunshine. “We’ve got plenty of food.”
I get up and she takes me upstairs where I can get washed up. I’m eating potato pancakes and eggs when Asher and his brother come through the door, both of them sweating and smelling of hay and early morning dew. He doesn’t say anything to me or his mother as he pours himself some more coffee.
His mother must be wondering about me, and about why Asher isn’t so happy to see me.
Why we’re not friendly. She’s a polite lady, though.
She wouldn’t ask him or me if she were really curious.
But it’s her idea for Asher to take me outside and show me around.
She brings it up as he and his brother sit down to breakfast. If Asher’s annoyed by it, he doesn’t show it.
Doesn’t reveal a hint of anything as he finishes up and then gestures for me to follow him out.
The day is already hot and there are morning glories blooming on a trellis by the back door. I squint in the early morning sunshine as he walks ahead of me, a white T-shirt plastered to the sweat on his back. I follow along for a time, while he shows me nothing, just keeps walking.
When we’re far enough away from the house, I say, perhaps foolishly, “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
He stops for a second and then keeps going.
“I’m sorry about your dad. I just wish you’d told me. I was…” I let that linger and he finally stops and turns to face me.
I’m expecting something angry, but his eyes shine like two pieces of ocean, and he unrolls a pack of cigarettes from his shirt sleeve and lights one.
I walk up to him, closer. “I thought we were…” I hold it there, watch his expression remain. “Friends.”
“It just happened real sudden, that’s all,” he says, after a minute. “My brother called me, so I left as soon as I could.”
“You couldn’t have told me?”
“You weren’t home.”
“Is that all?”
He looks away, off to some meadow to his left.
“I’m not stupid,” I say. “It’s not like I thought we’d ever be —”
He turns back to me.
I hang my head, unable to finish.
“This is the north pasture,” he says, like he’s giving a tour. “For the horses to graze.” He points off to his right. “South pasture for the cows and chickens.”
I wipe the sweat collecting on my forehead and my glasses slip. I push them up.
“You need to see it?”
I stare down at my shoes, already muddy and grass stained. “I don’t want it to be like this.”
I hear him inhale, exhale. “You should get home. Your aunt probably misses you.”
“She doesn’t.”
We’re quiet for a long while. The gentle breeze and birdsong are intrusive, annoying me. It’s too pretty of a day for everything inside me to feel so dark.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he murmurs finally, stomping out his cigarette. “If that’s what you came for. Now you know.”
“I came here for you.”
And there it is. I feel like I’ve cracked open my chest and showed him what waits for him there. And all he can do is stare at it, like an object at an auction. I’m not handling this well. I know it. He knows it.
“One of us can drive you to the bus station,” he says quietly.
“You really want me to leave?” I say, not as quietly.
“You weren’t invited here.”
“I know. But you were gone, and…”
He waits a beat. “And?”
“And what else was I supposed to do? Just…let you go?”
There’s a flicker of emotion across his face
I look down at my grass-stained shoes. “I couldn’t let you go.”
He’s quiet for a moment or two. Something settles over his expression, and he’s looking at me differently.
Mostly with pity. It’s pathetic, I know, to have come all this way completely unannounced and uninvited.
To think that he might fall into my arms in gratitude and tell me everything is okay, pal.
You’re all right, pal. I was just sending you a telegram, pal .
But I want to hear him say it all the same. Call me his pal once again, because then it would mean this wasn’t all to just humiliate me. That he’s at least somewhat pleased that I tried.
He looks me over for a moment or two, thoughtfully. “Let me show you something.”
He walks off and I follow. We get to a little creek cutting through a meadow. Beside the creek is a tall willow tree, picturesque. Almost something I can imagine in a magical forest. Asher parts the hanging leaves like a curtain and stands with one hand against the trunk.
He looks out over the water for a few seconds, and then he turns to me. “This was my favorite spot. When I was a kid.” He nods to the creek. “It was pretty in the evenings.” His voice gets softer. “The sun setting over there and the water sparkling in it. It was nice.”
I stand closer to him, our shoulders touching. It takes me a minute to absorb. To consider him out here, noticing how light sparkles off water, and that he’s showing me and telling me. I think about us at that cabin by the lake and wish we could be alone again, escaped.
It almost feels that way now.
The back of my hand brushes against his knuckles. His hand is warm, and it twitches away from mine, instinctively. He looks around us before his gaze lands on me. “There are memories here. Good and bad. I wanted you to see a good one.”
I nod slowly.
“I didn’t plan for any of this.” He looks out over the fields again. “But I’m glad I came home. To see how it all went on.” He swallows, and I feel a sting in the pit of my stomach. “Their lives just went on.”
Tentatively, I flex my fingers outward and slip them through his.
“One son left. Maybe it was all they needed,” he mutters, like he’s talking only to himself.
His hand doesn’t move away and to be touching him after all this makes my stomach flutter. His hands are so rough, working hands, hands that do things, hands that touched me in places no one else ever has.
“Their lives might have gone on,” I say, inching closer to him, “but I’m sure they missed you.”
He pulls his hand away from mine like a reflex. “I’ve got some work to do.” He starts walking off, then he stops, lingering. He looks back at me. “I have to clean out the stables later. If you want to come. You don’t have to help or anything…just if you want to.”
His mouth is a hard line, but there’s gentleness in his eyes.
“Okay,” I say to him and follow along behind him back to his childhood home.
The smell of horse shit is pungent.
I sit on the edge of a fence between the stables and a field where a couple of the horses are grazing. Asher pushes a wheelbarrow back and forth, carrying fresh hay, emptying it, then carrying some more. He makes it look easy. Fascinating.
The air is thick with humidity. I look up and squint at approaching storm clouds.
As I gaze around me, it’s altogether difficult and easy to imagine him growing up here.
Difficult because it’s such a wholesome place.
The kind of place where motorcycles and leather jackets spell trouble.
But it’s easy because it’s labor. Hard labor and the way he does it is just as stern and exacting as I’d imagine Javert would do it.
I watch his biceps bunch under his shirt sleeves and sweat drip down his brow.
He’s totally lost to the rhythm of it, completely forgotten, perhaps, that I’m here.
It feels voyeuristic, as if I’m watching the kind of moment fellas pay to see at those places in the city.
Red lights flashing outside, the silhouette of a lady, the glimpse of knee-high stockings.
He goes about his labor as if it’s no big deal.
There’s nothing to contain him out here, yet he’s contained.
Nothing to interrupt him, yet he’s intruded upon.
But there’s been no more talk of me leaving, at least.
There’s a crack of thunder behind me. Still distant, but loud.
One of the horses makes a noise, and I turn.
I watch it trot over to the other horse, then they both break into a gallop.
They’re contained inside the fence, so they run around it like a racetrack.
There’s a flash at the corner of my eye, and when I turn to it, I lose my balance and fall back, landing in the grass, almost upside down.