Hoyt #2
The house was quiet. I had no idea where to go or what to touch so I glanced to Jesse to take over.
Again. Maybe someday I could be the one to shoulder a few burdens instead of him.
Course I’d have to stay in Chance for that to happen.
As I watched Aubrey sorting papers on the coffee table while Jesse and Lucas went to the desk to do some preliminary poking about, the thought of lingering here wasn’t as terrible as it had been when Abel was still drawing breath.
Terrible thing to think but truth was truth.
Maybe with him gone this town could be home again…
Maybe I could have a family again…
Ten days. Abel’s ashes would be returned to us in ten days.
Jesse had everything all set up. The cremation fee paid in advance. All the paperwork. Power of attorney, blah blah blah. All the legalese and forms were making my head spin. None of us had slept well or gotten much rest last night.
I’d dropped Aubrey off around four in the morning and had the most hellacious time pulling myself from his arms. I wanted to stay so damned badly.
But we had meetings with the funeral director, the hands, and about a dozen lawyers.
Or so it seemed to me. I never did deal with this kind of shit well.
So that Monday when I crawled out of my trailer like a bear woken from hibernation too early I was met with kindness.
All kinds of kindness. So much kindness from so many people and teens at the ranch that by the time we returned to the ranch from the crematorium I was way over my “I’m so sorry about your father.
You must be grieving so badly over his loss” comments that I threw Adobe’s tack, saddle, and blanket into my truck with a growl that sent some poor cowpoke scratching his head over what he’d said wrong.
Nothing. He’d been polite, coming over to me even if I’d never spoken a word to him my entire time here to offer condolences over the loss of a beloved parent.
And that there had been the straw that had snapped my back.
Abel was not beloved and I’d run the hell out of sugary comments of thanks.
So before I said something to someone who worked for Jesse I took myself away from the men, the kids, and my inadequacy in dealing with this situation.
Journal in hand, clothes in a duffel, and my tack in the back, I went to Aubrey’s.
He welcomed me in with open arms, a tender kiss to the cheek, and a long cuddle.
Hours long. We laid in his bed for so long my ass had started to go numb.
I stayed there for days. I wrote poems. Lots of them. So many that my stained-glass journal was nearly full. Poems about everything I was feeling. I guess I was pouring my emotions into my verses, which Aubrey felt was quite good. Much better than bottling them up.
That was the past week. Hiding in this cottage with the cat, the chickens, and my Aubrey.
Responding to texts every other day or so.
I’d not left his house. I’d begun skipping rehab, which was just slowing me down but I couldn’t deal with the therapist’s sad looks and sympathy.
I’d never been overly gregarious. Living so long keeping the gay secret had only honed my natural disposition for being a loner.
Being faced with having to lie over and over was killing me so I denned up with the man I loved.
I’d not told him yet. It wasn’t the right time.
Who professes that kind of thing a few days after someone dies?
Aubrey worked at the bookshop and then darted home to spend his time with a lump of man who was having some sort of crisis. The crisis being that I could not lie to another person about how bereft I certainly was. Jesse understood. Lucas too. And of course Aubrey. Sweet Aubrey.
The Friday after Abel had died Aubrey and I were on the sofa watching Antiques Roadshow when my stomach snarled.
“Dinner?” he asked. I nodded, went to shower, and came out to find him serving up some soup. Nothing fancy, canned chicken and rice, but it felt perfect. “I have some vegetable beef if you’d prefer?”
“No, this is good.” He fluttered around as he always did, dropping a blanket over my legs, bringing me some cold water, and asking if I needed to talk. Usually I said no but this evening I wanted to expel some of the crud welling up inside. “Sit down, baby, I’m fine. Come on, closer.”
I held up the blanket so he too could rest his heels on his coffee table.
Once we were settled we sipped at our soup as I worked things over in my head.
“I don’t miss him. How can you miss someone who abused you so badly?
What I miss is the man he wasn’t if that makes sense.
The words he never once tried to say, the love and acceptance he never once tried to show.
Least to me. Maybe to others after his accident he did, I don’t know.
Grief is fucking strange. I have no tears for him no matter how hard I try to wring some out of me.
Not sure what that says about me as a human being.
Maybe I’m just as cold inside as he was… ”
My gaze stayed on the rice at the bottom of my bowl.
“You are not cold. You’re hesitant is all.
” I glanced up at him from my soup. “You require proof that someone is committed to you. That happens when a parent turns on a child. Trust is broken.” He slid around to look at me, one thin leg tucked under him, his mug of soup between his hands.
“Personally I think you’re doing quite well given your past with Abel.
There is no law requiring you to do anything for his passing, Hoyt.
I know you feel you need to be there for Jesse, and that’s commendable, but if his death, and the standard things that follow are affecting your mental health then you can, and should, step back. ”
“I can’t. My brother needs me at his side. I wasn’t there for him when he was a kid. I need to be there for him now.”
He nodded, his glasses low on his nose. “Okay, yes, that’s important to you. I just want to be sure you’re taking care of yourself. If you feel yourself growing overwhelmed again please let me know. I will gladly put myself between you and the world.”
“My brave little bookseller.” I found a smile playing on my lips. “You would do that too, wouldn’t you?”
“Of course! One hundred and thirty pounds of fury here!”
I laughed out loud. It felt so good. “You’re amazing. I care about you so much, baby.”
“I care about you too, so very much.”
My phone buzzed on the side table. “That’s Jesse.
I don’t know what to say to him either anymore.
He’s in a weird place too with all of this.
” Ruggerio bounded up to my lap, eager to curl up on the blanket.
Me and the cat had started to bond. That’s what happens when you’re with them all day long.
“Maybe things will be better once we get the ashes back and scattered.”
“Probably. It will give you both some closure. He loves you.”
“I know, I love him too. He’s my brother.”
“Oh, well, yes, but I was talking about Ruggerio.”
I chuckled then stretched to grab my phone while not disturbing the cat. “Hey, Jess, what’s up?”
“Hey, why the hell is your phone off all the time?” He did not sound happy.
Rightfully so. I was hiding away from the bad shit yet again.
Shame on me. But this time it felt as if I didn’t distance myself I was going to crack.
And not just a rib or a clavicle. My gaze drifted to the saddle sitting on the floor beside a little plantstand holding a massive ivy plant of some sort.
“I’ve been trying to reach you all day. We need to finalize where we want to spread the ashes.
Lots of places require a permit and we’re sure as fuck not putting him anywhere near Snow Creek. I was thinking Pike’s Peak.”
“I’m taking some time away from the world. People keep telling me they’re sorry and that I must be devastated but I’m not. Not in the least. And lying is eating me up so I’m here with Aubrey.”
“I feel that too.”
“I figured you might. Sorry I’m bailing on you when you need me to—”
“Stop. Just…no. If you need time that’s fine. Just answer your damned phone, yeah?”
Shit. Okay, that was direct. “Sorry. I’m not dealing well. So, uhm, Pike’s Peak…”
I couldn’t recall us ever going there.
“Fuck knows why, but it seems right to give him a decent send-off, and it’s not on our land.”
“Man was never decent to us. Why do you feel you have to take him somewhere special just to toss his ashes into the wind?”
“Because it’s what you do when someone dies, Hoyt.”
“Hmm, well, I figure if someone treats you like shit when they’re alive why the fuck should we go out of our way to do some grand final gesture. That’s just us lying to save face with the town, you know?”
His huff was huge. “Hoyt, I just want to do this for him and I don’t want him on Snow Creek Ranch property.”
“You ask me we should dump his ashes in the chicken pen and let the rooster shit on him. That feels fitting.”
“Uhm hey,” Aubrey whispered, tapping at my knee with his foot.
“You’re welcome to sprinkle his ashes here on my property.
I have some nice trees out back. It’s not as grand as Pike’s Peak but you and Jesse can come visit him at any time.
” I blinked. “Just a suggestion. If you want to take him somewhere with some meaning…”
“There is no place with meaning other than carting his ashes down to hell in a rusty wheelbarrow then dusting the devil’s ball with them,” I said then leaned over to kiss his lips. “I’ll tell Jesse.”