Chapter 8
Tean went into work the next morning, even though it was Saturday.
The rest of the night had been a blur. Sitting in the truck after he’d left the house, with everything Lucy had said crowding him, taking up air in the cab, until there wasn’t room for anything else.
And then Jem leaning in through the door, with the smell of cold asphalt crawling in around him, to say Daniel was missing.
And then the police. The hours spent calling friends and family, and then driving under the stark umbrellas of streetlights, miles and miles of empty road to look for a fifteen-year-old boy.
And then, when they had gotten home, Jem locking the doors and saying, No walks tonight.
So, Tean had lain in bed until he couldn’t stand it anymore.
And then he had sat in the living room, a mug of peppermint tea steaming, then tepid, then cold, until dawn turned the mountains into stamped sheet metal.
He stared at the page for the Salt Lake County Jail.
Prisoners could only make calls, not receive them.
Voicemail service was currently not available. Emails cost fifty cents per message.
He created an account and sent an email. And he kept glancing at the hallway. Kept waiting to see Jem standing there. Kept thinking he was going to get caught. Which didn’t make any sense, because he wasn’t doing anything wrong.
Now, eyes gritty and head pounding, he sat in his office with another mug of tea—this one, a brew of his own decocting, from wild nettles he gathered himself.
Which, as he was painfully aware, Hannah insisted on calling his sadness tea, but only since Jem had turned everything in Tean’s life upside down.
In the best possible way, admittedly, but still.
Since Tean and Jem had become more than friends (really good friends, as Jem put it—best friends, with a soulmate level connection that you only see once in a million years, even though Tean had explained over and over that best friends with a soulmate-level connection didn’t throw away their friend’s perfectly good underwear they’d had since they were thirty), the office had slowly but steadily undergone a transformation.
Jem had added his touch through gifts that were offered at various holidays or, equally often, on no holiday at all, with nothing more than the explanation that It was on sale or I thought you’d like it.
These ranged from the surprisingly useful (a mug warmer that, if Tean was being completely honest, actually made his homemade nettle tea much more drinkable) to the aesthetic (a poster with the cleverly punctuated words Don’t.
Give Up.). Jem had given him a leather catchall tray, and a framed photo of the two of them, and two framed photos of Scipio.
Once, after watching Tean stretch at the end of a long day, he’d brought home a lumbar pillow.
So, while the office was still very much the same place it had been ever since Tean had started working here, at the same time—well, it wasn’t.
It had changed. The same way Tean had changed. And his life had changed.
Some of those changes, though, had nothing to do with Jem or the uncountable ways he’d made Tean’s life better. And the latest change was currently the object of Tean’s focus as he tried to make sense of the paper in front of him.
The memo had been lying on his desk when he’d gotten in, which meant someone had put it there sometime after he’d left work the day before. Which meant not one of the administrative assistants; they’d all gone home.
Utah Division of Wildlife Resources
Internal Memorandum
Date: Friday, October 18, 2019
From: Ed Collins, Deputy Director
Subject: Coordinated Response Protocol
Recent reports and public conversations about predator attacks have brought this issue to the forefront for our stakeholders. It’s important that our Department is seen as Responsive, Proactive, and Coordinated when it comes to these situations.
This updated protocol is designed to make sure everyone is on the same page and that we are presenting a clear and consistent message to the public, the media, and our partners. We need to show that the Department is taking decisive action to protect the livelihoods of Utah Citizens.
By following these steps, we’ll strengthen cooperation with local communities and show that we take their concerns seriously and are ready to respond when issues arise.
And what followed was several pages of, to borrow Jem’s phrase, bureaucratic bullshit. Tean turned the pages slowly, helplessness rising in him until he caught himself breathing shallowly.
A rap at the door made him snap his head up. For a single moment, it was Ed: thick crop of graying hair in a neat side part, big smile, head too big for his neck. And then it was Hannah, frowning at him.
In the last year, his friend and co-worker and the division’s best (and only) native aquatics biologist had changed.
Some of that had to do with what she’d been through, including an arrest and a messy divorce.
And some of it, Tean suspected, was more—but whatever it was, she hadn’t shared it with him yet.
She still wore cargo pants and long-sleeved work shirts, and she still wore her favorite pair of Merrells.
She still had the same kind, intelligent eyes that saw more than Tean was sometimes comfortable with.
But she’d stopped dyeing her hair, so it was streaked with gray.
That wasn’t a bad thing; instead of making her look old, it was simply striking.
But it was a change. And it wasn’t the only one.
She worked more—sometimes, even more than Tean. She laughed less.
“What are you doing here?” Tean asked.
“What are you doing here?” Hannah asked. “It’s Saturday.”
“Trying to catch up on work. Or I was.” Tean flicked the pages of the memo. “Until I saw this.”
Hannah scanned the document. “This is bullshit.”
“It’s not just bullshit,” Tean said. “It’s—it’s idiotic.
It’s incompetent bullshit. He has no idea what he’s talking about.
He says ‘predator attacks’ when what he means is ‘livestock depredation.’ He calls us a department instead of a division.
He has no idea when to use capital letters.
And for hell’s sake, he pretty much says all we’re worried about is keeping the ranchers and the hunters happy.
Then there are pages and pages of this—this joke of a protocol.
I’m supposed to submit all my reports to him for ‘scientific review’?
The man is an overgrown pest control salesman! ”
The shout rang out in the office.
The corner of Hannah’s mouth twitched in a smile.
With a groan, Tean rubbed his eyes.
“This is bullshit,” Hannah said. “I agree one hundred percent.”
“He doesn’t want me to make him look bad in front of his rich friends. Or Karli doesn’t want me to make them look bad.”
“Perks of being the executive director.”
“Or they don’t want me to make them look bad in front of whatever stupid politician got them these jobs in the first place.
So, instead of being allowed to do my job, I’m going to have to jump through all these hoops to make sure people with absolutely zero training or background in this field can rest assured they’re not going to hurt anybody’s feelings. ”
“How much of that nettle tea have you been drinking?”
“I don’t know.”
“Let’s switch to water,” Hannah said, and in her typical Hannah way, she flipped off the mug warmer and moved the mug out of reach. “Now. What’s really going on?”
Tean rubbed his eyes. And then he told her: the phone call from Lucy, Ammon’s arrest, the horrible conversation the night before.
When he’d finished, Hannah said, “But she’s not really angry at you. She’s angry because she’s scared.”
“Of course she’s angry at me. She’s right to be angry at me. I—” Tean managed to cut himself off, but only barely.
“Were you about to say, ‘I stole her man’?”
“No.”
A smile teased the corner of Hannah’s mouth again.
In spite of his best efforts, Tean smiled back.
But a moment later, he pushed his hands through his hair.
“I mean, I did. That’s the worst part. I knew it wasn’t right.
I knew he’d made a commitment to her. I knew what it meant, wanting Ammon for myself, pretending to be a friend of the family while the whole time I was—I was trying to take them apart for my own selfish reasons. ”
“Good Lord, how much of that tea did you have?”
“Tell me I’m wrong.”
“Tean, it was a shitty situation. I’m so sorry.
But it’s not like you were on the prowl for a man, fixated on Ammon, and then did everything you could to break up a happy, healthy family.
You and Ammon had been involved for years before he and Lucy got married.
He was a massive closet-case who couldn’t keep his wiener in its bun.
” Hannah paused. “Is that an expression?”
“It will be if Jem ever hears you say it.”
“This is why I shouldn’t have been raised Mormon. I missed out on all those good, crass, folksy sayings. You did too.”
“Not really—”
“And Ammon kept coming after you, remember? Ammon was the one who made up reasons to see you.”
“It doesn’t make what I did any better.”
“It makes it understandable, Tean. Look, I’m sure that was awful having to talk to her after the truth came out.
I believe you. But I also think you might be giving yourself too much credit here.
She took Ammon back, didn’t she?” In a wondering tone, Hannah added, “God, what do you think that was like? ‘Hey honey, sorry I came out as gay, turns out I was wrong.’”
“From what I understand, he told everyone he was bi. Of course. Because he can’t keep it in his bun.” A flush burned its way up Tean’s cheeks. “Oh my gosh, was that anti-bi? Was that hate speech?”
“If it was,” Hannah said, “you really need to work on it. So, do you think she did it?”