Chapter 19
MASON
FOUR MONTHS LATER
It was a credit to my therapist’s unflappable nature that when I told him I had to reschedule this week because I’d been invited to a goose’s birthday party, all he said was, “Does Monday evening work for you instead?” Or maybe he’d just been Goose Run adjacent for long enough that nothing surprised him anymore.
Goose Run was that kind of place, and he must have heard crazier stories from the people who lived there.
Lucille was turning twenty-six, not an unusual age for a domestic goose who had been well cared for, but noteworthy all the same.
Not noteworthy enough for most people to think of throwing her a birthday party, but Bobby Merritt wasn’t most people.
Bobby Merritt was unlike anyone I’d ever met before.
The party was at the Adventurama, the little petting zoo that took up Bobby’s entire yard.
He’d recently added a pair of rescue alpacas, determined to boost his ranking on Tripadvisor to two whole stars.
Given the way alpaca spit stank, I wasn’t sure it was going to work out the way he hoped, but Bobby was nothing if not an optimist. Goosapalooza—Chase had started calling Goose Pride that, and the name had stuck in our group—was proof of that.
Six months ago Bobby had gone around town handing out confusing flyers and now, somehow, Goose Run’s first Pride festival was only a couple of weeks away and it looked as though it was going to be a wild success.
The local church had sure had some things to say about it, but most of the businesses around town were enthusiastically looking forward to those rainbow dollars.
Chase claimed there was even going to be a parade, with Lucille and Bobby leading.
Personally, I thought it was just Chase talking bullshit, since a Pride Parade in Goose Run would probably consist of Danny and Miller, Wilder and Avery, Chase and Lee, and me and Cash.
Then again, this was Bobby we were talking about. Anything was possible.
Either way, Goosapalooza would be a day to remember.
When Cash and I arrived, the party was already in full swing. We went around to the backyard, where we found Bobby trying to wrestle Lucille into a party hat. He wasn’t having much success, what with Lucille trying to eat the hat, but he was persisting.
“Hey there, Mason,” Bobby said, finally abandoning his efforts. “There’s drinks in the cooler and hot dogs on the grill. Help yourself.”
“Thanks,” I said, and then, because it would have been rude not to ask, “How’s the birthday girl?”
“Oh, she’s having a grand old time,” Bobby said. “Now tell me, in your professional opinion, in a fight between a goose and an alpaca, who do you think would win?”
I blinked. It wasn’t the weirdest question I’d ever been asked as a vet, but it was right up there. “Normally I’d say the alpaca, but if the goose is Lucille? All bets are off. Why do you ask?”
“No reason,” Bobby said, petting Lucille’s head. “Just one of them hypotheticals, you know?”
I made a mental note to check the alpacas for signs of a goose attack.
Cash eyed Lucille warily and his gaze darted around the backyard, taking in everyone there.
I could tell the moment he spotted his twin, and he made a beeline over to where Chase and Lee were standing.
Possibly it was because he missed his brother since he’d stayed with me every night this week, but I suspected it was also to get away from the goose.
I followed him over to where Chase was standing with Tyler from the bakery and a young guy I hadn’t met before. Tyler had a soda in one hand, and his other hand rested protectively over the baby carrier he was wearing. I couldn’t see anything of the baby except a fuzzy hat with a bobble on it.
“Hey, you guys,” he said. “This is Jess’s brother, Alex.” Jess was Tyler’s wife. I’d only met her once before. Tyler craned his head. “Jess is around here somewhere. I think she went to look at the three-legged dog.”
“A local celebrity,” I said and shook Alex’s hand. “I’m Mason, and this is Cash.”
Alex did the usual double take people did with the twins but recovered quickly. “Nice to meet you.”
His accent wasn’t local.
“Fucking kill me, man,” Tyler said in an undertone when Alex had wandered off somewhere. “I love the guy, but how hard can it be to find a place? He’s been living on our couch for a month.”
I winced in sympathy. That couldn’t have been fun with a new baby.
There were a lot of people in Bobby’s backyard, and Cash whispered something to Chase.
“We’re gonna grab hot dogs,” Chase announced, and Cash fell in behind him like a duckling dutifully following the safe path its mother had made. Then he looked back at me and held out his hand.
I took it, and we followed Chase toward the grill.
“I’m just saying,” Avery said as we approached, “that if I tried to move my hips like that, I’d dislocate them.”
Wilder, an arm around him, grinned. “It would be fun to watch you try, though.”
“Are you guys talking about Wilder’s new routine?” Chase asked.
“No,” Wilder said. “Grandma Jane has taken up yoga.”
“And posting yoga selfies,” Avery said. He took his phone out of his pocket. “Wanna see?”
“Nope,” Chase said, holding his palms up.
“Anyone?” Avery asked, waggling his phone around. “Danny?”
Danny was manning the grill.
“Hell, no,” Danny said. “That’s my actual grandma, and I don’t want to know if she can get her legs behind her head.”
“She sure can,” Avery said. “It’s yoga! It’s healthy!”
“It’s my grandma in spandex,” Danny said. “No, thank you.” He shuddered and then turned to me. “Did Jim get away okay?”
“He sure did,” I said. “He’s sorry to miss this shindig, but he wanted to be in Vermont in time to see the leaves change.”
Chase wrinkled his nose. “Change into what?”
Cash whispered to him.
“Who the fuck would want to see that?” Chase asked. “Was there no room at the Watching Paint Dry Festival?”
Danny held out a hot dog to him. “Takes all sorts to make the world.”
The three-legged dog raced past with an alpaca in pursuit. Bobby, wearing a pair of stars-and-stripes short shorts, bolted after them. Lucille followed, honking loudly.
Danny shrugged. “See?”
Beside me, Cash laughed softly.
Goose Run was something else. Or maybe it wasn’t.
Maybe there were towns just like this one scattered all across the world, small enough that most outsiders passed right on by, but for the people who stopped for a moment and looked around, maybe those towns were hiding something special.
Or someone special. I wasn’t much of a believer in higher powers, but sometimes Cash got a thoughtful and serene expression on his face when he listened to podcasts about the universe, like maybe he believed there was some driving force behind everything that steered us all where we needed to go.
And looking at him when he looked like that, I could feel myself thinking it just might be true.
The simple truth was that I was happier in Goose Run than I’d been in a long time.
I still had a massive student debt, and I still had clients who made me want to bang my head against the wall, and I was still working though a lot of stuff with my therapist, but for the first time in a long time, I felt like it was going to be okay.
I could breathe in Goose Run.
My therapist and I had talked a lot about my depression and how I hadn’t even realized how dark a place I’d been in until I caught a glimpse of the sun coming out again.
And Goose Run was a big part of that—getting away from Cincinnati had given me a new perspective—but the bigger part of it was Cash.
And yes, we’d talked about the dangers of framing Cash as the person responsible for getting me to address my mental health issues.
So while the romantic in me very much wanted to say that Cash was my sunshine, that wasn’t true.
He hadn’t cured my depression and he hadn’t magically made me better.
But he’d made me want to stay around and get better and encouraged me every step of the way.
So now I went to therapy in Hopewell, and Cash stayed late at Sunny Fields at least one night a week after his shift and talked with Mr. Conrad, which was basically therapy-lite, and most importantly, we were there for each other through it all.
The second most important thing was that both my parents were so disgusted at what they saw as a massive step down in my career—a career they’d never respected to begin with—that they’d stopped talking to me.
Well, not entirely. I’d sent my father a text on his birthday and received a polite reply in return, but he didn’t call me several times a day to bitch about Mom anymore.
So that was nice—and I meant that sincerely.
Not tensing up every time my phone rang had lifted a weight I hadn’t even known I was carrying.
I couldn’t blame my parents for my depression, but they sure as shit hadn’t helped any.
Maybe in a few years I’d reach out again and try to repair the distance, but I was in no rush.
I had other priorities now, including myself, and absolutely no regrets about putting them above my parents’ petty squabbling.
Goose Run was good for me. The life I was building here was one I was proud of, and one that made me happy.
Uncle Jim’s clients had welcomed the news that I was taking over the practice, and my confidence was growing by the day.
It helped that Alan Springer had been right and Trent Lee hadn’t followed through on his threat to sue.
I’d still made it clear that I was strictly a small animal practice, though.
“You want slaw and chili and onions on your hot dog, Mason?” Danny asked me.
“He ain’t that Virginia yet,” Chase said, biting down on his hot dog, which only had mustard and ketchup.
“You know Ohio has these too, right?” I asked him, and Chase shrugged. I nodded at Danny. “Hit me.”