Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Dixon
Before anyone else showed up, I clocked an hour on the rowing machine at the community center, the repetitive, full-body push and pull easing the adrenaline rushing through me every time I thought about last night.
Those thirty or sixty minutes every morning were the only time I could guarantee solitude so that I could center myself and gauge the strength of my mind.
I was grateful my boss had offered me the use of the small gym.
Some guys I knew from rehab became militant about working out, like they replaced addiction to drugs and alcohol with an addiction to running or lifting weights, but I understood because the difference in how I felt all day after a workout compared to a day without was night and day.
After that and ten minutes under a perfectly functioning showerhead raining the hottest water my skin could stand, my morning meeting went well.
Theo was there, but he didn’t lead the group.
An older cowboy, Charlie, ran things. He was cool.
He told me he was an artist, and for some reason, I found myself actually talking to him.
I blurted that I was thinking about writing a book, and he thought it was the best idea since sliced bread, so he pulled up some kids’ books online, and we sat and studied their cover designs for a while after everyone else had left.
It was AJ’s magic at work. She had me feeling happy and light, which was a welcome change. Being weighed down with misery and self-loathing was exhausting.
To be connected to her the way we were last night… I had no words for the feeling. It amazed me how easily she fit into my fucked-up existence, and there were only tiny moments of doubt when I worried I would let her down or hurt her.
It wasn’t my intention. I wanted to be a light to her like she’d always been to me.
Hours later, she was still on my mind, and I relived our red-hot night together the entire drive to Lee Valley—the curved swell of AJ’s hips under my hands, the way she’d laughed when my fingers traced her ribs, and the delicate feel of the petal-soft skin between her legs, like the most fragile flower in one of her bouquets, wet with dew and sweet, but if I wasn’t careful, my fumbling fingers could crush and ruin it.
Before fear and whispers of old memories could set in, I was at the ranch, pulling up in front of my brother’s house.
The clock on my dash flashed 5:30. I was too early for dinner.
I wasn’t sure how I’d gotten the time wrong, but I figured I could use the next hour to prepare myself for the onslaught of questions my family would soon start lobbing at me and for the stab to my heart I knew I’d feel when I saw my son, so I started counting my way through some breathing exercises and tried to center positivity in the forefront of my mind.
It only took a few minutes for me to realize it wasn’t working and that my hands had started to sweat and my heart was racing again. It only got more intense when Stu slammed open the door, jumped onto the porch, and then rushed at my car.
Bax wasn’t with him, but when I climbed out of the El Camino and shut the door, I saw my brother watching us through the kitchen window over the sink.
“Hi, Uncle Dixon!” Stu flung himself at me and hugged me, his little Wranglers and U-Dub T-shirt with the telltale bucking bronco on the front making him look like a miniature cowboy. He was even wearing little cowboy boots, but his were newer and a lot nicer than mine. “Are you here for supper?”
“Yeah,” I said, trying not to smile too much, but it was the first time I’d touched him since I left him. “I’m a little early. Is that cool?”
“Totally cool, dude,” he said and he released me, but he grabbed hold of my hand and dragged me inside. “My mama made a puppatizer. It’s this cream-cheesy thing. Do you like cheese? I love it.”
His hand, so little and warm, fit inside mine perfectly. I marveled at the fit, at the way I’d fucked up everything else in my life, but this, Stu’s hand in mine, still worked. It was still pure.
“Oh, you mean an appetizer? Yeah, I could chow down on some cheese.”
My son smiled blindly up at me, and I tried not to let them in, but thoughts of all the drugs and the wasted time swirled around in my head. Despite all the shit I’d put him through, he was innocent and perfect, and I was the exact opposite.
That awareness felt like a punch to my solar plexus, and for a second, I worried the pain would squeeze my heart until it gave up the ghost, but at least this time, crossing the threshold into the house I grew up in didn’t even register.
But once it did, I realized that it was just a house.
The fears and memories that had painted this place in darkness were just that: fears and memories in my head.
I could choose to let them take up space, to grow darker and dominate the first chance I had to get to know Stu and color our future memories, or not.
Today, in the moment, I chose… not.
“Dixon.” My brother turned and leaned against the kitchen counter as Stu reached for a ball of cream cheese in a clear plastic bowl on the island.
It looked like it might have bits of ham in it and tiny, round green onion slices.
“Here.” Bax snagged the bowl out of Stu’s reach and used a butter knife to scoop a chunk of the cheeseball onto a paper plate, then dumped a handful of crackers next to it and handed it to Stu.
Stu’s eyes flared. He plopped the plate down on the kitchen table in the corner and hummed his anticipation as he dug a cracker into the cheese and shoveled a huge bite into his mouth.
“Looks like he’s not a picky eater,” I said because nothing else was coming to mind. The awkwardness between Bax and me could probably be felt in Idaho, like some ambiguous shifting of a tectonic plate.
“Kid eats every dang thing he sees,” Bax said, smiling at Stu, but then he cleared his throat and looked away. “Merv will be here soon. Bea’s upstairs with Athena. They’ll be down in a minute. Roxi has to work tonight so Abey can have it off, but Brand’s on his way.”
“Cool.”
With a mouthful of cream cheese and crumbling butter crackers, Stu asked, “What’s for dinner, Daddy?”
Bax looked at me, probably trying to gauge my reaction to hearing my kid call my brother “Daddy,” but I worked hard not to react.
“Burgers. I’ve got the grill heatin’ up out back.”
“Did you remember to get pickles at the store?”
“Sure did. The sweet ones you like.”
Stu pumped his fist in the air and shoved more cheeseball in his mouth. “Yes!”
Bax chuckled. “Pretty easy to please him since he’s so food motivated.”
I laughed, too, because his comment reminded me of Zephyr and Tilly when they were pups and how easy it had been to get them to do whatever I wanted if I had a piece of chicken in my hand.
When Stu had his fill of cheese and crackers, he pulled me to the living room to show me his collection of toy trucks and tractors. He had miniatures of Bax’s, Brand’s, and Abey’s trucks, and so many tractors that he had to use a huge plastic bin to house them when he wasn’t playing with them.
“I’m gonna run this place when I’m big,” he said, pushing a blue truck around the floor, “like my daddy. Do you work on a ranch too? How come you don’t work here? Uncle Brand works here. How come I didn’t know you before? Did you like fishin’ when you were little like me?”
As I sat on the floor and crisscrossed my legs, I couldn’t see him, but I felt Bax monitoring our conversation from the kitchen.
“I lived in California. Do you know where that is?”
Living was the wrong way to describe what I’d been doing all those years, but it was the easiest explanation for a five-year-old.
Stu shook his head, making vroom vroom sounds as his truck climbed the side of the couch.
“It’s kind of far away, and then I lived in Alaska.”
“Oh, I know Alaska. That’s where the ice road truckers live.”
“Do they?”
“Yeah, haven’t you ever seen that show?”
“No.”
“It’s really good. Aunt Roxi and Aunt Devo like it. We watch it together.”
“That’s nice. Sounds like you have a pretty cool family.”
He nodded and traded out his blue truck for a white one. “Where else did you live?”
“The Pacific Northwest, in Oregon.”
“Is that a different country?”
“No. There’s only one state between here and there. It’s got lots of trees, and you can see the ocean from some parts of Oregon. Have you ever seen the ocean?”
“Athena says I have ’cause we went to Florida when I was little, but I don’t ’member. But we have a big lake here, and me and my daddy go fishin’ all the time. At least when it’s not winter.”
“The Pacific Ocean is much bigger than Lee Lake,” I said, “and some of the fish you can catch are huge too. When I lived in Alaska, I worked on a fishin’ boat, and we caught a few.”
As soon as I uttered the words “fishing,” Stu froze and looked at me with wonder, but then a tirade of new questions came at me in fast succession.
“You worked on a fishin’ boat? Was it a big boat or a little one? Did you catch lobsters too? What’s the biggest fish you ever caught? Did you ever fall in the water? Did they make you wear one of those orange vests? Did you sleep on the boat?”
The screen door squeaked open and clapped closed in the kitchen, and then Abey’s voice filled the living room. “Whoa. Slow down, Stu. You’re gonna break Dixon’s brain.”
Devo, with her shrewd brown eyes and short dark hair that curved up under her ears, followed after Abey and plopped down on the couch. She held out her hand until Stu slapped her a high five.
“This is my Aunt Devo.”
“Uncle Dixon and I met the other day,” Devo said. “’Sup?”
“Hey.”
“But I would’ve known who he was even if we hadn’t met.”
“How?” Stu asked.
Devo laughed. “It’s the eyes. His look just like your—” She stopped herself before she said “like yours,” and cleared her throat softly. “His eyes look just like your grandma’s.”
I nodded, acknowledging that she’d stopped herself from inadvertently telling Stu I was his real dad.
“Sorry I haven’t been around much,” she said to me. “I’m usually at the community center every day, but I’ve been workin’ on a project in Jackson this week. We’re settin’ up another donation drop center there.”
Stu parked his truck next to the bin, and then the TV behind us playing a cartoon at a low volume drew his attention.
“But I’ll be there tomorrow. How are you likin’ it?”
Abey sat next to Devo and smiled at me as she slipped her arm behind Devo’s shoulders.
“It’s been good…”
We talked for a while. I felt a little guarded because Devo was unapologetically direct and sarcastic, but the way she looked at my sister made me like her easily.
She looked at Abey the same way I’d found myself looking at AJ, stealing glances when she wasn’t aware of my stare.
And the love written across Devo’s face?
It was epic and whole, and it made me so happy that Abey had found the kind of love she’d been dreaming about her whole life, the kind of love Noah Lee didn’t think she deserved or would ever find.
But she had, and it was the best Fuck You to that man. For a second, I wished he was still alive so Abey could have the satisfaction of seeing the shock on his face when she leaned down to kiss her wife like she just had.
He probably would’ve choked on air and kicked the bucket all over again.
“Kids?” Merv’s voice filled the house when she arrived. Bax followed her into the living room, and Brand arrived with some kind of ambrosia salad his wife had made for us even though she had to work. And then Bea and Athena came down the stairs, talking about clothes or shoes or something.
But Athena was not the same kid I’d known when I’d beat feet out of town. She was a young woman now, tall like her dad and beautiful like her mama, Candy.
In fact, the resemblance literally took my breath away, and when Athena said my name and came at me with open arms for a hug, all I could do was stutter a quiet hello.
“Hi, Uncle Dixon. Mama would be glad you came home,” she whispered as she hugged me. “I am too.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled, reaching quickly over her shoulder to wipe a tear out of the corner of my eye.
Candy wasn’t the reason I’d become an addict, but her death was the excuse I used to flee my family and all the pain it held for me at the time.
“God, you look just like her,” I said as she stepped back and wrapped her arm around Stu’s shoulder. Everyone stared at me like I had cheeseball all over my face.
Athena beamed at the compliment. “And you look nothin’ like you used to.”
Looking down at myself, I dusted off the front of my second-hand T-shirt, thinking maybe I should’ve dressed a little nicer.
Too late now.
“The grill should be ready by now,” Bea said, cutting in and interrupting the awkwardness. “What’s say we move this party to the backyard?”