Chapter 20
Ty
It's eight days before Cal speaks to me again.
I read a lot. I finish the Le Carré. I start and stop three others. I don't manage to finish any of them, because my brain, which has been letting me read with half of itself for ten years, is now loud. My brain has opinions. My brain wants to run scenarios about Cal. My brain is bad at reading.
Hanna stays at my place on Thursday. She stays at her Mom’s on Friday. On Saturday she cooks me eggs and says, "He texted me." I ask what he said. She says, "He asked if I was okay." I say good. She says, "That's the first thing."
On Monday morning my phone rings.
It's Cal.
"Brennan. Watershed. Six o'clock tonight. I'm off shift. You're off shift. You’re buying."
"Okay."
"Don't show up early and don't show up late."
"Okay."
"Six o'clock."
"Six o'clock."
He hangs up.
I stare at the phone. I make coffee and don't drink it. I go for a run, come home, shower, and put on a clean shirt. Then I sit on my couch in the clean shirt for four hours. At five forty-seven I head to the bar.
The Watershed is the Watershed. Big Jim is at the bar. He nods at me as I come in and points, with his chin, at the back booth. Cal is already there, a beer in front of him and a second one untouched across the table. His sling is off. His arm is moving freely.
He doesn't look up when I slide into the booth.
"Brennan."
"Cal."
"Beer."
I drink. He drinks. Big Jim doesn't look at us from the bar. The jukebox is playing a country song I don't know and don't want to learn. Three other people in the bar, none within earshot.
"I'm going to say things." Cal sets his glass down. "I've been rehearsing them. Some aren't going to come out right. Don't correct me."
"Okay."
"I'm going to punch you again at some point in the next six months. I don't know when. It's going to be when I think about one of the dinners. Or the time I called you when my dog died. I'm going to think about that one and — the body is going to do what the body is going to do."
"Okay."
"You're going to let me?"
"Yes."
"For the rest of our lives if I want to?"
"Yes."
He drinks his beer.
"I'm angry." He doesn't look at me when he says it. "Specifically, at myself. I'm angry at me first. You're second. My sister is third. My mother is fourth, because she knew and didn't tell me, and I have a specific set of words for my mother I'm saving for her. But you're second."
"Cal — "
"I said don't correct me."
"Okay."
"I wasn't a good man to tell at twenty-three.
I was an asshole at twenty-three, Ty. I drank too much.
I fought everybody. I picked a fight with a guy at a bar because he stood too close to my sister at the pool table.
I had my dad dead for four years and hadn't processed any of it and I was running everyone's lives. Yours. Hanna's. My mother's."
"Cal."
"I know. I'm not asking you to argue. I'm just — " He takes a breath.
"I was an asshole. I wasn't the kind of man you could've told at twenty-three.
I know that. I'm not saying it to get you off the hook — you're not off the hook.
Both of you should've told me anyway. But I get the math you did.
I don't forgive it. I'm working on the difference. "
"Okay."
"I'm — "
"I know you are, Cal."
"How do you know."
"Because you called me, Cal. You called me this morning and told me to buy you a beer at the Watershed. You didn't have to call me. You could've held this against me for the rest of your life and you'd have been — "
"Don't." He shakes his head. "Don't tell me what I could've done.
I called you because I've been lying in bed for a week thinking about every time you and I had lunch at Peak Grounds, when you ordered a black coffee and I ordered a latte.
And I've been realizing that the black coffee — the way you drank it, without hesitating — you were drinking my sister's coffee with me, Brennan.
For years. You were drinking her coffee. "
"Cal."
"I know what you're going to say. You weren't doing it at me. You were doing it because when Hanna left, you didn't know what to drink, and you landed on the thing she drank, because — "
I don't say anything.
Cal looks at me. His eyes are a little wet.
"Is that true."
"It's the pattern."
"God. Brennan."
"I didn't make a conscious decision. I just liked it."
"You started drinking black coffee after the academy."
"Yes."
"You hated coffee before then."
"Yes."
"You started drinking black coffee back then because my sister drank black coffee."
"I started drinking black coffee back then because Hanna was gone and I missed her and the coffee I had seen her drink was the only thing I could still participate in that she had — "
"Oh my GOD."
"Cal."
"That's the most unhinged — "
"I know."
"You've been in love with my sister for ten years and you drank her coffee for TEN YEARS to cope."
"Yes."
He stares at me.
"I was going to make fun of you tonight. I had a whole routine — Just Coffee for forty-five minutes. I had jokes. I had — " He stops. Something breaks open in his face. "I can't make the jokes, Brennan. Because that's the saddest — "
He's laughing.
The wet Cal laugh I haven't heard in days.
Not a big laugh. Not recovery yet. A laugh.
I'm thirty-three years old, in a booth at the Watershed on a Monday night, sitting across from my best friend who I was afraid for eight days wasn't going to be my best friend anymore, and my best friend is laughing at me because I've been drinking black coffee for ten years as a coping mechanism, and the laugh is the best sound I've heard in a decade.
"You're such an idiot."
"I know."
"Such a specific kind of idiot."
"I know."
"Does she know."
"Yes."
"When did she figure it out?"
"Her first day back."
"Of course." He shakes his head.
"Cal."
"Yeah?"
"I love her. I'm going to marry her."
Cal's face freezes.
"Don't say that out loud."
"Okay."
"You aren't allowed to tell me you're going to marry my sister in a bar."
"Okay."
"You have to do a whole — a whole — "
"I'll do the whole — "
"The ring, the permission — you have to ASK me, Brennan, do you understand what I'm — "
"Cal."
"Yeah?"
"I'm going to ask you. First. Before I ask her.
And I'm going to let you say no, if you want to say no, and I'm going to accept the no, for one month, because it's you — and at the end of the month I'm going to ask you again, and we're going to do that as many times as it takes, because I'm not going to do this without your blessing. "
He stares at me.
"Do you hear yourself?"
"Yes."
"That isn't the kind of — "
"It's what I want to do."
"Brennan — " He stops. Leans back. He's been thinking about his next line for days, and the version he lands on isn't the dramatic one. He takes a breath. "If you hurt her, I'll literally end you. And I know where they keep the axes."
"I understand, Cal." I hesitate. "Was that your blessing?"
"Yeah, Brennan."
"Okay. Thank you."
"It isn't — I'm not saying yes yet. I'm saying I'm open to saying yes.
In some future." He picks up his beer. "Not today.
Today I'm saying: you're my best friend, and I'm pissed, and I'm going to be pissed for a while, and I want you and my sister to be happy — because that's the only way the rest of this makes sense.
The rest only makes sense if you're happy.
So be happy. Brennan. Be happy with my sister.
And don't drink her coffee at me ever again.
From now on, if you're going to drink her coffee, you drink it at her, not at me. I can't carry the weight of it."
"Okay."
"Good."
"Thank you."
"Shut up. Drink your beer."
We drink our beers. Big Jim puts two new ones in front of us without looking at us, and Cal looks at the fresh glasses.
"Big Jim, are you crying."
"No." Big Jim doesn't turn around.
"Big Jim, your voice is — "
"I have allergies, Larsen."
Cal snorts. I snort. We sit in the booth and drink the second beer, and eventually Cal starts talking about his shoulder and what the PT guy said and what a pain the PT guy is, and eventually he asks about Hanna — very small, almost shy — and I tell him about Hanna.
Not those things. About the fact that she's sleeping seven hours at a time now, for the first time in ten years. Cal is quiet at that.
"Yeah. Okay. Okay, Brennan. Okay."
We finish our beers and go home.
Outside the Watershed, on the sidewalk, Cal stops before he gets to his car.
"The barbecue."
"Yeah."
"Did you really wipe sauce off her wrist?"
"Oh god."
"At a public fundraiser?"
"Yes."
"I have to think about this." He shakes his head. "I have to think about a lot of things. Good night."
"Good night."
He starts to walk away, then stops.
"Hanna's making you coffee tomorrow morning."
"What?"
"I called her before I called you. She said she knows how you take your coffee and she said she was going to make yours. Not yours-for-her. Yours. She said you don't sweeten it, but you like it a specific way. She was talking about your coffee, Brennan. She wanted me to — "
"Okay."
"Just Coffee, but reversed. She told me." A beat. "She — you know what she's like," Cal says.
"I know what she's like."
"Stop saying okay. Go home. Drink your reverse coffee. Marry my sister in some far-off year when I've emotionally processed all of this."
"Goodnight, Cal."
"Goodnight, Brennan."
I walk to my truck. I don't get in right away. I stand on the sidewalk outside the Watershed in Copper Ridge, Montana, on a Monday night, under a street lamp with a moth cloud around it, and I call Hanna.
She picks up on the first ring.
"Hanna."
"Ty. How did it — "
"He gave me the blessing."
"What?"
"The axes blessing."
"Um — "
"He did the whole line."
"Oh my god, he did the whole line?"
"He did the whole line."
She’s quiet on the other line.
"Hanna."
"Yeah?"
"You knew he was going to do the axe line tonight."
"I approved the axe line, Ty."
I stand on the sidewalk. "I love you."
"I know."
"I'm coming home."
"I have coffee on."
"Your coffee or mine."
"Yours." She giggles.
"You don't know how I take it."
"Ty."
"Yeah?"
"I've been watching you make your coffee for ten years.
I know exactly how you take it. I just don't want you to think it's automatic.
I want you to watch me make it. I want you to correct it the first time.
I want you to tell me how you like it. And then I'm going to make it that way for the rest of my life. "
I stand on the sidewalk outside the Watershed. A moth hits the lamp. It bounces. It keeps flying.
"I’m on my way."
"Okay."
"Ten minutes."
"See you then."
When I come into the apartment ten minutes later, Hanna is at the counter with a mug in her hand and my pour-over on the stove. She's in my flannel, feet bare, the living room lamp on.
She hands me the mug. I sniff it, sip it, look at her.
"It's too much cream."
"I know."
"Why did you make it like this?"
"Because I wanted to make one mistake the first time."
"Why."
"So, we'd know we could correct one."
I set the mug down, put my hands on her waist. She sets her mug down next to mine and puts her arms on my forearms. Her hair smells like her shampoo. The hall light is on. The kitchen is quiet.
"I'm home."
"I know."
"Your brother is my best friend."
"I’m so relieved."
"Your mother is my second mother."
"Yes, although to outsiders, that may sound weird." She laughs.
"You're — "
"I know, Ty."
"You're the first thing. You're the first. I'm not — I'm not going to — "
"Ty."
"Yeah."
"Drink your coffee. Fix the cream. Tell me how you want it."
"Okay."
"And then we're going to bed. And tomorrow I'm going to make it right."
"Okay."
The wind goes through the window screen.
In the alley someone shuts a dumpster lid.
A dog barks three houses down. Somewhere across town, Cal is home.
Somewhere across town, Mom Larsen is probably still up, because Mom Larsen probably hasn't slept a full night since this all started.
Here in my apartment above an auto parts store on Third, the basil plant I've been keeping alive since I gave up on everything else is keeping itself alive now.
I drink the coffee after I fix the cream.
Hanna leans against me while I do it taking mental notes.
I'm home.