Hoyt
Some days life seems to take place in a vacuum.
Other days it’s a slow slog.
And yet others are the most hellacious eight seconds on the back of a feral bucking bull that you will ever experience.
This day was option number three. Things had gone from a sweet morning to a nice meal with my brother to kissing Aubrey on a bridge to the death of Abel. I’d been tromped many a times in my life, kicked, thrown, tangled up, and nearly gored so I knew a thing or two about bad rides.
Following my brother into Chance to the hospice center was a really bad ride. Aubrey was chewing his lower lip, the one I’d been kissing not an hour ago, as he fidgeted with his tie. Rolling it then unrolling it, his dark eyes darting to me over and over.
“Are you okay?” he asked twice and both times I gave him a silent nod because I had no words to describe where my head was at.
Jesse had been shaken by the call. What he was dealing with I couldn’t even begin to guess.
Neither of us had enjoyed a great relationship with the old man.
He’d carried all the weight of Abel’s infirmity while I’d been off getting blowjobs in grimy arena bathrooms, whooping it up, living the dream.
“Not sure,” I forced out just as we pulled up to a very modest single-story home on the outskirts of Chance.
Ten minutes to the east would find us at Aubrey’s little wilderness cottage.
Lord how I wished I were there now. I glanced over at him.
“I feel blank. Like…a page in my journal waiting for something to fill it but there is nothing to put down on the lines. Does that make sense?”
“Of course.” He reached for my hand. I meshed our fingers gladly. “You and your father had a bad relationship. It’s normal to be conflicted over his passing.”
“Yeah, I guess.” My attention went to Jesse exiting his vehicle.
An older woman, Olivia I guessed, trotted out to meet and hug him then Lucas.
I could not get my ass to leave my old truck.
I wasn’t sure I even wanted to. Probably I should just drive off and let my brother handle this like he had been for years.
He didn’t want my help, had told me so right to my face so why the fuck was I sitting here watching the paramedics rolling up to the house.
“I think it’s very gracious of you to be here for your brother,” Aubrey whispered just as Jesse glanced at me.
Saw me through the windshield even though it was night.
Hell, he looked right into my very soul.
He was torn. He needed his big brother. I’d not been here for him through a lot of shit, most of the shit if I were being honest, but maybe this was one thing I do for him. Not for Abel. Fuck that. But for Jesse.
My exhale was long and shaky but I somehow managed to get my hand on the lever to open the door.
It stuck. It always did. A stronger pull got the latch to release.
The sounds of someone crying—Olivia—reached me as I slid to the curb.
Which had suddenly became a tar pit. Aubrey appeared at my side while I gawked at my brother staring at me.
“You don’t have to do anything that’s too upsetting,” Aubrey said, to which I bobbed my head then took his hand.
“I can do this if I got you here,” I replied, and somehow yanked my scuffed boots out of the mental muck to go join my brother and his man.
“Olivia, this is my older brother, Hoyt. He’s spending the summer with us out at Snow Creek,” Jesse explained while we crept into the modest house Abel had called home.
“Oh yes, he talked about you a lot,” Olivia said through tears and sniffles.
“All good I’m sure,” I mumbled, gripping Aubrey’s hand far too tightly. I eased up a bit as Olivia gaped. “Sorry, we had a strained relationship so I’m in a weird space right now. Where is he?”
“In his room in bed. He liked to sleep there so he could watch TV. He enjoyed those old western shows like Maverick, Gunsmoke, and Bonanza. The nurse came in to check on him before bed, make sure he took his nighttime meds, and there he was…just gone.”
Jesse gave Olivia a tender hug. “Glad they had the DNR papers. I have a bunch of other things if they require it.” He held up a folder of legal papers. “I have to give them to the paramedics and…well, I don’t know what. Call the funeral parlor I guess or…I should be better prepared.”
“You’re doing good,” I mumbled, stepping aside for someone wearing scrubs of pale pink. “We should go inside maybe?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Lucas followed Jesse into the care facility, his hand on my brother’s back, as I led Aubrey inside.
It smelled antiseptic. I yearned to get back outside. We walked down a silent hall, the four of us, to meet up with one of several people who began whispering to Jesse. I was happy to linger in the shadows, hiding from the tough stuff. It was what I was good at.
We were ushered into a private room.
Jesse slipped inside, I stood in the corridor, palm sweating as I held onto Aubrey for dear life, my gaze touching on yellowed family pictures on a dresser. Christ. Some were of me. Before I had fallen out of grace for liking guys. Before Abel had whipped me then thrown me out like a worn blanket.
“You’re pale. Do you need some air?” Aubrey whispered, turning into me to keep our conversation as private as possible.
It was tough as someone in a suit, possibly a guy from the funeral parlor in Fort Collins and his associate, a woman, gave me pats on the shoulder with a soft round of condolences.
There was no need for sadness. Not on my part.
“No, I need to be here for Jesse.”
Thirty minutes passed.
In all that time I had not ventured into the living room.
Jesse glanced back several times as things progressed, his eyes touching mine, quiet yet sharing something that felt as if he knew I was there for him.
Aubrey remained glued to my side. Probably because I had hold of his hand.
I lingered on the outskirts, eavesdropping.
It seemed the death appeared to be from natural causes, and the body was free to be taken to the funeral home once Abel’s doctor signed the death certificate.
Amazingly, that had come in ten minutes earlier online so now the body could be moved.
Guess Abel had a bad heart on top of advanced suspected CTE, which could lead to brain function failure.
The brain simply stopped regulating things like breathing or heart rate.
By this time it was midnight, quarter after to be exact, and everyone left in the hospice room was fried like an egg.
Oliva tried to get us to come to her house for coffee as Abel was placed onto a mortuary cot and covered with a sheet.
The reps from the funeral home were soft-spoken and polite, asking if there were any final goodbyes to be made as papers and identification were passed over to the morticians.
All very professional. All very respectful.
Goodbyes.
Shit, I had a thousand of them bouncing around inside my head like BBs in a tin can. None of them fitting to say in front of my little brother or anyone else still here.
Jesse and Lucas stepped up to the cot. One of the funeral directors, a slim woman with glasses, latex gloves, and a stern haircut, gently pulled back the sheet.
I watched as Jesse stared down at Abel. Lucas stood at his side, hand on the small of Jesse’s back, eyes lowered to the floor. Then my brother looked at me. Fuck. Was he expecting me to say something?
“Not sure I got anything to say to him right now,” I admitted.
“Same,” Jesse said in a flat tone.
Aubrey gave my fingers a soft squeeze. “That’s fine. You can say goodbye to him later. There’s time,” he said.
“Sure, there’s time,” I mumbled. With that Abel was wheeled out to a black SUV that would fit the mortuary cot.
“He’s being cremated,” Jesse told me while we stood in the doorway to watch the SUV pull away from the curb. “Christ. I’m…I don’t know what to do next.”
“You don’t have to know yet,” Lucas murmured, then glanced at me. “Neither of you do.”
Jesse closed his eyes for a moment and let out a deep breath.
“I feel…” I stepped closer and we exchanged weighted looks.
“Relief?” Jesse finished softly, and pressed a hand to his chest, right over his heart.
“Fuck, is that wrong?” He was asking Lucas, but I felt the question in my bones.
Jesse’s life had been changed by this man in ways I would never fully understand.
Both our lives had. Maybe if he’d been a better dad, me and Jesse would have had better lives. Well, there was no if obviously.
“It’s not wrong,” Lucas said with determination.
“Okay,” Jesse said, and straightened his back. “I should go back to the house and find, I don’t know…papers, other shit that’s important.” Then he stared at me, uncertain. “You up to help?”
“You can count on me,” I answered.
“Thank you, I…” I thought he might add something else, but he stopped, then Lucas tugged him from the room and through the door.
I glanced down at Aubrey. “I want to do this with Jesse,” I said. “I can take you home.”
“I’m happy to help if you want me,” he said.
And that was the moment I knew I was in love with Aubrey Lancombe.
He could have bolted, probably should have, but he stayed.
With us, with me, and that touched me so deep I felt weepy.
Which was bizarre. Seeing my father dead with a toe tag hadn’t brought forth a tear but this thin man with the big glasses and even bigger heart had me ready to cry.
“I’ll bring over some coffee,” Oliva said, patting at her damp cheeks with a wadded up tissue then disappearing into the night.