25. Vaughn
TWENTY-FIVE
VAUGHN
Clayton’s win is well deserved. I’m sure every single contestant has put as much effort into growing their pumpkins, but I’m not afraid to root for my friend.
The trophy is a thing of genuine beauty: a wooden pumpkin handcrafted by Marco, Atlas’s brother. Tess is beside Clayton with both arms around one of his and her face a picture of pride. A crowd has formed around them to offer congratulations.
“Come on,” Silas says, pulling me toward them.
We push through the crowd, and when Clayton sees us, his proud smile widens even more.
“You did it,” I tell him.
“Brenda did it,” he says.
“Brenda had a good partner,” I insist.
“Let’s take a photo,” Tess announces. “All of us. With Brenda.”
We arrange ourselves around Brenda, who is on her display platform. Tess takes the photograph, then hands the phone to someone nearby and gets in the photograph herself.
“Can you send that to me?” Silas asks Tess when she shows him the result.
“Already done.”
The celebration moves organically, and we end up at a table outside the Bookshelf Café with David and Mark, the latter of whom has brought out a bottle of something home-brewed and is pouring it without being asked. The rest of our friends arrive shortly after.
Clayton tells everyone the story of Brenda’s growing season in extreme detail.
“August was the problem,” he says. “The dry spell. I was checking her every morning. Vaughn had told me about the moisture retention in the soil, so I was watching it, but there’s a point where you just … you just have to trust the work you’ve done and let it happen.”
“Spoken like a true scientist,” Priya says.
“Nah, I’m just a farmer,” Clayton says.
Silas is beside me, his shoulder against mine in the way it’s been all afternoon, and he’s listening to Clayton with genuine interest. His words are replaying in my head.
I have something to tell you tonight.
I should have told you sooner.
I’ve been sitting with that since he said it. Turning the words over in my head and trying to guess what his secret might be.
Mark brings out more food: cheese and bread and crackers with various dips.
A new band starts performing on the main stage.
Tess moves in her chair in a way that suggests she and Clayton will be dancing on the street before long.
She’s right. Within twenty minutes, she’s pulled Clayton up.
Shortly after, Silas takes my hand, and then we’re dancing on the street too. Me, Vaughn Reeves, a man who is not known for making time to have fun. I’m dancing in the middle of the street with a man who challenges me every day. A man who loves being out in the garden as much as I do.
I put my hand on Silas’s back, and he puts his on my shoulder, and we dance like we’ve stopped pretending we’re not something.
Our friends around us, to their credit, take this in stride.
When Tess notices us, she smiles and looks deliberately away. Teresa says something to Emilio beside her. He nods, and both of them smile. David catches my eye across the crowd and raises his glass slightly.
Priya watches us for a heartbeat, then nonchalantly goes back to her conversation with Dom.
Silas sees none of this. Or sees all of it and is choosing not to react to it.
“The whole town is smiling at us,” I tell him.
“I know,” he says. “Pine Ridge is very affirming.”
“It is.”
We keep dancing until the music stops and the lead singer announces fireworks are about to start.
The crowd gazes up at the clear sky as the spectacle begins, reacting to the colorful bursts.
But I look at Silas. He’s watching the fireworks with a big smile on his beautiful face.
I could spend the rest of my life with this man.
I can’t help it. I pull him toward me and kiss him.
After a gasp, he returns my kiss.
When we break apart, we’re breathing like we’ve been running. We stare deep into each others’ eyes, our faces wreathed in pure joy, as the fireworks continue above us.
We kiss again. Slower this time.
“Dad?”
We separate, and I turn around.
Rowan is standing five feet away from us with a bag over his shoulder and an expression that is working through several things in quick succession. Surprise. Confusion.
“Rowan,” I say. “You came.”
“There was something—” His gaze is darting between Silas and me.
A firework goes up. Then another. Then the sky above Pine Ridge becomes fully lit with the finale, the big one, that makes everyone tilt their faces upward, but I can’t, because the look in my son’s eyes is one of betrayal.
Then there’s a sound that is not a firework.
Silas trembles beside me, but I’m not watching him.
I’m looking at Rowan.
Rowan, who has taken one step toward us and stopped. Rowan, who is staring down at his own chest, his hand coming up to touch it as his shirt fills with a deep crimson.
My son, who is falling.
I rush across the space between us and catch him, or try to. We both go down, my knees on the ground and Rowan’s weight against me.
“Rowan.” I’m saying his name, and my hands are on his chest and they’re wet and red.
There are more fireworks. The crowd is still cheering.
My son is on the ground with blood seeping through his shirt and my hands are red and I can’t— I can’t—
“Rowan!” My voice doesn’t sound like mine. “Rowan, keep your eyes on me.”
He slowly opens his eyes and struggles to focus on me. He looks so scared.
“Someone call an ambulance.” I don’t know how loud I’m saying it. I don’t know if anyone can hear me over the fireworks. “Is there a doctor here? Someone call an ambulance. Please.”
People are turning. The crowd is shifting.
“Dad.” Rowan’s voice is quiet. Too quiet. “Dad, I—”
“Don’t talk,” I say. “Don’t talk; just stay with me.”
“Dad—”
“Rowan. Look at me. Right here. Stay with me.”
His eyes stay on mine for another moment.
Then they close.
“No.” The word comes out of me like something breaking. “No, Rowan. No.”
I press my hands harder against his chest. Tears fall from my face onto his shirt.
I’m pressing my hands against my son’s chest in the middle of the Pine Ridge Pumpkin Festival while the fireworks finish above us and the crowd around us shifts from celebration to confusion, and I’m saying his name, and he’s not answering.
“Silas.” I look up. “Silas, help me. I need—”
Silas is gone.
The space where he was standing is empty.
I turn back to Rowan and continue pressing, saying his name, scanning his face, and waiting for his eyes to open.
The crowd has cleared around us.
“The ambulance is on its way.” It might be Clay who says it.
“He’ll be okay.” That’s likely Teresa.
“He’s going to be okay.” I don’t know if I’m saying it to Rowan or to myself. “You’re going to be okay. The ambulance is coming. You’re going to be okay.”
The fireworks have stopped.
The band has stopped.
The festival has stopped.
My son is on the ground, my hands are red, and Silas is gone and I am kneeling on Main Street in Pine Ridge, saying the same words over and over into the silence where the fireworks used to be.
You’re going to be okay.
You’re going to be okay.
You’re going to be okay.
The ambulance arrives.
The paramedics ask me to move back, but I don’t want to move back. Every part of me wants to stay between Rowan and everything else. Clayton puts his arms around me and helps me move because the paramedics need the space because they know what they’re doing and I don’t.
I stand and watch them work. My hands are sticky with my son’s blood. Rowan would faint at the sight.
“Sir,” one of the paramedics says. “Are you hurt?”
I look up.
“No,” I say. “That’s his. It’s my son’s blood.”
She nods and goes back to Rowan, and I watch them as they say he’s stable but they need to move quickly.
He’s alive. He’s still alive. They’re keeping him alive.
“Sir.” A different voice.
Dale Briggs puts his hand on my arm. “Vaughn. Can you hear me?”
“Yes,” I say.
“The ambulance is going to take him,” Dale says. “You can go with him. Okay? You can go with him.”
“Where’s Silas?”
He shakes his head.
“Go with Rowan,” he says. “I’ll find Silas.”
They load Rowan into the ambulance.
I get in beside him.
The doors close, and the ambulance moves.
I hold Rowan’s hand and say his name and wait for him to open his eyes. I’m not a religious man, but I pray. If ever I’ve done something good for this world, I need to collect and I need my son to be okay.
I pray.
Then the paramedics ask me to move, and they start doing compressions on his chest. They call out numbers. The noise is too much. My son’s looks like he’s peacefully asleep.
Please wake up, Rowan. Please.