CHAPTER 18 #2
Victor arrived at the Los Angeles airport two days after New Year’s, rented a car, and drove the three hours to his mother’s farm in Yucca Valley.
It hadn’t changed much since he left, though the sign by the road had been repainted, clearly reading Desert Valley Performance Quarter Horses.
When he parked, his mother’s rat terrier and collie mix came running his way to greet him.
He gave both a good scratch and a kiss before heading his way toward the house, where his mother was already on the porch, watching him approach.
She was a tall woman with a permanent tan and dark hair always pulled into a ponytail through the loop of her baseball cap.
Because of her appearance and her fluency in Spanish, she was often mistaken as Hispanic, but as far as they could find, his mother’s family only had English roots with a hint of Italian.
When Victor stepped up onto the porch, his mother swallowed him in a powerful hug and kissed both his forehead and cheek before pushing him back to get a good assessing look.
Then she led him into the house, asking him a string of questions about what was going on in his life.
They chatted for a bit before Victor took his suitcase to his childhood bedroom, which was no longer filled with horse paraphernalia because he’d either taken it with him to Oklahoma or thrown it away.
Now the only photos left on the walls were ones of him as a child, usually at a horse show clutching a ribbon and grinning.
He found a framed photo of teenage him and his father riding out on the trail, each grinning.
Victor spent two days at the farm before they headed back into Los Angeles for the wedding.
Violet’s family must have come from some money, because it was being held in a very fancy old banquet hall with a live band and an open bar.
Victor was in the wedding party, though he was very grateful that Oscar hadn’t asked him to be his best man.
That honor was instead bestowed on one of Oscar’s best friends, a guy who took such advantage of the open bar that he was two sheets to the wind before he gave his speech at dinner.
Victor didn’t interact with Violet all that much, but she was very much Oscar’s type—somewhere between new age and Goth, with extensive tattoos, purple streaks in her hair, and a dress trimmed with black silk.
When Oscar steered him her way and introduced him, he did Victor the honor by saying, “This is my ex-sister and current brother, Victor.”
Victor cringed internally but maintained his friendly smile for Violet’s sake as he shook her hand. “It’s very nice to meet you.”
“Wow, you really do look like each other,” Violet remarked. “It’s nice to meet you. Oscar’s told me all about you. You’re a… horse trainer? Is that right?”
“Yeah, I run a barn in Oklahoma.”
“Oooh,” Violet said with slightly widened eyes, then lowered her voice. “Are you, like, safe in Oklahoma? Isn’t that place suuuper homophobic?”
Victor really didn’t want to discuss this with the pounding of pop music in the background and some of Oscar’s friends having a rowdy conversation just behind them. “Yeah. It is.”
“He likes to live dangerously,” Oscar joked. Thankfully Oscar’s attention was drawn away by the arrival of another guest, and Victor could slip away before they could explore the topic at length.
The wedding went smoothly, and the reception was fine.
Victor used the open bar more than he thought he might.
His mother had brought her boyfriend Tom, who Victor had met the day before.
The dude was perfectly serviceable as a potential stepfather but was otherwise unremarkable.
He had no interest in horses; he was currently self-employed as an accountant.
Victor hadn’t any feelings one way or the other about the guy, though he was nothing at all like Victor’s father, nor could he hope to replace him.
As Victor watched the wedding descend into drunken chaos, he wondered what his father might do or say about this whole situation.
Whatever it might be, Victor would have loved for him to be here.
At some point Victor was hanging out around the bathrooms when Oscar showed up with his bow tie unraveled and his gait unsteady from a drink too many. Immediately he strung an arm around Victor’s shoulders and squeezed him.
“Been a long time since we talked, hermano,” he said with a goofy smile. “What’s up with you, huh? How’s Oklahoma?”
“It’s fine,” Victor replied.
“You still single?”
“Yeah.”
“Damn. A shame.” Oscar released Victor and shoved a hand through his thick dark hair, which was damp with enough sweat to make it stick up. “Have you been enjoying yourself? You seem a little sober to me. I haven’t seen you out there dancing!”
“Not much of a dancer,” Victor replied.
“Hey, have you met my buddy Jake? He’s the blond twinky lookin’ dude. He’s gay. Maybe you can dance with him.”
“He’s in the bathroom throwing up violently,” Victor said. “I was just in there.”
“Oh. That’s Jake alright.” Oscar laughed, slapping Victor lightly in the chest. “I guess I should check on him. Stop moping around and have some fun. We have an open bar for a reason!”
At this, Oscar ducked into the bathroom to presumably care for his very wasted gay friend.
Victor decided it was probably time to head up to the hotel room and crash for the night.
Maybe he was a bit too mopey, but the only people he knew here were relatives, and he’d already made his rounds with them.
Oscar’s friends all came from a different world, and the disconnect was too wide for anything but liquor to close.
* * *
Victor was in California for a week, so he did all the obligatory family things that he hadn’t kept up with since moving east. By the end of it, he was tired of brunch meetups, casual stop-ins, and long conversations about the most shallow of topics.
The reason he’d gotten into horses was because he was very naturally introverted, and the more time he spent with horses, the less time he had to spend socializing with people.
After brushing his teeth and shaving, Victor glanced at his phone, trying to will a text from Johnny into existence.
His phone had been pretty quiet all week.
He hoped Johnny was behaving himself and still sober.
Right before his finger touched the call button, he reconsidered.
He’d be back in Oklahoma by tomorrow. He could chat with Johnny then.
Victor felt suddenly clutched by a bout of sadness at the realization.
If they were boyfriends, it’d be so normal to call him up for no reason outside of Victor wanting to.
As it was, Victor didn’t want to come across as too much, and he hated having to worry about something like that.
Victor grabbed some toast from the kitchen and then hopped in his rental car to pay a visit to the local florist. After picking up his package, he made the ten-mile drive to the cemetery where his father was buried.
Thankfully because it was January, the sun wasn’t too brutal as he made his way across the dirt and rock expanse between the parking lot and his father’s grave at the back of the cemetery.
Most of his ashes were buried here, but a small portion were buried at a cemetery in Moctezuma, Mexico, the town where his father had grown up and the place where Victor’s abuela still lived.
They’d tried for years to get her American citizenship, to no effect.
So splitting his ashes was the best they could do to allow her the benefit of a funeral.
Victor set the wreath of flowers he’d bought across his father’s tombstone and then folded his legs to sit in the dirt beside it.
For a few minutes he bowed his head in silence, listening to the wind and the occasional whoosh of a car driving past. The desert was an eerily quiet place most of the time.
Part of him wished he’d been buried someplace with music and laughter, because his father would have liked that.
Victor had often wondered why he was so boring in comparison, but somehow they’d gotten along.
Losing him had altered Victor in ways he still couldn’t comprehend.
It’s why Victor had chosen his grandfather’s name, a man his father had deeply loved and also lost too soon.
“Lamento no visitar tanto como solía hacerlo, Papa,” Victor muttered.
I’m sorry I don’t visit as much as I used to.
“I’m still trying to figure my life out.
” Blinking back tears, he passed a rock from one hand to the other.
“I think if you were still here, I probably wouldn’t have even gone to Oklahoma.
But I needed something different, because I felt stuck.
But I still am, even after all this time.
” He let out a shuddering breath, swallowing several times to keep himself from sobbing.
“I wish I could talk to you. I wish…” He wiped at his face, feeling too overwhelmed to speak for a moment. “I really need my papi right now.”
He had hoped he wouldn’t lose his shit this morning, but his emotions had other plans. Seconds later he was a sobbing mess, trying to hold it together and failing miserably. Thankfully no one was out here, so it was all between him and the desert.