Homespun (9 page)

“What are you doing here?” Kerry asked.

“I thought you might need me.”

Kerry didn’t answer. Instead he looked back at the man in the bed. It felt like a dismissal.

Homespun |
Layla M. Wier

70

It’s my turn to take the lead,
Owen told himself, and drew the door gently closed before approaching. The sickroom smell was stronger here, the memory of Nancy’s death an elephant in the corner he had to fight to hold at bay.

“You asked why I’m here. It’s because I realized that Laura was right,” he said in a rush.

Kerry glanced up at him, his face strained. He seemed to have aged five years since Owen had last seen him.

“Laura? Right about what?”

“Just something she said…. I’ve never followed you, Kerry. You’re always the one who leaves, and I always let you go. I thought I was giving you space. But instead, I was just putting all the work of the relationship onto you. I never thought about it that way.”

“If it makes you feel any better,” Kerry said, “I never thought of it that way either. I don’t want to be clung to.”

“If you want me to go, just tell me to leave.”

Kerry’s pale eyes darted back down to the man in the bed. Like a compass needle pulling north, he couldn’t look away long before being drawn back. This time, Owen looked too.

He’d expected to recognize Kerry in the lines of the older man’s face, as he’d seen Kerry in the blonde woman. But there was little of Kerry here—none of his vitality, his energy, the life brimming over in him. There was only paper-thin, sagging skin, a scalp naked of hair, dry lips parted for each labored, whistling breath.

“I haven’t seen him since I was seventeen,” Kerry said.

“He said I was going to die of AIDS and go to hell, and told me to get out. So I did.”

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Silence, punctuated only by the old man’s harsh,

staccato breathing.

“I guess there was always a part of me that wanted him to…. I don’t even know what I wanted him to do. To apologize? For all of it? Because it wasn’t just that one day; it was
everything
….” He drew a breath.

Owen wanted, with a desperation bordering on physical distress, to reach across the old man’s bed and wipe the hurt away. As if any human being had that power.

“I never figured out what I wanted, really,” Kerry continued softly. “I hated him and loved him, and by the time I got here, he’d stopped responding to anyone.”

He dragged a hand across his eyes, though they were dry. “In a way, I suppose I got exactly what he wished on me.

I did go to hell, except I didn’t die. New York City in the ’90s?

Hell, Owen.”

And in some sense, Kerry was still there. He’d never left.

Owen recognized that now, as he never had before. And he wasn’t about to make the same mistakes he’d made earlier.

I’m an old dog, but I can learn new tricks.

“I wish I could say I understand,” he said slowly. “But I wasn’t there. And I probably will never understand what you went through. And yet,”—
Sometimes you have to lead, not
follow.—“
I lost someone too, you know. It wasn’t the same. I know that. But that didn’t make it hurt less. She was my world. I can’t understand all of it, but I really can understand some parts of it, Ker.”

Anger—an incoherent, wordless rage—flickered over

Kerry’s pale face. Then he looked back down. Compass needle, north. Neither of them spoke for a time.

“How long?” Owen asked softly.

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“They said he could go anytime. Maybe a day or two.”

Kerry’s breathing was as harsh as his father’s. “I never thought I’d make it this long,” he said, and he was open and bleeding, and Owen didn’t know what to do. “I lived hard and expected to die young.” Helplessly, he stared at the pale ghost of his father, immobile against the hospital sheets.

“What happens when you know you’re going to die, and then you don’t?”

“You go on living,” Owen said. His voice was thick.

Kerry turned his face away. Owen saw him fighting to keep his composure, and thought,
God damn this.
He circled the bed in a few long strides, caught Kerry in his arms. Kerry didn’t fight or try to pull away, just sank against him, shaking.

“Ker, did I ever tell you why Nance and I named the farm Blue Thistle?”

Kerry shook his head wordlessly against Owen’s chest.

“Because we both respected the hell out of that

frustrating little plant. It’s a weed, technically, but damn are they tenacious little buggers. And,” Owen added, burying his face in Kerry’s hair, “they’re a beautiful weed.”

KERRY’S father died at 8:03 that evening. Kerry wasn’t there.

He’d stepped out of that too-close room to get a cup of coffee and took a walk around the hospice grounds, shedding Owen’s company and his well-meant but oppressive

sympathy. Darkness was lapping at the buildings, and the undertow of the past tugged at Kerry’s steps, trying to drag him under. Kerry kept his mind very carefully blank. He Homespun |
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could taste the hospital smell on the back of his tongue—too familiar, too goddamn familiar, making him gag.

Owen, he thought, didn’t know a damn thing about

hospitals and lost loved ones.

Kerry hadn’t smoked in a very long time, but for the first time in years, he felt the dry craving on the back of his tongue. It would be something to do with his hands, a reason to stand outside for a little longer, a balm for his shattered nerves… and it would get the taste of hospital out of his mouth. He walked down the street aimlessly before realizing he had no idea where to find the nearest convenience store.

In the gathering darkness, cold hands buried deep in his pockets, he walked back.

The hospice building felt too warm after the sharp chill in the air outside. And he knew. He couldn’t say how, but he knew before he entered his father’s room. There was a certain change in the quality of the air, a silence that pressed on the eardrums like the waiting hush as a thunderstorm gathered over the fields of Owen’s farm.

His sister had her hands over her mouth and was

leaning on her teenage son, whom Kerry had met for the first time only that day. They clung to each other in their own private circle of grief. The nurse looked up. Saw him. Said something sympathetic.

The only thing that felt real was Owen’s hand on his, Owen’s big, blunt fingers laced through his own.

“Do you—?” Owen began quietly, and Kerry shook his head.

“I want to go outside.”

So they went outside. It was fully dark now, only a thin sliver of light left in the sky to the west.

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“Do you have a hotel?” Kerry asked. His voice sounded small. Maybe it was his ears, a threadiness, as if the air had become too thin.

“No. I just drove straight down. You?”

Kerry shook his head.

Owen cleared his throat. “There will be… paperwork, probably.”

“Dana can deal with it.” His sister might never forgive him for walking off and leaving her to handle everything on her own. But she hadn’t made any effort to contact him in twenty years. He was pretty sure he didn’t care if she forgave him or not.

“If you leave, you might later wish you’d stayed,” Owen said quietly, reflectively.

“I was there at the end. That’s what I came for. And this place is about to be swamped in Ruehlings. They can handle it just fine; they’ll have each other. I don’t know if I can handle
them
, though.”

Owen looked at him and nodded. “Car’s this way.”

Kerry let Owen guide him into the car. It was easier to give up control than to fight, and easiest of all to let himself drift along like a toy boat at the mercy of a stream. He wasn’t sure if he slept or just floated along, but the next thing he consciously registered was the car stopping, with the neon glow of a motel sign lighting the windshield.

“It’s not fancy,” Owen said, an apologetic note in his voice.

Owen had probably never stayed at a hotel in his life that didn’t have outside doors with spaces to park cars in front of them. On the other hand, Kerry’s plan for the night had involved crashing on a couch at the hospice, and he’d Homespun |
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slept under more than one railroad bridge in his time. “It’s fine. I don’t care.”

He was aware of Owen watching him closely, and turned his face away. The car door slammed, and time must have skipped again, because Owen was helping him out, a hand unobtrusively under his elbow.

The room was a typical roadside motel room—thin

mattresses, locked-down TV, and a faint smell of mold. Kerry stopped in the doorway, aware that he had no idea what he wanted to do next. All he knew was he couldn’t face a conversation right now. The bathroom at least offered temporary privacy. “Shower,” he said, and realized he was cold, all the way through. “I need a shower.”

“We could both use something to eat.”

“I’m not hungry,” Kerry said, and closed and locked the door.

The water seemed to have two settings—scorching and lukewarm—but he could feel the tension starting to uncoil, leaving something black and aching behind. In the steam-warm confines of the bathroom, he leaned his head against the wall and cried quietly for a while, biting his lips to keep from making any noise.

It was just—too much, the emotions of past and present bound up into a tight knot he didn’t think he had the strength to unwind. The smells and sounds of his father’s hospice room had plunged him back into those shattering, terrible years, and he couldn’t explain to Owen that the largest part of his present emotional turmoil had nothing to do with his father. He was grieving for everyone he’d loved and lost over the years. Owen didn’t understand,
couldn’t
understand, and his clumsy attempts to relate Kerry’s Homespun |
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devastation to a functionally heterosexual man’s grief for his lost wife—
It’s not the same,
Kerry thought, face tipped back to the shower as scalding water ran down his cheeks, washing away the tears.
It’s not the same, and I know you
want to be here for me, I know you want to make it better, but
this isn’t
for
you, this isn’t your goddamn life.

He desperately missed his friends in the city. What he needed now was the company of people who
understood
, not Owen and Owen’s ongoing sexual identity crisis.

But he’d chosen to walk away from that support system, time and again. He’d shut his life into little boxes—the city, the farm, his past. He’d made himself a creature of the moment, everywhere he went, because it was better than trying to live with…

…this.

I don’t know where I belong,
he thought, leaning against the side of the shower as the room cooled around him.
I don’t
know who I am.
He didn’t know if he could go back out there and face Owen’s earnest pretense of understanding and empathy. At the same time, all he wanted to do was run to Owen’s bed and get his brains fucked out and forget about everything for a while, like he’d done so many times before.

He showered again. That helped. A little.

He realized when he finally stepped out of the shower that he’d left his backpack at the hospice. No fresh clothes.

Somehow, this seemed the least of the issues facing him at the moment. He hitched his jeans over his bare hips.

Something was wadded in the front pocket; he’d forgotten about the handful of stained Merino wool until he took it out and turned it over in his hand.

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Layla M. Wier

77

WHILE Kerry was in the bathroom, Owen went out and fetched them a bag of burgers from the nearest fast-food place. The shower was still running when he came back.

Stretched out on the motel bed, he called Laura to give her the news and check on things at the farm.

“It’s all good here, Dad. Lady Jane didn’t give much milk tonight. I think she’s drying off.”

“She dried off early last year, too.”

“I know. At least she doesn’t kick like Curly Sue does. I know we talked about selling her, but she’s such a sweetheart otherwise.” She hesitated, winding down on farm news, and asked somewhat shyly, “How’s Uncle Kerry handling things?”

“Okay,” Owen said, looking at the door of the bathroom.

The shower had stopped for a while, then started up again. “I guess he’s all right. I don’t know.”

“He’s not all right. His dad just died.”

“Yeah, but I meant….” Owen trailed off, privately kicking himself. He had only the vaguest idea what he actually
had
meant, but he knew he’d been missing a lot of cues for a long time now.

“If this is the kind of grief counseling that Uncle Kerry is getting from you, no wonder you guys are having problems.”

Laura’s voice was teasing, taking the sting out of her words.

“I’m just not good with talking. Never have been.”

“I know.” Laura sighed, down at the other end of the line. “And how are
you
, Daddy? Are you all right?”

“Kerry’s the one who just lost his dad. He’s the one who’s dealing with all of this stuff.”

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“I know. But it’s hard on you, too. I have eyes, Daddy. I know that sometimes dealing with Uncle Kerry is like being on a roller coaster.” She hesitated again, and he had the feeling she was choosing her words with exquisite care. “Are you absolutely, one hundred percent certain this is the right thing for you, Daddy? You and him, I mean—forever. I love Uncle Kerry, really I do, but I want you to be happy.” Her tone was light, but a hint of guard-dog Laura lurked underneath.

“I’m happy with him,” Owen said fervently. “Even when there are problems. Yes, honey. It’s the right thing; if I’m sure of nothing else, I’m sure of that.”

He could hear her smile in her voice. “Good. I’m glad. I can’t wait to see you guys again. Give Uncle Kerry my love.”