“I love you,” he said, staring at his hands, but then decided the boys deserved better. He looked each of them in the eye.
“I love you,” he said to Aaron, who blushed but smiled. “You remind me so much of your dad,” he said. “Easygoing and fun. Everyone liked your dad, just like they like you. He’d be so proud of you. I…I am so proud of you.”
Aaron nodded, his eyes bright. “Thanks, Uncle J.”
“Ben.” The boy flinched as if Jeremiah had hit him, and those eyes of his wouldn’t meet Jeremiah’s. “I love you.”
Ben snorted.
“I do. I know it may not seem like it sometimes.”
“Ever.”
Jeremiah sighed. “I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry for a lot of things I’ve done wrong by you boys, but I’m most sorry that I’ve never told you how I feel about you. How much I care for you. I love you, Ben. You’re so smart and intuitive. You’re an old soul like your mom. Sometimes I look at you and I can see her so clearly, it’s amazing. You’re amazing.”
Ben didn’t say anything, his throat bobbing as he swallowed hard, staring at the Sidney Crosby poster on Aaron’s wall.
“And Casey, my little charmer. I love you—”
Casey hopped off the bed and curled up in Jeremiah’s lap, finding the place he best liked to squeeze up next to him. “I love you too Uncle J,” he whispered and put his head against Jeremiah’s chest.
He gave himself a moment to soak in that love, to acknowledge it in a way that he never had before.
“You still want to leave,” Ben said, his eyes unforgiving.
“I don’t,” Jeremiah insisted.
Ben and Aaron shared a long look and Aaron shook his head. “We…we don’t know how to believe you.”
“We think you’re lying,” Ben said in far clearer terms.
“You know I can’t go back to the rodeo. My accident—”
“Doesn’t mean you don’t want to.”
Jeremiah searched and he searched, and he took as long as he needed to try and find the answer that made sense, a way that he could convince them, but it was lost somewhere he couldn’t get to.
Have you grieved for your life? Dr. Gilman had asked, and he’d broken out in a cold sweat. The answer was in there somewhere. Somewhere he was a little scared to go.
“I think maybe we need to go see a friend of mine. Dr. Gilman.”
“I don’t like doctors,” Casey sighed.
“She’s not that kind of doctor. She’s the kind of doctor that talks, helps people figure out their problems.”
“A head shrinker?” Aaron asked. “That’s what grandpa calls them.”
“Some people call them that, but Dr. Gilman has helped me a lot and I think she could help all of us…as a… as a family.”
“We’re not a family,” Ben said, as if they’d been mislabeled and put in the wrong spot.
Solemn and sad, Jeremiah nodded in agreement. “Then that’s what we need help with.”
Lucy walked through the empty house and opened the fridge looking for a beer. Of course there was no beer. Not anymore. Before the house had been running with booze and she hadn’t cared; the one time in her life she wanted to get rip-roaring drunk, the house was dry.
Figures, she thought.
She grabbed a can of Diet Coke and in the dark she sat down at the empty table. Well, not so much sat as deflated, right into the seat. A boneless slop in a yellow dress.
Now, she thought, staring at the silver can, lacking the energy to open it, how do I recover?
From behind her she heard her mother coming out of the laundry room.
“Lucy?” Mom stepped into the dark room with a full laundry basket. “What are you doing?”
What am I doing? she thought. To her utter chagrin, to the bottom of her independent feminist soul, she shuddered. “I think I’m waiting.”
“For what?” Sandra put the basket on the table. In the dark Lucy recognized the drapes from her room. And the drapes from the living room.
“A man,” Lucy answered with a groan.
“Is someone picking you up?”
“No. I’m waiting for a man to come to his senses.”
“Ahhh…a woman’s lot in life.” Sandra smiled and pulled from the basket the little half curtain that hung in the bathroom window. Mom was washing curtains at eleven o’clock at night? “Jeremiah?”
“I love him, Mom.” The words came out like a mourning wail and she cracked open the can for a sip to drown out the bitterness.
“And you think he loves you?”
“I think figuring out he loves me is so far down on his to-do list it will never happen. Not in this decade.”
“And you’re willing to wait that long?”
“No…I don’t know. I don’t know anything.”
Sandra handed her one of the long sheers from the living room. “Help me hang this back up would you?”
“Mom,” she moaned, “I really don’t—”
“Let me give you some advice, honey. Don’t wait. Get on with your life. Work. Be busy. Because if you wait, you lose a little of yourself every day. You can hope, hope this man you love comes to his senses, hope he does what he needs to do to deserve you, hope he returns your feelings in the way he should, but if you wait for it to happen…you’re just wasting yourself and your time.”