CROSS (A Gentry Boys Novella)(43)
Deck hadn’t been surprised when I told him that Stone was really his half brother. I only told him because I thought for sure that if he knew he’d go out of his way even more to keep Stone alive down there in that prison. I’d never gotten around to telling Stone about the things our mother said. Knowing about it now wouldn’t do him much good where he was. But if Deck really had the kind of connections that everyone said he did then he also had the power to make sure Stone didn’t get hurt while he was locked up down there with all the murderers and the freaks. I didn’t tell Deck that was the reason. And even though Deck had asked me if there were any other secrets he ought to know about I wouldn’t say a word about Benton. Not to him, not to the triplets who still thought they were just my cousins. I didn’t even react when I heard my real father, Benton Gentry, had died a few weeks ago. Everything I’d ever heard about him told the story of a terrible man I was lucky to never know.
“Thought you looked like you could use a bite to eat.” The voice was cheerful and very southern.
I looked up to see two beautiful Gentry women – Truly and Saylor – offering me a plate of cake and sympathetic smiles.
“Thanks,” I said gratefully and managed to smile back.
“How are you doing, Con?” Saylor asked as her hand brushed my shoulder in a maternal way.
“Can’t complain,” I answered breezily but it didn’t fool either of them. Truly and Saylor exchanged a sad look and then grew artificially cheerful as they started talking, mostly to each other, about how I should stay at Saylor and Cord’s house for fall break in a few weeks. I played with my fork and bobbed my head as if I agreed it was a good idea.
“Cord could show you the ropes in the shop if you want,” Saylor suggested. She was trying to be nice, so even though learning about tattoos at Cord’s shop didn’t interest me at all I pretended it did.
Truly Gentry, Creed’s wife, was staring at me. Without warning she reached over and gently lifted my chin. “Hold your head up,” she said tenderly. “There’s no telling what beautiful things wait for you tomorrow, sweet boy.”
Once they were back on the other side of the room with their husbands and their children I reached down to cup my hand over my left pocket ever so briefly. It was still there. Stone’s latest letter. I still hadn’t read it. Of the first seventeen years of my life I’d never spent a day away from my brother. Now it had been four endless months since I’d heard his voice. Chase tried to get me to ride down to Emblem for visits but I just couldn’t. It’s not that I hated Stone. That wasn’t even possible. But I couldn’t forgive him either. Every night before I closed my eyes I thought maybe the next time I opened them I’d have the guts to face my grief. And my brother. But that day hadn’t come yet. Maybe it never would.
One night when I’d only been living in Deck’s house for about a week, he found me on the back patio, staring up at the moonless sky as a cigarette burned between my lips. I didn’t know what kind of urge had led me to walk to the corner convenience store and buy a pack. I wasn’t a smoker. Stone was the smoker. I hated the taste and the smell.
Deck was an intimidating sight, even strutting around in boxers at midnight. With all his muscles and tattoos he had the look of a man who was anything but gentle. He just stood at my side and waited while I puffed on the cancer stick without inhaling before giving up and snuffing it out on the concrete. Deck might look scary but he had the kindest voice when he wanted to use it. He used it then. I’d often thought of the words he said to me that night in the dark, even though I couldn’t quite make sense of them yet.
“I know,” he’d said earnestly, “I really do. When you lose love you can’t imagine you’ll ever remember how to love again. You don’t even want to. But that will change, Conway. It will. And you’ll find yourself looking for that love even though you may not even realize you’re looking.”
I couldn’t remember what I said in return. Probably nothing. Deck was a wise man. But he wasn’t able to tell me how to get through all the days in the middle so that I could finally come out on the other side at least halfway healed. Maybe there was no advice for that. In any case I suspected my healing moment was still a very long way off.
No one else can put me back together. I don’t even know if I can do it. But even in my darkest moments I have to hope that someday I’ll be whole again.
I have to hope that someday I’ll have the courage to see my brother again.
I have to hope that someday I can figure out how to love again.
Because as I sit here at this wedding and watch these people with all their happy perfect imperfections I understand something I’d never realized before. Love and hope are the glue that holds us together, body and soul. We need the people we love as much as we need to breathe. Without them, we just drift. If we’re lucky we don’t drift forever.
That might have been what Deck was trying to tell me, that I wouldn’t be drifting forever.
I hoped to hell he was right.
(NOT) THE END