by Joanna Bell
"It's weird," I said a few minutes later. "I always thought you were –"
"A bad guy?"
"Yeah," I admitted. "Yeah, I did."
"You were thinking what your daddy told you to think. No surprise there, that's what kids do. I don't blame you for it – Jack Devlin isn't an easy man to deal with."
"No,' I sighed. "No he's not."
My uncle was sitting across from me. He looked older than my dad, even though he was 10 months younger. And the differences in their circumstances could not have been starker. Darcy's most recent kitchen renovation had cost over $300k. I was pretty sure that was at least quadruple what Uncle Dave's whole trailer cost. It was clean, like I said. Clean and organized. But it was shabby, too. The sofa was sagging in the middle, and the fabric on the arms was threadbare. Instead of drapes there were folded sheets pinned over the windows. It wasn't the kind of home you would expect a man from a rich family to live in.
"How's the jaw?" My uncle asked. "Feeling better?"
"Yeah. I think so. I don't even remember what the hell I said to those cops."
"To Rick and Joe? I don't know either, but it must have been something – those 2 are usually pretty mild-mannered."
"You know them?"
"I know a lot of people. There's a whole other side to Sweetgrass Ridge that I don't think your daddy ever let you boys see. That's why Bob called me from the Lone Pine and not Jack – he knew I'd come out."
"And he knew my dad wouldn't."
My uncle got up and disappeared into the kitchen without confirming what we both knew to be true: that Jack Devlin didn't really give a single shit about his second son – or that son's dumpster fire of a life.
And then, as I sat on the sofa listening to the sounds of coffee being made, something one of the police said came back to me.
"Dave?" I called into the kitchen, sure I was imagining it.
"Yeah?"
"Does Jackson have a kid?"
My uncle walked back into the cramped living room with two mugs of coffee in his hands and a strange look on his face.
"I was just asking if –" I started, assuming he hadn't heard me.
"Yeah, I know. And yeah, he does."
"What?" I asked, floored. "Really? Jackson has a kid? With that girl from –"
"With Hailey, uh-huh. Name's Brody, sweet little guy. Sure would be nice if you and your brother could put your differences aside at some point but I know that's none of my business."
Holy shit. Holy shit. Jackson had a kid? I had a nephew? I ran my hands through my hair, wincing when my fingers hit a still-tender spot on my skull.
"How old is he?" I asked, my mind immediately going to a place it had avoided for many years.
"If you're asking me what I think you're asking me the answer is yes. Hailey had the baby – the one she was pregnant with when everything went down."
'When everything went down.'
My uncle tried to spare my feelings even then, when he told me the baby I tried to make sure grew up without a daddy – or didn't exist at all – was alive and well.
"Holy shit," I whispered again, hanging my head. "I didn't know."
***
I think maybe my uncle saved my life. There's the obvious way you can save someone's life when you find them frozen and pinned to the ground while a couple of cops beat the shit out of them. And then there's the less-obvious way you can save someone's life, by showing them kindness they don't deserve. A lot of the time stuff like that goes unnoticed. Small acts of decency go unacknowledged and assholes keep on being assholes.
It could easily have gone that way with me and my uncle. The reason it didn't was Astrid Walker.
It was her. It was always her. Even when I thought it wasn't, it still was. It was her that made me go back to my uncle's trailer to thank him. She would have liked him. She would have approved of what he did. In his place, she would have done the same. Hell, she did do the same. She came to LA when I needed her. She was a decent person – so was Uncle Dave. And somehow I spent my whole life thinking 'decent' was just another word for 'sucker.'
"So you think you're gonna be OK?" Dave asked, eying me. "What's goin' on with you anyway – you never used to spend so much time in the bar. Is it the girl? Heard you got married last year – that true?"
I smiled then, not even surprised that he knew because of course he knew. Sweetgrass Ridge is a small town and that's just how things go in small towns – unless you're an angry drunk no one wants to talk to, of course. That's how my uncle knew about my life and I didn't even know my own brother had a kid.
"Yeah," I replied, speaking to another human being about Astrid for the first time in months. "Yeah, I did get married. Then I got divorced. And yeah, I guess it is her. I don't know how to do it, you know. It's like I can't function without her or something. How pathetic is that?"
"Sounds pretty normal to me," my uncle replied. "How about this. How about the next time you feel like drinking you come over to my place instead of going to the bar? It may not be what you're used to but I've got ears. I can listen to whatever it is you feel like sayin'."
My dad's brother didn't owe me a damn thing. He didn't have to be nice to me – but he was. My "loser" uncle showed up for me when no one else in my family did.
"OK," I said, looking down at the worn carpet. "OK, yeah. Thanks, man. I appreciate that. Probably more than you know."
Chapter 34: Cillian
After that talk with my uncle I stopped going to the bar. I stopped drinking altogether. For some reason it just dawned on me that I had a choice between sinking further into the alcoholism that has plagued the Devlin family for as long as anyone can remember – and growing the fuck up. And all it took was a stranger's – because Uncle Dave was a stranger, in spite of our blood relation – kindness.
Somehow, knowing someone gave a shit about me gave me the balls to face what my life was becoming. Astrid was gone. I had to face that. She was gone and that was the only way it could have been. If it had taken 6 more weeks or 6 more months or even 6 more years together, I knew she would have left me eventually.
She was too good for me. I don't say it to make anyone feel sorry for me, I say it because it's the truth. It's how life is. I couldn't have Astrid Walker the same way a corporate conman who spends his life cheating other people out of their money can't have a woman who has spent her life volunteering at food banks and working on behalf of the downtrodden. You don't get to be a piece of shit and expect to have good people in your life. You can have money for sure. You can have luxury vacations and a car that makes other men gnash their teeth with envy. You can even have a beautiful wife. But you can't have a good wife. Because good women don't spend their lives with pieces of shit.
And how I handled Astrid's absence was, finally, up to me. It was Dave who helped me with that, welcoming me into his home any and every time the pull of the bottle started to get too strong, listening to me as I droned on and on about my troubles, offering wise advice without ever being overbearing about it.
"You miss her," he said one night, as we sat in his small living room watching football.
"No," I replied. "I mean – yes. Obviously I miss her. I guess at a certain point you just realize she's gone though, and there's nothin' you can do about it."
Dave scooched forward in his chair – an ancient, battered recliner that creaked like it was about to fall apart every time someone sat down in it – and dipped a store-brand tortilla chip into the store-brand onion dip we were slowly working our way through. "I hear you. I know what you mean."
"Do you?" I asked, surprised. As far as I knew, my uncle didn't have much in the way of a personal life.
He smiled sadly. "Yeah, I do. Don't look so shocked. What – you think guys who live in trailer parks don't fall in love?"
"No!" I responded quickly. "No, not at all."
Dave laughed. "Don't worry about it. I did have a woman, though – once. No reason you would have known. We got married about,
oh, what would it be – 17, 18 years ago now? Shit. Eighteen years. Doesn't feel like it, man. Sure doesn't."
"Wait," I said. "You were married?"
"Sure was. Wasn't very good at it, either. She was a patient woman – if you know one thing about Celia Dubois, know that. She took me back so many times. In a way that's what the whole thing ended up being – me fucking up and Celia taking me back, again and again."
I was familiar with that pattern, a little. If my mother had lived, I think there's every chance her relationship with my dad would have gone that way until she eventually, inevitably left him for good.
"Why do women do that?" I asked. "I don't mean all of them – but some of them. Some of them put up with so much. Some of the girls I've known, I swear to God I could have fucked their sisters and their moms and they wouldn't have done shit."
Uncle Dave sipped his beer. "Yeah, there's some like that. Some do it because they don't like themselves, because they don't think they're worth any more than being cheated on and treated bad. But some – some do it because they love you. You get a woman to love you – to really love you – and goddamn if she won't forgive just about anything."
"Yeah," I agreed, thinking about it. "Yeah, you're right. It's for different reasons. Those chicks didn't love me. Not that I thought they did – I guess I just didn't think about it at all."
"You're rich," my uncle said. "And you're young and handsome. You're catnip to girls like that, the ones who get their self-worth through their man. You gotta find one who's not like that. That's the key."
I let out a quiet laugh. "I had one."
"I know," Dave replied, and I could tell from his voice that he meant it. "I know you did, Cillian. But you should also know that there are other good women out there."
"Are there?" I asked. "Really? Because I'm kinda starting to wonder. It's been so long and I can't get Astrid out my fuckin' head. I'm out here trying to do things different – trying to do things right – quit the boozing, quit being such a prick all the time. And I still can't forget her."
"It's time is all it is," my uncle said. "Just time. More of it than you think. What I said is the truth, though – there are other good women out there. All's you gotta do is find one. And then you gotta keep her. The keepin' 'em is the hard part."
He was right. I knew he was right. I knew it was true that Astrid Walker wasn't the only good woman on planet Earth. The problem was, it didn't feel true. She was still the one, and if I was serious about sobering up and getting my shit together, I was going to have to figure out some way to live with that.
A comfortable silence fell, broken only by the crunching of tortilla chips as Uncle Dave and I fell into our own thoughts, our own regrets about our lives. I was spending more and more time with him around that period, learning for the first time what it was to have a relationship with a father figure that isn't a constant source of strife and anger.
"They change you, though."
I looked up.
"They change you," Dave repeated. "Women. Even if they leave, they change you. You're different for having known them."
"Uh-huh," I nodded. "Yeah, I was thinking about that last week. How different everything is now – how differently she made me see things. I'm not saying I'm happy – I'm not fuckin' happy at all. But I'm starting to figure out who I want to be. Or maybe who I don't want to be, if you know what I mean."
My uncle pointed a finger at me. "Yup, that's it. That's exactly it. That's how it was after Celia died. I was broken – the kind of broken you don't think you can survive. But even though she was –"
"Wait. Did you say –"
"She died, yeah. Cancer. Fuckin' rancid bitch of a disease. At least we were on good terms when she went. It was me that looked after her when she was dying. We said the things we needed to say. She told me that after she was gone she wanted me to be the man she knew I could be. She made me promise. What else could I do? What else did I have when I didn't have her anymore? All I had was the promise, and since then all I've done is try to keep it."
"Fuck," I whispered, hesitating only briefly before reaching out and covering my uncle's hand with my own. "I'm so sorry about that, man. I didn't even know you were married! I wish – I wish I could have met her."
Uncle Dave's eyes were glassy. "Thanks for that, Cillian. I wish you could have met her too. My Celia was magic. Pure magic. Not saying she couldn't tear a strip off ya' – especially if you needed a strip tearin' off. But she was magic to me. And when I lost her, I just knew it was over. Not in some kind of dark way, not like I was going to hurt myself or do anything dramatic. I just knew, ya know? I knew she was my one shot at happiness. I knew on the drive back from her funeral that my one job in life from that day forward was just finding something to keep myself occupied. Something that wasn't destructive, something that didn't make the world any shittier than it already is."
After that day, I made it even more of a priority to spend time with my uncle. He was lonely. So was I. I don't mean to make it sound like I was doing him a favor, or like I didn't want to spend time with him – I did. He was like a humble, wise version of his brother. Sometimes I would catch a glimpse of him from the side and, for a split second, wonder why my dad was in the trailer. But it was always just Uncle Dave, who had lost a wife not to a break-up but to death. I couldn't even think about Astrid being gone in that way. I mean I literally could not think about it. Every time my mind started to wander in that direction some instinct would kick in and force me to think about other unpleasant things – Astrid going back to her ex-fiancé, Astrid with a belly full of another man's child.
I got to thinking my uncle was right, too. Maybe he was right about making the best of things. About not letting your own broken heart turn you into someone the woman you loved – and lost – would disdain. Or – even worse – pity.
There was no going back after Astrid. No going back to the version of myself that was just happy to get laid as many times and with as many girls as possible. It was that word my uncle used: magic. She was magic. It was magic to be with her.
But I wasn't with her anymore. And I knew then, as the months passed since our time together in LA, that the one task of my life was to continue to be the man she had very, very briefly thought me to be.
I spent that spring almost drowning in my own sadness. I even started walking differently. Gone was the cocky strut and the confrontational demeanor with which I used to greet the world. A few people even mentioned it, old friends from high school stopping on the street to do a double take and tell me they didn't even recognize me, or comment that I seemed "different" somehow.
So I was sad. Not depressed, not suffering from low self-esteem – if anything it was the old me who couldn't stand himself. The new me was sad, yes. But he no longer felt the need to cover it with jacked-up trucks and stupid, drunken antics at the bar. Life was bleak and cold, but it felt like a healthy kind of bleak – if there is such a thing. It felt like maybe, hopefully, finally, I might be getting somewhere. Learning something. Becoming a man who could look himself in the eye in the mirror.
***
Jackson got married around that time. I only found out about it after the event, from my uncle. I think he was trying to spare my feelings in not telling me about it beforehand.
"It was good," he said when I asked him how it was. "Real good. What they got between 'em is real, you can tell. It wasn't about the food or the dress or the photographs like it is for some young people, it was just about Jackson and Hailey. She's a solid one that's for sure. Your big brother definitely lucked out with her."
We were sitting on lawn chairs outside Uncle Dave's trailer. A little jolt of the old jealousy passed through my heart like a ghost to hear about Jackson and Hailey's happiness. I let it pass.
"He told me your brought him your mama's bible when he was still in the hospital," Dave continued. "I think part of him wanted you there, at the ceremony."
"I don't think Jackson wants me anywhere
near him or his family," I replied. "And I doubt he wanted me at his wedding, seeing as how I did everything I could to ensure it didn't happen."
"That was years ago."
I let out a quick laugh. "Yeah. Not sure how much that matters – it's not like I took his bike without asking and chipped the paint. I tried to ruin his whole fuckin' life. Hers, too."
"You only did that because Jack asked you to."
I leaned my head back and looked up. Summer was coming once more and the sky was beginning to take on that deep, saturated blue color you only see outside the cold months. "No I didn't. I mean, I did, but it wasn't just my dad. I hated Jackson. I wanted bad things to happen to him."
"And is that still what you want?"
"No," I replied, happily surprised to find that I actually meant it. "No, that's not what I want."
"You should tell him that."
"I did. I told him in the hospital. He wasn't interested and honestly I can't say as I blame him. Look, I understand what you're trying to do here. I appreciate it. But you should know Jackson made his feelings pretty clear."
I took a job at a local nursery that spring, mostly just carrying ornamental bushes and bags of soil mix out to customer's cars and stocking shelves in the early mornings, before the place opened. First real job I ever had and I surprised myself by taking to it pretty well. All that lifting and stacking and carrying was a good way to keep my mind off my troubles. I had a shift that afternoon, after visiting my uncle.
"You know," he said, just before I left for work. "You're not the only one who's changed."
"Yeah?" I asked, not sure at first what he was talking about.