“So what is it?” He tried to look between the hanging branches. Beyond the gate, an area opened up as if it had once had a purpose.
Becca used her cowboy boots to tamp down the weeds that rubbed against her legs. “I call it the place where dreams die.”
“Great,” he deadpanned. “Field of death.” He laced his fingers just above hers.
She shoved the gate open enough for Rave and motioned for him to come in. “It’s not a field, it’s a park.”
When he didn’t move, she reached around the vine-laced wrought iron, got a firm grip on his hand, and pulled. Oh yeah, he’d go anywhere with her. Rave slipped inside and tried to keep the tree branches off them while they moved deeper into the park. Crinkly summer leaves scraped his neck and shoulders. The overhang darkened the atmosphere, making the place surreal. He half expected a haunted mansion to appear before them. Once they made it through the dense foliage, the sun shone down on the octagonal park, its overgrown borders defined with a tall fence and massive trees.
The park itself looked like something out of an apocalypse movie. Cobblestone walkways wound through the landscape, visible only in snatches where the weeds surrounding them had died. In places, the terrain had busted through the creamy white stone. Wrought iron benches anchored resting spots, but they, too, were overcome by the weeds and vines that seemed bent on swallowing the foreign objects.
Becca seemed to look everywhere at once. “It makes me sad coming here.”
“But you still do? Obviously you choose to come—after all, you’ve got to fight through the forest Ents to get here.”
She turned to face him. “Is that a Lord of the Rings reference?”
“Tree Ents, yeah. Guess it is.”
“Read it or watched the movie?”
He’d found the worn copy outside a used bookstore. It was the only thing he’d ever stolen. “Both.”
Still holding his hand, Becca pulled him toward one of the benches. He didn’t want to let her go. Her fingers were warm and soft and gave him a sense of stability. No matter how ridiculous that might be, still the sensation was there. Someone falling will lash out and grab air, even though it can’t possibly hold them. He knew from experience.
Rave pulled some weeds and unwound them from the seating area on one of the benches, then motioned for her. “Your throne.”
She sat down. He sat beside her. Before them in the center of the park, vines and ground cover were growing up through a maze of stones. Becca pointed to it. “That was to be a fountain.”
“So who did this? And why abandon it?”
“A large corporation planned to build a factory here. As a show of good faith, they started work on the park—a place where factory workers could walk during lunch or on a break. The land beyond those trees was where the factory was supposed be.” She pointed off to the right.
“I take it the factory was shelved?”
She nodded. “Yes. They got a better offer from a neighboring state. Tax incentives or something. Barton’s older community didn’t want a factory. Some of the younger generation did.”
“Some, but not you?” The breeze played in her hair, making it move. Long auburn strands dancing with the wind.
She shrugged. “I mean, we could use a little help, and a factory would mean a lot of jobs, but—”
“It could potentially ruin your quaint little town?”
“Old-fashioned, aren’t we?”
“It’s nice, Becca. Means the almighty dollar isn’t the only concern here.”
Becca turned to face him, propping her knee on the seat between them. “If you go to the local café, Vernie serves you breakfast. Just like she did forty years ago. Her son runs the kitchen. Her daughter runs the business. If you need gas, Clifton Banks will wash your windshield while giving you the ten-day forecast. Everyone knows everyone’s name. We know when a stranger comes to town. We know what our neighbors need. Whether it’s to borrow a John Deere or someone to help shore up a shed.”
“Why do I feel like we’re no longer talking about factories and abandoned parks?”
She peered at him from the corner of her eye. “Perceptive, city boy. I’m trying to tell you that whatever you and Tuck are facing, you’re not facing it alone.”
His chest tightened. But they were facing it alone, weren’t they? No one could help. There was nothing to do but wait. This was unfixable. A ten-day forecast and a top-rate breakfast weren’t going to change Tuck’s fate. “He’s dying, Becca.”
The sudden intake of air and the way her eyes filled—instantly, swimming in pools of tears, the sun glinting off the green—caused Rave to bite his cheek. When she finally blinked, those tears trekked down both cheeks, straight lines sliding, then rolling, off her jaw and onto her creamy throat.
She scooted a little closer. “Rave. I’m so sorry. You just got here. You two finally found each other and—” Her hand came up and covered her mouth. “And poor Tuck. He’s suffered enough. Losing Millie.”
Rave swallowed the ball of cotton in his throat. “It’s his liver. It’s called hepatocellular carcinoma. It’s a liver cancer, and I guess Tuck had radiation treatments on it quite a while ago. They thought they got it all, but the cancer is back.”
“There’s nothing they can do? People survive cancer all the time.”
“I guess the doctor isn’t giving him much hope.”
Becca took his arm and wound it around her shoulder, then tucked herself into his side. She laid her head against his chest. It should feel backward. It should feel as though he was consoling her. But it didn’t. The warmth of her body pressed so perfectly against his, the feel of her shoulders rising and falling with each breath. Rave reached around her and threaded his fingers together, Becca in the tight circle of his arms. Becca consoling him.
They stayed like that for a long time. Her tears moistened a spot on his shirt, and when the wind changed direction, it caused the spot to cool. But he was in no hurry to leave. Rave closed his eyes and dropped his cheek to the top of her head. There, a few of his own tears dampened her hair.
He’d cried while holding Becca at the park where dreams die. Rave used to think tears meant weakness. But they didn’t. They were a release, helping you let go of the should have been. Helping you process the what was. Each tear was a memorial. And once they were shed, the giver understood that life could be harsh, even cruel, but it didn’t have to break you. Rave wasn’t ashamed of tears. They were a badge that said you were strong enough to rise above your circumstances. He no longer associated them with weakness. Weak people gave up. His mom had been weak. And she’d always been too busy to cry. Busy working the angles and making a plan to get more drugs, find them a new place to live when they got kicked out of one, looking for someone to take pity on them and help financially. So it had been up to Rave to shed the tears. He’d go to his room, put his face in his pillow, and cry until his body had emptied all its liquid emotion. Then, he’d wash his face, roll up his sleeves, and figure out how to help his mom out of whatever mess she’d gotten them into.
He’d helped her because he loved her. That was the thing. He’d never stopped loving his mom. Maybe no one ever did. But he’d loved her in spite of her debilitating faults. He’d loved unconditionally. And now he needed to show the same to Tuck. Because other than being as stubborn as a mule, Tuck had shown Rave nothing but kindness.
Rave pulled onto the long dirt driveway and rounded the first turn. Up ahead, he saw Tuck’s red truck off on the side of the road. Rather than slow down, Rave stepped on the gas. His bald tires spun in the mud, but he held steady until he was on Tuck’s rear bumper.
He could see Tuck sitting alone in the cab of the truck. Rave got out and ran up to the open window. “Tuck, is everything OK?”
But when Tuck glanced over, Rave saw the trickle of blood on his brow.
“Geez, what happened?” Rave threw the truck door open and grabbed Tuck, clamping his palms on Tuck’s cheeks, examining the inch-long cut above
his eye. “You’re bleeding.”
Tuck halfheartedly waved him off. “Just a scratch.” His eyes went wide, lips turning up at the ends, hope filling his craggy features. “You’re back?” It was both a question and an answer, and it made Rave grin. He continued to hold his hands at the sides of Tuck’s face. It was a snapshot of their life ahead, Rave knew. Him, caregiver to someone not used to being taken care of. He thought of Daniel and the many times Rave had held his face in the same manner, assuring him that there was no monster under the bed or no werewolf in the hallway. It was the gesture of a person who loved another. It was the anchors that held, no matter the storm.
“I’m back, Tuck.” Rave had to swallow a few times before he could say more. “I’m back for good. I swear.”
Tuck’s chin quivered. He pulled away from Rave’s touch. “It’s not fair for me to want you here. To have to watch—” Tuck’s shaky voice cracked. He drew a long breath. “I wanted to be the one helping you.”
Rave itched to reach out and hug him, but he wouldn’t. “We’re family, Tuck. We help each other. If you swear to me you’ll do what the doctors are telling you to do, I swear I won’t go anywhere.”
Tuck frowned. “They don’t know everything.”
“They know more than we do about this. And I know how stubborn you can be. So, we follow the doctor’s orders.”
“You’re stubborn in your own right. Anyone ever tell you that?”
“Yeah. Starting with kindergarten and pretty much for the rest of my life. Now I know where I get it. Let’s take you home and get that cut cleaned up.”
Tuck nodded. “I learned my lesson. Don’t tangle with an angry bee.”
Rave jogged back to his car and followed Tuck to the house. In the downstairs bathroom, Tuck sat on the edge of the tub while Rave cleaned the wound. “A bee, you say?”
Tuck grunted. “I was holding a notebook you’d left behind, thinking it might have some clue about where you’d have gone before leaving town. A bee came in the window and landed on my forehead. Without thinking, I swatted at it. Bee high-tailed it out the passenger window, but the edge of the spiral on the notebook caught my brow. Bled like a stuck pig.”
Rave hadn’t realized he’d left anything behind. Washing the line of mostly dried blood from beside Tuck’s eye reopened the wound. Balls of fresh blood appeared and started trickling down his temple. “Starting to bleed again.”
“Stupid medication makes my blood thin. I swear, if I didn’t know better, I’d say they are hurrying to get rid of me.”
Rave chuckled. “I think I saw some butterfly bandages upstairs.”
Tuck raised his brow. “Spread a little super glue over it.”
Rave stopped midturn. “No. I think we’ll stick with Neosporin and bandages.”
“Spoil sport,” he grunted.
“Stubborn old man.”
Rave got the antibiotic cream and bandages and finished working on Tuck’s brow. “Good as new.”
Tuck gave him a crooked grin. “If only that were true.”
Rave poured them each a cup of coffee and followed Tuck to the back deck. They sat on the lounge chairs and watched the sun dip lower and lower where the lake beckoned it home.
“I’d still like to teach you about electrical.”
Rave glanced over. “You’d be up to that?”
Tuck’s face scrunched. “I was up to it yesterday. Other than the opinion of a doctor who looks young enough to still be in high school, I’m fit.” But the words held no real conviction. Tuck was far from fit, and this was far from fixable.
Tuck’s fingers threaded through the handle of the mug. From the corner of his eye, Rave watched. “Tuck, what are the treatment options?”
The older man was heavy with the news he’d gotten, no matter how much he tried to show he wasn’t shaken to the core by the diagnosis. “It’s inoperable. Got lucky last time around. This time . . .” His words trailed off.
No options? That seemed inconceivable in today’s age of medicine and technology. That also meant there was nothing Rave could do to lift this burden. What he could do was help carry it.
Rave opened his mouth to ask what Tuck needed, but when he glanced over, Tuck’s pale blue eyes were solid on him. It was Tuck who spoke first. “I’d have never hired Vin and never sent Phil to ask you to come meet me if I’d known.”
Rave frowned.
“I meant to help make your life better, not saddle you with something like this.”
Rave placed his mug on the small round table between them. “Didn’t we already have this conversation?”
“It’s important to me that you know. I didn’t bring you here to babysit me into the cemetery.”
Rave shrugged. “Then I won’t. We’re in this together, Tuck. Thick-headed as you are, I’d think you can at least understand that. I’ve been here almost a month, and until our fight, I was planning to stay. I’m not here out of some sense of duty. I’m here because I want to be. Got it?”
The lines of age deepened on Tuck’s face. “I don’t know why.” He shook his head helplessly. “I sure don’t know why.”
Rave leaned back in the seat, resting his head. It had been a long day, and the fatigue of it was taking a toll.
“What I said about your momma. I had no right. You got a good heart, boy. Who and when you forgive is up to you.”
Rave tilted his head and peered at Tuck with one eye. “Or if I forgive.”
Now it was Tuck’s turn to lean back. Rave watched the smile slowly spread across his profile. “Oh, you’ll forgive her. One day. Because you got good blood flowing through your veins, and good blood always does the right thing. Sooner or later.”
“Mom had the same blood. She never made good on it.” Maybe he shouldn’t be pointing that out at a time like this, but Rave wasn’t perfect. He didn’t want Tuck to have unrealistic faith in him.
“Whatever demons drove you momma to her death were ones too big for her to fight alone. She was an incredible young woman at one time. Best and brightest in her class.”
His mom had been a good student? Rave’s head filled with questions. Thoughts about his mother, the relationship she’d likely once had with Tuck and Millie, and who she’d been before the drug abuse. She’d no doubt burned that bridge long before Rave was born. Addicts scorched their way through friends and family, leaving the remnants empty and branded. That’s how it was. And yet, Tuck still wanted to see the woman forgiven. “I said things I shouldn’t have, too. I’m sorry, Tuck.”
They were silent for a long time. Finally, Tuck said, “Are we going to the swap meet tomorrow? We’ve got a whole truckload sitting inside the barn.”
“Do you feel up to it?”
“Yes, sir. Think we’ll do as well as we did the other two times we went?” Tuck gave a lopsided grin.
“I can’t see why not. We’ve got the same kind of stuff.”
“Afterward, we’ll have us a good lunch at Vernie’s café. I’d also like to stop off and buy us a couple of cell phones. Then we’ll come home, and I can rest up for the memorial.”
Saturday night. Of course Tuck would still want to have the memorial. But it took so much out of him, Rave hated to think about it. Well, the memorial would be vastly different now, in light of the liver disease. Maybe it wouldn’t be as hard on Tuck.
At 8:00 p.m. the following evening, Rave came down the steps. He’d changed into a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt he’d bought at the swap meet earlier in the day. They’d sold most of their wares, third weekend in a row. He thought about the day while he readied for the memorial. His mind turned to Becca and when he’d seen her earlier. She’d brought a cup of coffee out of Sustenance for him and one for Tuck. Tuck took one sip, wrinkled his nose, and asked who put candy in the java. Becca laughed and kissed his cheek. Tuck went three shades of red before saying he could get used to the brew and the attention.
Rave turned off the stairwell light and came to a stop at the table. He first noticed the sh
ot glasses sitting like tiny monuments before each empty seat. His heart rate kicked up.
Tuck came out of the kitchen carrying the bottle of whiskey.
A humorless laugh escaped from Rave’s mouth. “You’re not planning on drinking that, right?”
But the confused look on Tuck’s face told him that he was. “It’s memorial night.”
Rave grabbed it from him. He set it on the table hard enough to make the shot glasses quiver. “Your liver is failing, Tuck. People with liver cancer don’t drink half a bottle of alcohol in one sitting.”
Tuck’s spine straightened, his jaw setting in that way it always did when he was readying for a battle. “I’m not changing my memorial just because some wet-behind-the-ears doctor thinks I should. I owe it to these men—”
Rave raised his hands. “You owe it to them? What about me, Tuck? Don’t you owe me anything? Like the right to get to spend as much time with you as we have left? You’re dying. This isn’t about someone wanting to take away one of your freedoms. This is your life. And this”—Rave raised the bottle to eye level—“this is poison for you.”
The hard frown around Tuck’s eyes softened. But only for a moment. “You . . . don’t understand. I know you don’t, because you’ve never been in a war. These men, my friends, died. Some of them died in my arms. Some of them died carrying out my orders. A man never forgets that.”
Rave pushed the bottle farther away on the table and moved to look Tuck in the eye. “I understand, whether you believe it or not. A military conflict is not the only kind of war, Tuck. I feel like I’ve logged more combat hours than most soldiers. But my war was right here. Watching my mother slowly kill herself. I won’t do that again. I won’t watch someone I love put poison in their body. Never gonna happen. If you do this, this way, you do it alone.”
Tuck’s face hardened. “You swore you’d stay.”
“As long as you were following the doctor’s orders. You want to call him? Get his take on this?” Rave wouldn’t back down. There was no retreat from this stand.
Something Like Family Page 11