I tell her I’m coming back to Nashville, soon. “It’s just all over the place now,” I say to her.
“I’m here for you,” she says.
“I know you are.”
Then she tells me something vitally needed in this moment, a glimmer of light in the lonely darkness:
“Hey, before you go.”
“Uh-huh?”
“I got someone that’s willing to take my case on pro-bono.”
“No shit?”
“No shit.” I hear the tears of joy in her eyes. “Met him at the bar.”
“Oh!”
“No, it’s not like that. He’s married. Good guy. And, well, he does this kind of stuff. He said he’d look at it. I met with him yesterday. And he said he’d do it. He’s putting things together. He thinks we might not even have to go to court. I might—” She snaps, starts crying clearly. “I might actually get to see my little boy, unsupervised, by the end of the week! Just me and him! It’s not the same when someone’s looking over your shoulder, Gin. I’m his mother for chrissake!”
Now I’m crying as well, sitting outside this miserable hospital, on a hard and cold stone bench. Weeping. Tears of joy. Tears of happiness.
“I’ll be there for that, Lay. Just give me a day’s notice.”
“Oh, bullshit! Be with your man!”
“He’s not my man, Lay.”
“So what is he? You guys are on a road trip together. He’s crying on your shoulder.” She whispers the next part: “He’s fucking your brains out. So what is he?”
It dawns on me, how serious this has gotten. How far this has gone. Too serious. Too far.
Maybe it’s the stress of what’s happening around me. Someone dying. The good news from Layna mixed with the screams of Ace’s mother, my mother, that aching loneliness I’ve felt over the years. Maybe it’s all of that—but out of nowhere, I suddenly think of Brett Lexington.
There’s nothing left to say but “Shit.”
Somewhere along the line, with Ace, I let go, I stopped looking out for my emotions. Somewhere along the line I dropped the ball. And now here I am. Exposed.
“Shit.”
“You said that already.”
“Promise me you’ll be there for me when I fall, Lay.”
“You’re not gonna fall.”
“Just...promise me. We both agreed this wouldn’t be a permanent thing.”
Silence.
She sighs. “I’m happy for ya, Gin. I know you can make it happen. From what you’ve told me, it sounds like he’s got it deep for you. Make him realize it.”
I shake my head. This is so out of my league. “I wish you were here.”
“No, you don’t. Because then I’d get in the way. Unless you’d want to give me a piece of that hunk of meat? Maybe a little ménage à trois?” She tries to sound French, but it comes out sounding like Sookie Stackhouse from True Blood.
“Not a chance!”
“Didn’t think so. Well done, babe. I ain’t the one to give you relationship advice, because I suck at it. But I can tell you that if I were you I’d be riding him all I could.”
I can feel myself blush. I say nothing.
“I’m sure he’s amazing in bed—”
“Lay, stop it!” I almost shriek it.
“Well, I do need details, honey. Plenty of em!”
Silence again, while my mind whirls at the impending loss, the fear, what’s going to happen next.
“You’ll be there for me?” I check again. “When—if...it all fails?”
“I will. I promise you. No matter what.”
-55-
The memories were too sharp, too close, too reminiscent.
I start thinking of mom, all those years we had on the road, the times I heard her tears behind the closed doors of her bedroom. But I never saw those tears. I’d knock at the door, and when she’d see me, she’d have wiped them off. And she’d smile. She always smiled for me. Was always there for me.
She always kept up her best front for me. That’s all that can be asked of a mother, isn’t it? At the end of the day, it’s not the money, not the comfort, it’s the love. It’s the thought that, no matter what, mommy will make it OK. How? Because mommy is Superwoman, of course.
I call her.
“Honey, where are you?”
“Hey, mom. What’s up?”
“You sound down. Everything OK?” How she knows these things so quickly is still beyond me.
“Yeah, everything’s cool. I just...wanted to tell you that...I admire you...for everything you’ve done for me.”
Silence. Then, “W—well, sure— Honey, are you sure you’re OK?”
My eyes sting. And cool air brushes past them. “I’m fine. I just wanted to let you know that. Y’know, after all that happened, y’know, when I was five...”
When I was five.
I hear her clear her throat. “Right, well—” She stops. I know I’ve brought up a tough subject. We never speak about it.
“I love you, mom.”
Weakly: “I love you, too, my baby. Now where are you?”
“In Virginia.”
“In Virginia! When—”
“It’s just for a day or two, mom. I’m with...a friend.”
Friend didn’t come out right... Mom gets it. Her voice takes on a suspicious lilt. “Oh, a friend?”
“Yeah, a friend!”
“Goooood. Good for you, honey. A...male...friend?” She already knows the answer.
“I’m gonna go, mom.”
“Fine, fine.”
“I’ll come by on the weekend. Or maybe Monday.”
“The weekend’s not good, Gin. I have a...friend...coming through. Big business man. You interested in moving to Chicago?”
A friend.
“No, I’m pretty happy in Nashville, mom.”
Silence. “Well, yeah, yeah. I see...” I hear the cogs creaking as she thinks something over. Hesitantly: “Well, maybe I’ll tell him to reschedule.”
“As you wish mom. It’s your life.” As I say it, I realize that it’s not. It’s never been only “her” life. I’m a part of her life.
“Right,” mom says quietly. A pause. “Come over on the weekend, baby. Now that I think about it, I don’t really like this fella. I really don’t. Don’t even know why I invited him here!”
Because you thought I wasn’t happy in Nashville and you wanted to move me somewhere else. “OK, I’ll let you know when I come through.”
“When do I get to meet your friend?”
Maybe never. “He, uhm, travels a lot.”
“Oh.” There’s a little too much interest in that Oh.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“OK, baby. Love you.”
“Love you, too, mom.” Love you so much.
-56-
Ace storms out the hospital looking like a category two hurricane. Black leather jacket. Unlit cigarette in his hand.
I can see his bike from where I’m standing. I know that’s why he came out here. I know this is it. I know this is the moment he needs to run, to get away, to clear his head. To be gone for a few months. Thinking.
He hasn’t seen me yet. I’m on his right, almost hidden by some bushes and plants. I look down at the cement floor, brush my feet against it. I don’t want to see him drive away. I just want to see him driving back into Nashville, and then we can be friends, and go out for coffee, or maybe for chips with carb-loaded dips. And a Pale Ale.
The wind rushes in my ears, and I wait for the roar of his Harley. I hear the flick of a Zippo, a flame, then the clocking of his boots on the ground.
I’m gonna miss you, Ace.
“Gin? Gin! Gin, where are you!?”
Huh?
“Here.” It comes out as an almost inaudible whisper.
He flings around, races toward me! He lifts me up from the bench and bruises me with a hungry, desperate kiss. (Thank god I packed toothpaste and a toothbrush!) He doesn’t stop kissing me, has his hands
all over my back, his cigarette long since on the floor. He pushes me against the bench and I fall back again, sitting on it once more.
He extends his hand out to lift me. “Let’s go.”
“Go where?”
“Away. Away from here. Away from all this shit. You and me. Let’s go!”
“You...and me?”
“Yes, I can’t go without you, Gin. I never wanna be without you. But I can’t stay either. I— Please, just come with me! I have to get out of here. I can’t stand this. Too many memories. Too much history here. I hate this place. Fucking hate it!” He swings around, finds a trash can, flings it out onto the street with a clang! Trash and paper and the can itself roll out onto the road as if this were the beginning of a street riot.
I jolt. He runs his hands through his jet-black hair.
He turns back to me, whispers, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Just...come with me, Gin. You and me. The road. The air. No responsibilities.”
“You can’t run from this, Ace. Your family needs you.”
We stare at each other forever.
“Maybe you need to stay in this spot. Just for a few days. Maybe you need to help your mother get back on her feet. Maybe, this time, you shouldn’t run.”
Utter desolation flashes across his eyes. This is the hardest thing anyone’s ever asked him to do. To stay. To face it.
An orderly comes out and puts the trash can back in place.
My and Ace’s eyes never leave each other’s.
Wind howls. Some newly arrived people mumble on their way into the hospital.
And then, so quietly: “I can’t. I...can’t.”
“You can. I’ll stay with you.”
He runs a hand down his face, thinking about it. “You would?”
“I would.”
“Don’t leave me here alone, Gin. I can’t do it alone.”
“I won’t.”
“I can’t do it alone.”
“You don’t need to.”
“I hated him, Gin. I fucking hated him. But I also loved him, you know?”
“I know.”
“He was my father.” His eyes glimmer with poignant heartache.
“I know.”
“And now he’s gone. And I never said goodbye. But I didn’t want to say goodbye. I didn’t want to say goodbye!”
“It’s OK, babe.”
He turns. Screams, “I HATE YOU, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE! I FUCKING HATE YOU!”
The words echo back at us, a ghost voice hating us in return.
I move to him slowly, wrap my arms around his waist. My chest to his back.
He breaks out into deathly gasps of decades of pain.
He turns. Holds me. Runs his fingers through my hair. Presses me against his chest.
“I love you, Gin. I so love you.”
I’m so stunned that I don’t even say it back. I just hold him, hold him, hold him.
Oh god, this is so incredible.
I love you too, Ace. I love you, too.
-57-
The next few days are rough. Ace’s mom is sedated at the hospital. Ace is looking into the farm’s accounts.
They’re a mess. A complete mess. His mom wasn’t kidding when she said his dad was good at keeping the bank manager at bay. How they haven’t gone under yet is a miracle, he says to me.
In desperation, he calls his oldest sister (two years his junior), because she studied business and he figures maybe she can help. He and Fiona don’t get along. And that becomes apparent when I hear the phone fight that ensues from within his father’s stately office, where Ace, my biker boy, has taken temporary residence while he deals with all this shit.
The house has servants, and I feel totally weird about being brought my food by them, so on the second day I muscle my way into the kitchen despite protests, and I cook my own damn meal! As well as everyone else’s. I make everyone sit in the dining room table and we all have lunch together. I don’t care if they’re getting paid. It just doesn’t feel right.
I’m told very quickly that I’m welcome in the kitchen anytime, so long as I also do the dishes.
Har har.
Violet, the head cook, shows me how to make a Brunswick Stew. She then tries to teach me how to make a marble cake, but that’s too far out of my league.
Ace and I are sleeping in the guesthouse. The sex is hot, desperate, quick. A hormonal release after an overwhelming day. I feel his tension, his desire to run, and feel completely the strength of will it’s taking him not to do so.
I decide to wait until his mom’s released from hospital and until his sister, Fiona, arrives so that he won’t collapse by mere fact that all the financial burdens are now on his shoulders even though he never asked for them.
Ace brings up my leaving and going home a few times, tells me there’s no reason for me to stay. That he can handle it alone.
But I know that if I go, he’ll collapse.
I start getting the idea that I know him better than he knows himself—at least on this subject. Ace has been running for years. And I’m OK with him running, but I don’t think he’d be able to live with himself if he let his mother’s livelihood, his sister’s, and Aaron’s family’s go down the chute because he couldn’t stand up to the pressure.
I decide I’ll stay. And I know that doesn’t mean he and I will remain together, or that his warnings of wanting to run will now change. But I know I bring him some peace by being here with him.
He does the same for me. A mutually beneficial relationship that will one day downgrade to a deep and lasting friendship. I can live with that. I hope.
He brings up leaving one more time—him leaving, us leaving, together—after a day that I know took its toll on him.
His lips tremble as he tells me.
And I just kiss them.
I just kiss the pain away.
-58-
I call Layna and she tells me she hasn’t seen Kenny Ray yet. There’s been a hiccup, and things are not looking as promising as they were before. She sends me my workload over and I manage to do it on an extra laptop that Ace’s dad had lying around.
A week becomes two. My mom never did see her Business Man for that date, even though I wasn’t there to visit her and be the excuse for her not doing it. When I call her, she tells me, “Well, honey, maybe I’m just gonna stay put for a little while. This place has grown on me. And a man now would get in the way of that.”
I would have missed her if she left, and a weight I didn’t know I was carrying, lifts off my chest.
Ace’s mom is released from hospital and stays mostly in her bedroom, destroyed.
Fiona finally arrives, a simple looking brown-haired girl who isn’t thin but who definitely isn’t plus-sized like me. She has light brown eyes and wears a cross around her neck. She and I don’t get along well. I keep my cool because I’m trying to be polite, but having her scoff at me because I’m sleeping in the same room as her brother—“unwedded”—rips my nerves to shreds.
Eventually, I tell her where she can shove her self-righteousness. This insults her enough to have her hightailing it out of the mansion, the farm, the state, and our lives.
Ace tells me she was just looking for an excuse to leave. I wasn’t the last straw; I was simply the easiest excuse she could find to blow town.
If she were to actually remain behind and look at the accounting books her daddy-dearest had cooked all his life, she might lose her magnanimous opinion of the man, Ace says.
In the beginning of the third week I decide to fly back to Nashville to see Layna, my mom, and to sing a bit at the blues club.
Layna sees Kenny Ray unsupervised for the first time and I’m there when she does. And we spend the day together, all three of us.
While Kenny Ray plays on the jungle gym, Layna asks me about things. And I find myself going off like a hose, just unloading all this tension I’ve had for over two weeks since being there with him. I realize it hasn’t only been Ace who’s been struggling under the wei
ght. It’s been me as well.
“He’s stressed out all the time,” I tell her. “We’ve stopped making love. The first two weeks, it’s all we could do. And then, it died. Nothing. The place is still running, somehow. Ace has his nose in books all the time—business books, accounting books, farming books. Aaron’s gonna be on his feet again soon and Ace wants to put him in charge of everyday affairs. Because Aaron knows the farm backwards. But there’s this fiscal threat, Layna. Bills unpaid, and no way of paying them. Ace thinks his dad was maybe even cutting on taxes. How else would he have survived so long? And if he was, then the whole place will crash. Janice won’t be able to finish college. Aaron will be out of work. His two daughters won’t finish college either.”
We’re sitting on swings. Layna, looking at her son, says, “That’s pretty screwed up.”
“Yeah, great advice.”
ACE
-59-
Gin’s gone for three days. I think it’s good. Because it shows me I’m getting back on my feet. It shows me I can deal. I can deal with three days. Any longer and I wouldn’t be able to handle it. She doesn’t know how much I need her. When I told her all those times she should go back, I was doing it because I know she has a life of her own. She doesn’t need a mentally disturbed guy like me, and all his problems, getting in the way of her life.
But she stayed. She stayed, and she got me through.
I would never have gotten through the last two-plus weeks without her.
Does she know it?
As soon as the pressure’s off my mind, I’ll make damn sure she does. Damn sure.
The pressure is already easing. Fiona not helping was a blow, but Gin was here. Gin kept me cool. Kept me calm. And I plowed through the books and did my damndest to keep the place running, someway, somehow.
I can’t wait to see her again.
I told her I loved her at the hospital. But this is beyond love now. This is so much deeper than love. Dare I say it? I think this is turning out to be...a relationship.
And I’m in it.
And I’m not running from it.
And that just makes me smile.
I put Aaron in charge of everything the moment he’s up and running. Everything. And I give him the house. Momma’s cool with it. She would’ve had him running the place years ago if it wasn’t for my father getting in the way. And this house is too large and lonely for just her. It was too large and lonely for just her and dad for all those years already.
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