I watch Bret close his eyes, then open them. He stares up at the ceiling. Silently. Then he turns to us, and reaches out to pet Darth on his head. “You’re a g-good dog, Darth. Sorry, buddy.” And he leans in and kisses the dog on his wet nose.
“Good enough,” I say. “Get some sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
I take Darth back to the kitchen. I’ve missed the days of dog sitting for Darth when Bret and his mother went on summer vacation. I crouch in front of the cage door and make cooing noises at the dog. He whines, one large paw over the other, as if asking me to let him out. He sighs heavily, and his eyes start to close for the night. Come morning, I will be back to check on him again.
“Goodnight Darth,” I say and lock the back door behind me. I drop the house key in the mailbox outside.
Philip waits for me on the porch.
I am still in my bathrobe and a stiff cold breeze creeping up my bare legs reminds me where I am.
“Are you still thinking about pressing charges on that dirt bag?” he asks.
I look up at the inky sky. It is too cloudy for stars tonight. I look at Philip, a tall glass of Bourbon I would like to drink.
“No.”
“No? But he broke into your house tonight, Chris.”
I rub my arms to ward off the chill and step off the porch. I stand inches from the sheriff’s face and shake my head. “No.” He is attractive with his dark facial stubble. I smell his strong male musk along the stirring wind. I add, “He’s a troubled young man.”
Philip exhales and throws up his hands as if surrendering to my nonsense. “More reason to charge him.”
“He needs help, Philip.” I look away, to the ghostly outline of oak trees enveloping us. “I’ll talk to his mother when she comes home. I’ll pop over tomorrow and talk to Bret about his behavior.”
“Do you think that’s wise?” There is a warning in his voice.
“He grew up fatherless. His mother was always away on business. He fended for himself. You could even say he raised himself.” I am beginning to feel sorry for Bret Hicks, given his poor living conditions and upbringing.
“But it doesn’t justify his behavior.” Philip’s remark is stinging.
“You’re absolutely right. But I also know that that young man needs positive role models in his life. And those kids he hangs out with are bad news. They’re violent and do drugs. Besides, it was out of character for Bret to hit Darth. His apology tonight sounded sincere.”
“So are you going to be that young man’s mentor?” It comes out half-mocking, half-unyielding.
“Philip.” I hear myself whining and I hate it.
“Hey, I’d love it if you were my mentor. I could learn a hell of a lot.” He slides his arm around my shoulders and we walk toward my house.
* * * *
Standing inside the foyer, I ask him, “What did you tell Bret when you went over to his house this evening?”
Philip kicks the door shut with his boot, hands tucked into the front of his khakis. He inhales deeply, staring around the room, looking at everything but me. Finally he says, shyly, “I told him that he needed to clean up his mess. Get himself together or that I’d arrest him. Bring him downtown and throw him into one of my grungy cells. He’d make a friend in Cora. She’d keep him company and talk his ear off.”
I laugh, “Really?”
“They don’t call me the sheriff for nothing.” His muscular arms fall to his sides. Thick blue veins bulge beneath his skin.
I nod slowly, grinning like an idiot. “Thanks,” I say quietly.
He reaches for my hand. I look up at him. “I also told him to apologize to you.”
He squeezes my hand in his. “But not the way it played out tonight. Another day, I meant. When he was sober.”
We both smile.
“Would you like me to help you clean up that broken glass in the hallway?” he asks.
“I’ll get to it later.”
“You’ll have to make a temporary patch for that windowpane to keep the cold out.”
“I’ll call Fred’s Wood & Glass tomorrow.”
“I’ll fix it for nothing. I’m handy that way.”
I blush. “A repairman and a sheriff?”
He shrugs innocently. “I can multitask.”
“Would you like a cup of tea?” I start to head to the kitchen, but Philip grabs my arm lightly. I turn around. He is crying. Sadness? Joy?
“Philip?” I touch his arm gently.
“I’d like to continue our talk from earlier.”
We never make it to the kitchen. For the next half hour, we sit on the bottom rung of the stairs. “It’s overwhelming for me to tell you that I’ve had feelings for you all these years, Chris. But at the time, neither of us could do anything about it, what with your relationship with Russ. And I wanted the best for both of you. Please don’t misunderstand me.”
“I loved Russ.”
“I know you did.”
“Very much.”
A firm nod.
“I am not trying to erase those wonderful, loving moments you and Russ shared. But after all this time, I thought it was the right moment to bring it up.”
A muscle in my bottom lip twitches.
Philip grasps one of my hands. “When time is fleeting and we’ve both moved on in our lives.”
“I’m still trying,” I say.
Philip arrests me in a hug. His mouth nips my ear and he whispers, “Let’s try it together. I’d like to move forward slowly. We can have something really special.”
I pull back so I can see his face. “But what about your job? How would our relationship affect your authority at work? Would the members of your team accept a gay sheriff?”
After a minute of awkward silence, I hear the sound of the clock chiming in the other room.
“We both deserve happiness,” he says. “It’s high time they accept me for who I am. And Russ would want you to keep living. And I’ve come to learn that these suppressed feelings I’ve had for you over the years are the truest feelings I’ve had for anybody in years. My loneliness is eating me alive.” He wipes his runny nose on the initialed handkerchief. “You and me—” He grasps my hand. “It’s real.”
My body rocks forward and I melt into him. He envelops me in a long embrace. We sit in silence, intertwined, our knees knocking into our sides, awkwardly. But something about the moment feels right.
THE END
Winter’s Light
To the readers—this is for you!
Chapter 1
I sit in Trinity Park, facing the century-old gothic revival architecture of St. Thomas’s Episcopal Church across the street. A December wind brushes across my face. Leafless birch trees bend their gnarled limbs in front of the church, in the snow-blanketed garden—like parishioners in silent prayer.
Pedestrians shuffle along the snowy landscape of the antique shops and mom-and-pop restaurants.
In the church tower, the bells clang noon. My eyes start to close against the hypnotic knock of the bells.
My mind drifts back to when I sold my house and moved in with Milestone County’s Sheriff Philip Erickson.
Everything changed. I was no longer alone. I now slept beside a sexy snoring sheriff. And I have someone to talk to whenever I have a problem I can’t quite work out on my own. Lying in Philip’s arms feels like being in love for the very first time.
The sound of ice and snow crunching beneath tires breaks my train of thought.
Lurching forward, I yank on the collar of my heavy pea coat to protect my neck from the bitingly cold wind. Pedestrians pass me, shielding their faces with gloved hands against the icy afternoon. Bundled up against the harsh winter elements, they head purposefully towards their destinations.
Remembering everything I have to prepare for the holidays, I am about to heave myself off the frozen metal bench when a white-haired woman, wrapped in ratty old clothes, hunkered against the bitter air, collapses on the bench next to me. She exhales, and her
deep breath clouds in front of us like a thick fog.
“Do you mind if I sit here, dear?” she asks, looking up at me, a worried expression on her weathered face.
I smile. “Not at all.”
“I didn’t mean to scare you, young fellow.” She folds her mitten-covered hands across her lap. “The music of the bells is lovely, isn’t it?”
I nod and turn to the towering St. Thomas’s Episcopal Church.
“They remind me of my late husband, Ollie,” the woman whispers.
I turn and glance down at the bird-like woman. Her eyes are fixed on the bell tower as if frozen in time. “Forty-six years of happiness.” The way she shakes her head and waves her hands reminds me of my own mother.
“When you’ve had the best,” she says, “who cares about the rest.” A slight hum of laughter from between her thin lips, but it comes out as a rattling wheeze.
I stare at her, speechless. Who is this person?
The woman looks over at me. “Are you married, dear?” A tiny smile raises the crinkled folds of skin around her mouth.
I kick snow with the tip of my boot, tucking my hands into my pockets. Stalling for time, I pause, staring up at the stainless-steel sky. “No. I’m not married.”
“It’s the best feeling in the world. Sharing a life with someone who loves you. Unconditionally.” She sighs and adds, “A glorious feeling, let me tell you.” She bats at the air as if a foul-smelling odor pervades the air. “These young kids today don’t know the meaning of love.” She turns to me. “You know what I’m sayin’, young man?”
Again, perplexed. Out of courteously, I nod.
She adds, “America’s youth would rather surrender themselves for a one-night quickie than devote to one partner for the rest of their lives.” She nudges me lightly in my right arm before I have time to respond. “Do you know why?”
I throw up my hands, unsure what to say.
“People are scared of commitment,” she continues. “That’s why there’s so much divorce in our culture today. People are unhappy with themselves, and they’d rather run away from their problems instead of trying to work them out.” She scoffs, and a few specks of spittle fly out of her mouth. “Not Ollie and me. Oh goodness, no. We couldn’t live without each other, even through the difficult times.”
I look away nonchalantly, down at my lap, to the ground, then up to the leaden sky, over the tip of the church tower.
But then the woman pulls me back into the conversation by slapping my leg gently. “My world revolved around my husband. If it weren’t for Ollie, I wouldn’t be here. And I still don’t know how to go on living without him.”
She stares out across the busy street, where people are milling about in conversation or walking at a brisk pace around the corner.
I turn to her. “You seem to be keeping good spirits through it all.”
Then she looks over at me. Her jaw starts to quiver.
I shift positions so I am giving her my full attention—my left knee brushes her leg and I wrap an arm behind her on the bench as if I am going to hug her. Even under the thick fabric of her worn thermal pants, I notice how skinny she is.
“How long has he been gone?” I ask and wonder if I should intrude on this stranger’s personal life.
She is quiet as a mouse, and before she answers, she glances up at the bell tower one last time. Taking a detour in the conversation, she says, “I miss going to church with my husband. Ollie was a religious man. He loved the church.” She reaches into her side pocket and pulls out a grimy rag to wipe her nose. She cries lightly into her balled-up cloth.
She shakes her head. I observe the thin smudges of dirt on the side of her face.
She tucks the cloth back into her pocket and leans her head closer to me, as though she is going to tell a private joke, or fall asleep on my shoulder. But she says instead, “Ollie and I never missed Sunday Mass in all of the fifteen years we went to church.”
Something in the way she says her late husband’s name—Ollie—touches me to the bone. The chilly afternoon wind prickles the nape of my neck.
It is as if she is waiting for her husband to come out the church’s front doors and join us on the bench.
“Do you go to church—?” She looks at me, resting her hand on my arm, to finish the question.
I smile. “My name is Christian.”
“Nice name. I’m Rose, by the way. Sorry for the long rant.”
“Not at all. And yes, we…go to church.”
“We?” Her eyes pop open wide, surprised.
Seconds feel like minutes as a silence engulfs us.
We sit in companionable silence.
I say, “My partner and I.”
She has an inquisitive sparkle in her voice. “Partner sounds permanent.”
I leave it at that, shift, and look out at the parade of passersby in front of us. But Rose says, “Don’t give up on each other.”
I smile at the words of wisdom pouring out of Mother Teresa sitting hunched over beside me.
“Love and faith are the key to a lasting relationship,” she says, as if musing on her own inner thoughts. “Trust me.”
Phillip’s handsome face dashes into my thoughts, and I say to Rose, “I believe you’re right.”
“Good. My work here is done.” At that, she pulls herself off the bench, using my arm for support. Her yardstick figure startles me. But when she turns and notices me staring, I look away, my gaze darting to the ground. Then up at the crowded street.
Rose reaches her hand out to me, placing it on my shoulder. Her steely grey eyes stare into mine. “You’re a lucky young man.”
You don’t know the half of it, I want to tell her. But she turns slowly on the icy ground and I want to reach out and lend a hand. She is gone as quickly as she arrived, weaving through a crowd of people and passing vehicles.
I reach down for the paper bag on the bench. It crinkles in my hands as I start off towards the sheriff’s office two blocks away. But before I reach the barbershop on the corner, a curious feeling like a tap on the shoulder forces me to turn around and glimpse Rose one last time.
I am bowled over at what I see: Rose is at the far end of the park, ambling closer to the wrought-iron fence separating the church from the sidewalk. She is pushing a shopping cart filled to the rim with plastic soda bottles and a heap of unwashed clothes.
My heart collapses in my chest. I lean against the corner lamppost for balance. Pausing in the busy street, I feel alone and wonder if that is how Rose feels too.
Chapter 2
I reach the two-story brick building of the sheriff’s station on McMillian Road. Radio and TV antennas poke out from the top of the roof like something Ray Bradbury would describe.
Entering the building, I ask twenty-six-year-old Deputy Mark Samson at the front desk if the sheriff is available to see me.
Cora Hastings, the station’s clerical secretary, is out on her lunch break.
Samson busies himself with a mock phone call, pretending he does not see me standing in front of him on the other side of the desk. I am close enough to him to shake his hand. After he states an arbitrary, “Take it easy, Mom,” into the mouthpiece, he reluctantly raises his hard eyes to me. In a machismo gesture, he thrusts his jutting underbite out at me, as if he is going to ask me a long list of questions.
Mr. Tough Guy. Ruthlessly, almost barking, he says, “What can I do for you?”
I look over his muscular shoulders into the room where the unfriendly eyes from four other deputies glare my way, as if I were a stranger in Milestone County.
Behind the half-closed slats of the Venetian blinds in the sheriff’s office, I notice Philip pacing back and forth in front of his picture window, his right fist pumping the air signaling a heated discussion with somebody on the phone.
I look to where Samson glares at me with his stony stare. His chest heaves.
Taking charge, I lock eyes with the bullish man and say, “Deputy Samson, you know why I’m here
. I stop in every day at this time to bring Philip some lunch. I’d like to see him, please.”
I hear the bodies in the room shift uneasily. Someone coughs mechanically; chairs scrape across the lino; and lingering murmurs fill the room.
“He’s busy at the moment,” Deputy Samson says, as if he were in charge.
Deputy Sheriff Leslie Roland stands in the doorway of the break room. “For Christ sake’s, Samson. What’s wrong with you?” She stirs half-and-half cream into her coffee mug. Her forceful presence directs the deputies’ harsh glance off me and down to the computer screen in front of him.
Deputy Sheriff Roland pulls back her shoulder-length dark hair into a tight ponytail and saunters over to me, looking disgusted by her fellow coworkers. She tosses me a tired smile. “Christian, if you’d like to take a seat, I’ll let the sheriff know you’re here.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.” I take a chair from across Samson’s desk. He does not look up from his computer screen.
As a slew of chuckles erupt from a few other deputies, I shake my head in disgust.
A few minutes later, Philip waves me into his office. Passing through the cluster of chauvinists, I thank Deputy Roland with a tight-lipped smile.
Inside his office, Phillip looks happy to see me, his face lighting up at my presence.
“What’s wrong?” he asks. “You don’t look well.”
I shake my head and hand him the crumbled brown lunch bag. “A ham sandwich on rye. The way you like it with extra honey Dijon.”
The Light Between Us Box Set Page 3