The Weight of an Infinite Sky

by Carrie La Seur

  Neal took a seat at the head of the table with an eye on NASCAR at the far end of the living room, remote beside his fork. “Your mother’s been waiting on you to come out, Anthony. You too busy to see her?”

  “Busy, yeah,” Anthony said. “It takes more effort than I thought to winch my life out of the crapper.”

  Neal shot him a sharp look, though whether it was about his admission of failure or use of the word crapper at the table he couldn’t be sure.

  “I’m so glad you could make it down,” Sarah said quickly as she lowered the roast onto the table in front of Neal with the satisfied air of a Norman Rockwell tableau. She had provided well. Food arranged on the good china covered most of the surface—meat, potatoes, a few vegetable casseroles, homemade rolls, canned black olives in a bowl, and pecan pie, Anthony’s favorite, waiting on the sideboard. The weekly Thanksgiving. He wondered if she’d been doing all this for Neal every week. No wonder he was sticking around.

  “It looks great, Mom,” Anthony assured her. Only one thing was missing. If Dean had been there, Anthony could have gotten a decent glass of whiskey, but he didn’t dare ask it of Sarah, and Neal wasn’t drinking. He settled beside Neal with an elbow on the table and a hand at his face as a shield from the peripheral flashing images that made his temples ache. There was no point in asking Neal to turn it off. He’d always done exactly as he pleased—he and Anthony had that much in common.

  Neal folded his hands. “Lord, for what we are about to receive please make us truly grateful,” he said. Sarah echoed his amen. Anthony hadn’t shared a meal with Neal in years, not since a major falling-out between him and Dean some fifteen years ago. There had been shouting and accusations, then slammed doors, revved engines, and silence, the soundtrack of the Fry household. Anthony recalled no obligatory prayers back then. This was something new Neal was trying out. Redemption? Moral authority over his lapsed nephew?

  Sarah began to fill their plates.

  “You got that landman coming around here?” Anthony asked her. “Burlington?” He’d never met Rick Burlington, but the name was all over the radar. Given the responsibility of directing the camp, Anthony had proposed a new model with income-based scholarships and a bus to bring in kids from the small towns, the ranches, and the reservation. Harmony Coal had been happy to cover the expense in exchange for a big company logo splashed everywhere it could fit. They even supplied a bonded driver in a harmony coal hat and embroidered shirt. The corporate office in Denver handled the donation, but Rick’s photo was in the local paper next to the gushing human interest story. Harmony got the benefit of its bargain, all right. Every camp shirt read harmony coal in huge letters across the back.

  Damned corporations on everything, Anthony thought, labeling even kids with their overlords’ brands. It wouldn’t end here. His plans for the camp required more fund-raising and an increase in fees for the families that could pay—all of which upped the pressure to deliver the experience everyone expected, Theater Disney complete with trademarks.

  “Now and then. Dean told him to stay away,” Sarah answered when Neal stayed quiet. “You want gravy, honey?”

  Sarah had mastered the smooth conversational side step with food as a lure, Anthony recalled. The counter-maneuver was to ignore it.

  “He calls the theater every other day. At first I thought it was about Harmony supporting the camp but all he wants to talk about is this place. He talks like we’re all good friends. He mentioned you, Neal. Says you keep an eye on things for him. That so?”

  Neal grunted and forked a mouthful of potatoes. “Can’t see how that’s any of your business.”

  “It’s my business if you gave him reason to think we want to lease the place.”

  “What do you care? You don’t give any sign of wanting it.”

  Anthony let the gravy spoon fall to his plate with a clatter. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “For how long?” Neal asked. His attention was on his plate, and the NASCAR announcer was suddenly overloud.

  That was the question, wasn’t it? Slowly Anthony put the spoon back in the gravy while Sarah studied him for any flinch of an answer. Reluctantly he’d come back and reluctantly he got up every morning and tried to find a way through the day, all for lack of any better idea of what to do with himself. Anthony stabbed at his potatoes, irritated that he’d let Neal get to him already.

  “I’m figuring that out. You want to let them mine through here? Dad said over his dead body.” Neal’s eyes shifted from the screen to meet Anthony’s, the reality that Dean was dead spreading like a cool mist across the table that chilled the conversation.

  Denial had been easier away from the ranch. Here the memories floated on air. Anthony would never forget the snake that had bitten him when he was eight, not because of the pain and surprise when he stepped on it and it sank its fangs into his calf, but because his father had clubbed it with a shovel and carried the dead snake back to the barn along with Anthony, at a run. It was one of the most vivid memories of his childhood, a sensation that even today could take him entirely when he saw a snake. In an instant he’d smell the burned grass of that baked August day as they walked out to check the trenches protecting their best hay meadows from fire, feel the slip-slide of his toes in a pair of Chance’s hand-me-down boots a size too big, live again the loose-limbed wonder of trailing clumsily after Dean, watching birds and clouds.

  “Pay attention, Anthony!” his father had surely said more than once that day, like every other. Then the invisible strike, the hot ache, the thud and grunt of Dean and the shovel, and the woozy swoon as the venom hit his nervous system and Dean grabbed him up and ran. From his entire childhood, it was the only memory Anthony had of feeling truly precious to his father. The whole thing was a movie scene to him now, twenty feet high and 3-D vivid, revived by the sight of any snake—or by the barn he’d just driven by, where Dean had nailed up the snake that day and its skeleton still hung.

  It’s huge. It’s just huge! boomed the TV.

  Anthony swallowed. “Or is that the idea?” Over Dean’s dead body a lot was possible that hadn’t been while he was alive.

  “You watch your mouth, sonny.” Neal looked back to the TV. “I get you miss your dad, but people’s fathers been dying forever. You’re not special.”

  “Can we turn that off for dinner?” Sarah asked, gently touching Neal’s forearm. Without a word, Neal hit the power button.

  Anthony exhaled a shaky breath into the new quiet. A few months, even a few weeks ago, he’d been ready to let the ranch tumble into whatever hands reached out to take it—but he’d never really believed it would tumble into any hands but his. The ranch was the star-crossed end that destiny held for him no matter how hard he thrashed against it. Even when he was sure he’d come to New York to stay, he’d walk down to Battery Park to see the open sky and squint for the true horizon beyond the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Even then, set on a future in dark halls lit like jewel boxes, he’d longed for open range.

  “It was only ever money to you,” Anthony said in an exploratory jab. “You don’t give a damn about what Grandpa built.” Dean had always said so. Anthony had never been quite sure about Neal’s side of the argument, having been too young to appreciate it when the fighting went down.

  Neal folded a big piece of tender pink beef into his mouth and spoke as he chewed, eyes fixed on the black screen like lottery numbers were being announced. “Dean was a fool and so are the Murphys. Chance plumb lost his mind last winter, shot up Burlington’s pickup. The kind of money they want to give us, we could buy any piece of land we want around here. Better land, and still have this place when they’re done with it.”

  Anthony twisted his fingers together. That had to be a lie about Chance. It was the last thing he’d ever do. Neal was provoking him deliberately. Sarah’s gaze enveloped Anthony in treacly maternal concern, warning him, but he couldn’t stop. Though he hadn’t made up his mind either way about the mining, faced with Neal’s arrogance he
wanted only to spar.

  “I don’t want different land,” Anthony said. “I want this land.”

  He hadn’t known it was true until he said it. There was nothing exceptional about the ranch. It was rocks and brush, a couple of unreliable springs and a creek that dried up in August—barely enough to scratch a living from, yet a part of him as indelible as the ridgeline he could trace blindfolded. Now, at his mother’s table, something stirred that was different from the urge to flee that had driven him so far and failed him in the end. After all the wandering, he felt the first inkling of needing something solid to hang on to—like his land, which Neal with his 49 percent share couldn’t sign away so long as Anthony and Sarah stuck together.

  Neal reached for his water glass, chugged down half, and answered, “You picked a fine time to decide you care. I came out here and found your ma hauling bales, pulling calves, doing the work of two men and you nowhere in sight. That what you want for her?”

  Anthony sighed and looked at Sarah. “You said you had help running the place.” He had no way of knowing from New York that she was pulling her martyr act again. At least it confirmed that there was nothing fundamentally wrong with her health.

  “Your place was here and you know it. She shouldn’t have to ask.” Neal’s fist fell hard to the table.

  Anthony pushed his chair back. He didn’t know if it was a panic attack or hyperventilation or an unnamed condition brought on by his uncle, but the wave was rising. Here they were sitting around like characters in some dismal rural drama by Sam Shepard or Tracy Letts, scratching at one another’s hides until they drew blood, and he didn’t have it in him to watch the vicious second act.

  “Mom, I’m sorry, I’ve got too much to do for tomorrow. I need to get back.” Camp was ready, each kid’s alphabetized packet in a plastic bin by the theater doors, but it was his only excuse.

  “Anthony!” Sarah exclaimed. “You haven’t eaten anything!”

  His plate was full of a meal he’d dearly have liked to finish, but he said, “I’m fine, Mom. I had breakfast late.” He was already in the kitchen, headed for the door.

  “Let me box up some food for you to take!” She was on her feet, scrambling for cling wrap.

  He hesitated. He could live for several days off her Sunday leftovers and he’d spent his first paycheck putting a cheap futon in his rented room, but he could taste bile. He had to get out. He slammed through the screen and rushed to the car. The sleepy midafternoon sun and cool air, together with the sight of Boomerang and Ponch grazing at the far end of the pasture, were a sweet tonic. He breathed more easily as he opened the car door and dug for his keys in a pocket with holes that caught and held. He yanked and heard the rip.

  Sarah came out at a jog, suddenly nimble, pinching aluminum foil around the edges of the green bean casserole balanced on top of the pie. Rolls dangled in a plastic bag. “Here you go, sweetheart. I can’t let you go empty-handed.” She opened the back door and tucked the food carefully behind the seat. She was out of breath but wore a determined smile—another happy Sunday family dinner, nothing out of the ordinary.

  “Thanks, Mom. I’m sorry.”

  Sarah pulled her hands to her chest in a way that made Anthony pause. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Her eyes came up to his, pleading. “I missed you something awful, son. I’m so glad you’re back. Come out again soon?”

  “Yeah. Okay. But you keep an eye on Neal. He’s playing a game of his own.” This was less observation than instinct. When Anthony was younger, Neal had spoken to him mostly in a succession of orders—bring that bucket, fill that tank, fetch that tool—as if the sight of Anthony needled him. He hadn’t had anyone to boss for years except animals and seasonal workers—mostly kids—for the City of Hayden. Anthony heard their complaints that Old Man Fry rode them like a drill sergeant—as if he could do anything about it. Only the ones who really needed the cash made it through the summer. At least they could complain. Anthony pitied the livestock. He hadn’t witnessed anything himself, but Neal had a reputation where animals were concerned. Whatever Neal was doing here, it wasn’t out of the goodness of his heart.

  “No, no,” Sarah said. She took Anthony’s arm and drew him into a slow stroll away from the car. “He’s been a help. And he hasn’t said an unkind word about you. He’s been wanting you to come home, too. Give him a chance. He’s still your uncle. I know he loves you, underneath you two beating your chests like you do.”

  “Right. Like he loved Dad.”

  Sarah sighed. “There was such bitterness between them after Lewis died. If he’d known how it would tear them apart, I think he’d never have done it. And there’s something Dean would have wanted you to have.” She took Dean’s heavy Masonic ring from her hip pocket and held it out.

  “Did he say that?” Anthony wasn’t a Mason. He’d gone to one meeting after graduating from college and announced loudly in the parking lot afterward that he wanted nothing to do with all that voodoo. He doubted that Dean had any intention of giving him the ring. This was all Sarah, trying to create continuity between generations of her men.

  “He always talked about you taking over. He counted on it. You’re his son, Anthony. You know he loved you.”

  “Thanks, Mom.” Anthony took the ring but lifted his face to the sky to avoid hers. Maybe in her longing to see them all more united she really was blind to Neal’s manifest flaws—just like she couldn’t see that her father-in-law had been a mean old cuss who’d pitted his sons against each other to make men of them. This was why the Frys all needed her. She thought better of them than any of them deserved and loved them more than they were worth loving. Anthony brought his chin down. “It worries me to have you out here alone with him, Mom. He’s not right in the head.”

  Sarah pursed her lips and expelled a puff of breath. “Oh, pish. He’s fine. He’s just different, and all his life nobody could forgive him for it.”

  She could have said the same of him, Anthony thought, only she wouldn’t, not to his face. He pulled away from her grasp. “People say he was always mean.”

  “People forget how life shapes you. His hasn’t been easy. Promise me you’ll talk to him again, when you’ve both cooled off.”

  Anthony turned away from her and walked back to the car. “I have to get going,” he said over his shoulder. “Too much to do. Thanks for the food!” He dropped into the driver’s seat.

  Sarah hurried to him as he turned the key. “When will you be back?”

  “Soon,” was all he could promise. He hit the gas and spun around the far end of the yard before racing up the uneven drive faster than the Buick could afford to go. You’ll knock the exhaust pipe loose like that, he heard Sarah caution in his head. Funny how her automotive knowledge was comprehensive when warning him, then nonexistent when it came to maintaining her own vehicles. Funny a lot of things about his mother, including her newfound sympathy for Neal, born out of some native kindness he wished he’d inherited. Anthony snapped open the glove compartment but it only spilled empty junk-food packaging. He needed a drink.

  Act 1, Scene 2

  Anthony’s phone began beeping with messages as he approached the cell towers near Hayden and the interstate. He ignored the messages about camp, but pressed the phone to his ear to hear Chance’s voice over the road noise. Heard you’re back, cuz. Give me a call. I’ve got a few things to tell you. Anthony hit Call Back, and waited for the connection with Chance.

  It might be awkward, seeing Chance again. The last few years they’d kept up through occasional phone calls. His cousin’s words in that flat western accent were sometimes too pat to Anthony’s newly citified ears, attentive for the cynical bite at the end of any earnest phrase. On break in a filthy Manhattan alley never touched by sun, cell phone in one hand and a cigarette he couldn’t afford in the other, he listened to Chance drawl whole sentences in cowboy idiom, snakes in wagon ruts and country music wisdom, then guffaw in a way that made Anthony wonder if he was being rolled.
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  “So you’ve given up engineering to become Garth Brooks?” Anthony had teased.

  “Clichés become clichés because they’re true, Nino,” Chance said, and Anthony had no comeback. He’d developed such a lifelong habit of deferring to Chance—older, smarter, easier in the world—that when they disagreed, Anthony’s only recourse was withdrawal.

  The phone line clicked open.

  “It’s me—Nino,” Anthony said before he even heard the hello. The nickname was an old joke from childhood, a cartoon character with a heavy Italian accent that Anthony liked to imitate, one of many roles he put on like changing clothes. “Long time no see. Sorry, I should’ve called earlier.”

  “Oh hello, Anthony!” a woman said in his ear, startling him. “It’s Aunt Jayne. Chance left his phone here. He’s doing some ditch work and he didn’t want to get it wet. He managed to drop the last one in. I’m so glad to hear your voice!”

  Jayne Murphy, the yang to his mother’s persistent yin. He loved her—he loved them all in various twisted ways—but he braced involuntarily for the marching orders she was sure to give.

  “Hi, Jayne. How are you and Ed?”

  “Doing fine. I was going to call and tell you we’ve got our neighborhood picnic planned again, third Friday in June. You can come out, can’t you? Everyone will be so excited to see you.”

  “Yeah, sure. Sounds like fun.” The third Friday in June was nearly three weeks away. Plenty of time to forget and stop answering his phone.

  “We made sure to plan it for when Hilary will be here. I know you two were close.”