by Bijou Hunter
“Coffee would be nice.”
While I make a pot, Journey digs her phone out of her wet purse. I see her texting and wonder if she’s calling in reinforcements. Likely, she’s just telling her family what happened. Her body language makes me think they’re pleading with her to make a run for safety. Whatever they end up saying, she sets the phone on the table next to her and curls up on the couch.
Kitty watches me watch Journey. Like my woman, the dog needs more than I can offer. He walks away and joins Journey on the couch. She pets him and whispers sweet nothings. I smile at the sight of them together.
My mind imagines a world where I come home every night to this beautiful woman and my sad-eyed dog. They’d welcome me because they’d know I’m worth something even if that something isn’t so obvious to anyone else. I’d have a place to call home rather than simply a roof over my head.
I bring Journey her coffee and sit on the other end of the couch. An outsider in my home, I feel foolish. More than that, I’m lonely. Journey is feet away, yet I’m too weak to go to her.
I fear her rejection. Not just tonight, but every night. I’m a grown man, but the little boy I once was warns me that trusting her is a mistake. Life is safer alone. There’s no truer fact. Except, fuck, if I’m not lonely, and Journey offers everything I crave.
“I’m in love with you,” I say, staring at the TV. “I don’t think that’s enough to make things right, but I figured I ought to say the words so you know I think them.”
Journey doesn’t respond, and her gaze remains focused on the episode of South Park. I glance in her direction, and she glances in mine.
“Not everything needs to make sense, but it needs to mean something,” she says in a low, raspy voice. “I love you too.”
“Well, there’s that.”
Journey exhales softly and returns to watching the show. After a few more sips of coffee, she sets the cup on the table. By the next commercial, she’s scooted a bit closer until Kitty has to change positions so he can still rest his head on her lap. I say nothing while she slowly makes her way to me on the couch.
Once her body presses against mine, I wrap an arm around her shoulders. Her head leans on my chest, and we silently watch TV for an hour.
Words aren’t our friends. Lies make things easier. For now, we want each other, and we have each other.
For tonight, that’s enough. Eventually, though, the sun will rise, my issues will creep back into play, and Journey will desire more from me.
We’ll be back in the same place as we were when she stood in the rain waiting for me to say the right words.
Until then, silence offers us the freedom to pretend nothing matters beyond love.
28 Snake Charmers
Journey
Donovan and I said the magical words, but their power fixed nothing. He continues to run hot and cold with his emotions, while I still crave more reassurance than is healthy. We’re rarely together. When we do hookup, I can’t seem to shake the feeling that we’re living on borrowed time.
I’m desperate for advice, a shoulder to cry on, and a man’s perspective. Basically, I need my dad.
Jared co-owns a small auto shop on the outskirts of Tumbling Rock. I hear he’s a good mechanic, but the place looks dead when I stop by on my way home from work.
Jared sits in the front office, watching the news on a small TV hanging from the corner.
“Hey, Dad,” I say, gaining his attention. “Do you have time to talk?”
Jared smiles big at me, making my day automatically better. He glances at the other guy sitting in the back of the shop.
“I’ll be back in a while, Craig.”
Jared and I walk outside to a quiet day with only a lone dog barking far away. I’m sometimes bothered by how small and isolated Tumbling Rock can feel. If we live in the middle of nowhere, does that make us no one? Only when I’m at the clinic or hospital, do I feel like West Virginia isn’t at the end of the earth.
“You okay?” Jared asks when I only stare at the falling autumn leaves in a yard across the road.
“This might seem weird, but I need relationship advice.”
“What’s wrong?” Jared asks, immediately pissed. “Is Donovan fucking with you? I can talk to him.”
“Aren’t I a little old for you to threaten my boyfriends?”
“Maybe, but I’ll never be too old to hurt a man for making my girls sad.”
Smiling grudgingly, I shake my head. “I don’t need that kind of help. I need advice or maybe someone to tell me that love is worth the struggle. I want to know the mess is worth it when everything you care about blows up. How it’s okay to love someone who’s all kinds of messed up inside, and you can’t fix him, and he can’t fix himself, and nothing makes sense except you want to be closer to him even if it’ll kill you in the end.”
Jared looks at where my hands imitate tearing something apart.
“Is Donovan hitting you?”
“Are you fricking kidding? Do you think I’d let any man slap me around? Any fricking man any fricking where? I’d crush his fricking spine if he put his hands on me like that. Hell, if you hit me, I’d tear off your mustache and make you choke on it,” I say then add softer, “And you know how much I love your stache.”
Jared grins while caressing the hairy beast on his upper lip. “It loves you right back, kid.”
“My problem with Donovan is because I’m not an emotionally sensitive kind of person, and he’s closed off. We’re like the blind leading the blind with this relationship thing.”
“Maybe you ought to walk away.”
“But I want him. Every time I start thinking we’d be better off on our own or how we’re not suited for a relationship, I remember how much I prefer giving myself what I want.”
“Sounds more like obsession than love.”
Frowning at his flippant answers, I expected a bit more wisdom from my father. “Do I seem like the kind of woman to get obsessed with a man? I was living a perfectly happy life before him. I ought to be running away from Donovan. I should make smarter decisions. I’m me, not a dummy like Mom who fell in love with an older biker.”
“You’re mean when upset,” he mutters.
“Sorry, but that really shouldn’t come as a huge surprise. Heck, I just threatened to rip off your beloved stache and kill you with it.”
“I know you’re trying to make you and Donovan’s situation like what your mom and I had, but I don’t see the similarities. Christine and I made sense until one day we didn’t.”
Crossing my arms, I size up my father. “Is that really how you see what happened between you two?”
“Always made sense to me.”
“She ditched you while you were in prison. That’s not the behavior of a content woman. I mean, if she were a hussy then I’d imagine her running around on you once your back was turned. She didn’t run to another man, though. She ran to a new life with school and a future job she wanted.”
Jared narrows his eyes and steps back. “I thought we were analyzing what’s wrong with you and Donovan.”
“We are, but I can’t believe you think what you had with Mom was easy. Why do you think she left?”
“I knew she wanted to go to school and be a vet. I figured she thought she couldn’t do that here. I don’t know why she’d think that, but that’s what I assumed.”
“You’re weird.”
“How do you figure?”
“Didn’t you ever fricking ask why she left?”
“Yes, and she said she needed to get away. She asked me not to come after her.”
“And you just let your wife and kids walk away,” I balk, having assumed they had fought to a truce before I was old enough to understand.
“I was in prison.”
“Mom wasn’t married when you got out. Why didn’t you push her for an explanation? Was a part of you happy she left?”
“You know, Journey, I don’t want to talk about this.”
“A
ll right, but you and Mom will never become friends if you can’t have a single honest conversation. I’ve seen you argue, and I know you’ve boinked, but you never got to the heart of why your marriage ended.”
“Leave it alone.”
“Sure, sure, but you should ask yourself why Mom married a dork like Paul, and you ended up in a friends-with-benefits relationship with Jane? Maybe you aren’t so different from your convenient vagina. You said Jane lost her husband, and she couldn’t move on. You and Mom haven’t either. I think you ought to consider seeing if that’s something you’d like to do in the next few decades.”
“Why can’t you be this wise with your crap?”
“I can. I just want someone to tell me that it’s worth the bad stuff. I need to know I can survive an ugly ending to a good thing. That’s why I look to you and Mom. You might not have moved on, but your relationship didn’t destroy either of you.”
Jared runs a hand through his thick black hair. I want him to tell me something supportive even if I’m the jerk who didn’t say anything all that supportive of him.
“Journey, you’re strong enough to handle whatever life throws at you. Good or bad, you’ve always looked it in the eye without flinching. Even if whatever happens between you and Donovan falls apart, you have Christine and your sisters to pick you up. You have me too. You shouldn’t be afraid to try.”
“If I fall, will you be there to catch me?” I ask, reciting the line from a Cyndi Lauper song.
“Time After Time.”
“Really?” I ask, shocked for my redneck father to know a 1980’s pop song.
“I listen to music, Journey.”
“Yeah, honky-tonk music like AC/DC and other stuff I choose not to acknowledge. Who knew you were also into 80’s techno crap.”
“I’m not, but when the song comes on, I’m not immune.”
“You’re a big softie,” I tease, poking him. “This is a new side to you, Jared Sheerer. Very impressive.”
“You and your sister sure keep me on my toes. I never know what’ll impress you.”
Hugging him, I inhale his familiar scent. My father is as steady as a rock. He’s the male version of me. Years ago, he went nuts over a woman he probably shouldn’t have even noticed. After they had crashed and burned, Jared survived. If Donovan and I end up with the same fiery outcome, I know I’ll survive too.
As much as I love and admire my dad, the chat with him did nothing to help me figure things out with Donovan.
Arriving home, I hear crazy sounding music playing loudly from Poppy’s phone. She sits at the kitchen counter, writing something in her notebook. Christine’s curled up in the living room, reading a magazine while Hal rests in her lap.
“What the heck is this music?” I ask.
“The band’s called Katzenjammer,” Poppy says as if this means something to me. “I’m using the song for my PowerPoint presentation next week.”
“Your teacher must love you.”
“I think he worships me. All of my male teachers are pervy.”
Christine looks up from her magazine and frowns at Poppy who only shrugs.
“What can I do when I look this good in a school full of goons and ghouls?”
“You remember that confidence if your father’s glandular problem ever kicks in with you,” Christine says, smiling behind her magazine.
“Not cool, Mom.”
“Saying it like I see it.”
“This town has been a bad influence on you. Back in Indy, you were a much better sap.”
No longer hiding her smile, Christine shrugs. I see my chance to pry her away from Poppy, so I ask to speak alone. Christine tries to get up from her chair, but Hal fights her by going limp on her lap. She finally breaks free by shoving his fat butt off her.
Once we get to her room, Christine shuts the door and sits on the bed. I don’t sit, unable to shake my restlessness.
“Do you ever regret marrying Paul?” I ask while pacing around the room.
“Of course not. Without him, we wouldn’t have Poppy.”
“Or we’d have a different Poppy. A peppier one with fewer glandular problems.”
Christine gives me a disapproving look, but I only smile. Poppy’s great, but she looks and acts like our family. No doubt she’d be very similar even with a different father.
“Seriously, though, why did you marry Paul? You couldn’t have been that desperate.”
Christine flops back on her bed and sighs. “I know you two had your issues, and he’s no saint, but you ignore his good points.”
“Such as?”
“He has a good sense of humor.”
Gawking at my mother, I don’t remember one single funny thing Paul did or said in the entire time I knew him. Even when he fell at the store, I didn’t laugh. The man couldn’t even make a pratfall funny.
“Like how?”
“He told funny jokes and said things in a funny way.”
“Okay, I’ll take your word for that.”
“I like people with a sense of humor. Why else would I endure you girls?”
“I always assumed it was because of the love.”
Christine rolls her eyes. “I love your grandparents too, but they’re not funny.”
“Wait, so if we stop being snarky turds, you’ll stop enduring us?”
“Yep,” she says, grinning big. “You’d be smart to keep that in mind.”
“Do you have any regrets?”
Christine loses her smile. “Of course, but I can’t change the past. I can only avoid making the same mistakes in the future.”
“That’s all very uplifting. It really is. What I’m asking is if you ever knew you were making a mistake while you made it but still did it anyway?”
A suddenly nostalgic Christine stares out the window. “I guess in a way marrying your father was a mistake I knowingly made. I don’t regret it, of course. I knew it wouldn’t last. We were in different places in life. I had just finished high school while he was settled in life. We should never have worked, but I needed him so much. I didn’t worry about how things would turn out. Being young has its advantages.”
“I’m not young enough to willingly make dumb mistakes, am I?”
“You’re a fighter,” Christine says, sitting up and taking my hands. “If you want something, fight for it. I’d rather have a pile of mistakes than a handful of what ifs.”
Pulling my mother to her feet, I wrap my arms around her and hold on for a long time. Christine doesn’t hurry me to let go. She caresses my hair, soothing my edginess.
Once I finally release her, I smile awkwardly.
“I hate weakness.”
“I know, but there are worse ways to feel.”
Nodding, I get one more hug before we return to the living room. Felix has joined Poppy on the couch. They’re working on his math assignment. My sister is so focused on playing teacher that she doesn’t notice me turn off her music for an entire five minutes.
“Hey!” she cries, once aware.
“Where’s Justice?”
“Out back with Matilda,” Felix says.
“Don’t help her.”
Felix frowns at Poppy who tosses her long hair in his face. He yanks on it, startling her. Seeing a fight about to break out, Otto stops watching TV. I know he’s ignoring me because I was bad and need to be punished. He wants me to come crawling back and apologize for my poor decision-making.
I refuse to back down to an eight-year-old. Otto and I will likely need to butt heads until he learns his place in the pecking order. Until that happens, I walk outside to the back deck where Justice sits in a chair with Matilda.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
My sister stops attempting and failing to braid Matilda’s brown hair.
“Matilda loves when I play with her hair. She just wants love. I could use her as a tissue, and she’d be happy to have me notice her. She’s a love bug.”
“If that’s what you want to call it.”
&
nbsp; Justice cuddles Matilda tighter. “She’ll be in kindergarten next year. Soon, she’ll make friends and no longer be at my beck and call.”
“You’ll have a baby soon. No worries.”
“No. I want to wait. Right now, my baby is Matilda, and she goes to bed by ten. That’s a few hours a night for me and Court to play.”
“Where is Court?”
“I don’t know.”
“I wanted to ask you to ask him to do me a favor, but I’ll just ask him myself.”
When I walk away, Justice jumps up to hurry after me with Matilda.
“I want to help,” she says. “I need a reason to exist. You know besides being a mother, working at the store, and serving Court’s every desire.”
“I’m good. Thanks.”
Justice doesn’t give up and nearly bumps into me when I spot Court at the side of their house. He’s shirtless and holding an ax.
“Do you know what I’m thinking?” I ask.
Justice smiles at the sight of her sweaty husband. “He’s super hot, and I’m super lucky?”
“No, more like he reminds me of the dad in Amityville Horror before he went nuts.”
“Oh, and that father in The Witch chopped a lot of wood too. My poor crazy Court.”
“What’s up?” he asks, wiping sweat from his neck and giving his woman quite the show.
“So super lucky,” Justice whispers while now holding Matilda.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Chopping wood.”
“Why? We don’t have fireplaces.”
“No, but Shelly Harper does. Her husband passed away, and she can’t afford to buy wood.”
“You’re such a pathetic wuss. Every old chick in town knows how to play your heartstrings,” I tease.
Court ignores my comment and his wife’s drooling. “Did you want something?”
“I need a favor.”
“Well, I guess I’ll just drop everything and get right on that.”
“Like I said, you’re a wuss. Stand up for yourself, man.”
“Fine. I’m not helping you.”