by Rick R. Reed
And Mac knew the answer, but he didn’t want to tell her. Although Grandma had been as supportive as she could be when he told her he was gay as a high school senior, she had, at the same time, been reluctant to hear about his life as a gay man. She’d always go quiet when he mentioned a date or something early on, and Mac took note of it. It was disappointing that he felt unable to share such an essential part of his own life with her, but he understood. Gay people just weren’t a part of Grandma’s generation, especially not here in their small town in the northern panhandle of West Virginia.
And now, he thought, if given enough time, she would have come around. But the reason he’d moved to Seattle in the first place was having met Pete McAllister, a man twenty years older than Mac, the summer before at a bar in Pittsburgh. They’d had a torrid one-nighter, the last of Pete’s in this part of the country, where he was in town on Amazon business, and had both fallen hopelessly in love.
Hopeless was the right word. Since Mac’s rash decision to pack up his few things and move cross-country turned out to have been based on, really, lust and not love. In short order, Mac had found that Pete was controlling in the extreme and looked upon Mac as some sort of warped son figure that he wanted to shape and mold into his version of the perfect mate.
Mac stayed in Seattle because he found he loved the place. All the water and mountains, the ability to get away into nature easily and at a moment’s notice, and the fact that it was a booklover’s paradise all contributed to Seattle becoming his real true love.
He’d also stayed because he had no money to go home. He knew Grandma would clear out her savings if he asked her to. But he couldn’t do that to her. She barely made it from month to month on her social security.
But how had he answered Grandma’s question that Christmas morning? “I had a job offer, Grandma. And I really love where I work!” Even though Mac would have never been considered for even the lowliest clerical position at Microsoft in Redmond, that’s where he told his grandmother he worked, instead of waiting tables.
She had been so proud of him!
He remembered other times. Quiet hours in front of the TV. They had a Thursday night ritual of watching Grey’s Anatomy together with a big bowl of popcorn between them. Or just having supper together at the maple kitchen table. Grandma made homey and old-fashioned comfort foods, things he might have once been embarrassed to admit he loved, but never again. Things like tuna-noodle casserole with a crust of crushed potato chips, or navy bean soup she always served over a slice of white bread and topped with ketchup and chopped onions. She made hamburgers fried in Worcestershire sauce and butter and called them “sizzleburgers.” Hot dogs wrapped in crescent rolls with American cheese inside. None of it was particularly healthy and certainly not sophisticated, but the memories of her food touched his heart and brought to mind how much she cared about him. He’d once jokingly referred to the food he grew up on to friends in Seattle as “white trash cuisine.” And now he felt a twinge of shame for the mockery.
When he got home, he thought he just might make Dee a big pan of that tuna-noodle casserole as a welcome home from the hospital.
He opened his eyes, looking around the living room—at the Hummel figurines in the display case he’d made for her in high school shop, at the windows with their lacy curtains, looking out on the forest behind the trailer park, at the ancient TV with its big picture tube out the back, at her stack of People magazines, at the coatrack just inside her kitchen door, still hung with jackets and the winter coat she once wore.
All this overloaded him. She was gone.
And yet—she’d always be with him.
He lowered his head and let go of his grief, sobbing until his eyes burned and his throat felt raw.
And then he went to bed in his old room.
That night he dreamed. He was walking somewhere leafy and green, a sun-dappled trail that snaked up and down hills. Here and there would be something to admire—a small waterfall, a giant boulder, a bridge across a pond dotted with water lilies. There was such peace and quiet to the day and the hike. In the air, the scent of pine and clean, fresh breezes.
He stopped when he heard the mournful bay of a hound, and he smiled. Hamburger. He heard a rustling behind him, and the dog bounded through a field of ferns to get to him. Mac knelt to welcome the dog, and as he leaped into Mac’s arms to cover his face with kisses, the sun brightened, warming them both.
Companionably they continued on the trail, admiring the scenery. Mac thought they might be in Ravenna Park, back in Seattle. He had taken Hamburger there a lot, and the two shared many happy hours on its trails, Hamburger happily leaping over rivulets of water that would often run off from the hillside.
The park amazed Mac every time he went there because, even though it didn’t cover a lot of acreage, once you were in its wooded embrace, you felt far removed from the city and its bustle.
It felt good, like old times. There was no sense that Hamburger was anything other than Mac’s own dog. The joy he felt from being alone with him in the woods was as clear as memory and as true as life.
He watched as Hamburger bounded ahead of him. He opened his mouth to call him back, knowing very well the dog’s predilection for going off fast and furious on the trail of one scent or another. “Barley! Barley! Come on back, buddy.”
Barley? Where had that come from?
And then, as soon as the question took form in his mind, Mac got his answer.
Flynn stood at the head of the trail, almost a silhouette with the sun shining behind him. Mac slowed as he watched Barley, not Hamburger, run to his true master. But Mac, surprisingly, didn’t feel sad.
He felt part of things. And as much as Flynn awaited Barley’s return, he also awaited Mac’s.
Flynn had taken Mac into his arms, holding him tightly, and Mac felt at peace. This embrace felt right and true. He closed his eyes.
And when he opened them, he was in his room in the trailer. He glanced over at the mirror above the dresser and saw not his adult self, but his boyhood one. He grinned at the shaggy red hair, cut lovingly but ever so inexpertly by Grandma, and the penguin-pattered flannel pajamas he had forgotten all about until this very moment.
The door squeaked open, and there she was—Grandma Grace. She too was dressed for bed, in a flannel nightgown, dull pink from repeated washings, trimmed with lace at the neckline.
“I have something for you,” she said. Just hearing her again sent a chill through Mac.
It was weird. He was within the dream for sure, but there were moments when he felt outside of it, an observer.
“What is it, Gram?” The voice that came out was his little-boy voice, much higher.
She walked over to the bed. Above Mac there was a small shelf nailed into the wall. He sat up to see it better. Right now it contained only a bunch of army-men figurines, the little ones Grandma had gotten for him at the dollar store—a whole bag of them for a buck.
Mac loved them!
She leaned to place a framed photograph on the shelf. When she moved away, Mac saw what it was—his parents and him in happier times, at Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky. They’d gone together shortly before his parents’ accident. They were at the crest of one of the big roller coasters, and the camera had snapped their picture just as they began their descent, screaming with a potent cocktail of terror and delight, his mother’s hair flying above her head as though ready to take off. The odd thing was, after the roller coaster ride, Mac had begged his dad to buy the photo. But at something like ten bucks for a print, he’d told Mac it was too expensive. Ten dollars was a lot of money!
And yet now here it was.
The significance of that long-ago night with his grandma, dream or not, came back to him—it was the day of his parents’ burial at the cemetery on the hill overlooking the Ohio River.
“I thought you’d like to have it,” Grandma said. “So I got it for you. I can do stuff like that now.” She smiled and squatted a little be
side his bed to hold him. He closed his eyes and let himself fall into the comfort of her embrace. He didn’t want to let go.
When he opened his eyes, he was once more back in the wooded park, back in Flynn’s arms. A dog was barking, and it wasn’t Barley. This bark was faster and more high-pitched. Just as Mac started looking around to identify the barker, he woke up.
Morning sunlight streamed into his boyhood bedroom. His cheeks were damp with tears, yet he felt no sadness. It was like sunlight surrounded him both inside and out.
He sat up and looked to the shelf above the bed. The soldiers were gone, replaced by a bunch of paperback novels, mostly horror—Stephen King, Anne Rice, Dean Koontz, John Saul, and Peter Straub. And just beyond the row of books stood a framed photograph.
“No,” Mac whispered, taking it down.
The photo was a little faded, aged by time and the sunlight that streamed in through the window behind Mac’s head. The frame, brass, was cheap and probably came from the same dollar store Grandma loved and where once upon a time she’d found a whole bag of little green plastic soldiers.
And there they were—he and his mom and dad, on the roller coaster at Cedar Point. To see better, Mac used a fingertip to brush away a layer of dust on the frame’s glass.
“He said it was too expensive to get the picture.” Mac stared down at it, tears gathering. “Didn’t he? Didn’t he?” He bit down hard on his lower lip to choke back the sobs as much as he could.
But here it was. He had to have misremembered, right?
Mac lay back down against the pillow, gazing up at the framed photo with a sense of awe, a sense of reverence, a sense of love.
And he swore he could smell the scent of Windsong, strong in the air of his bedroom.
“I should feel sad,” Mac said aloud, sliding his legs out of bed to plant them on the carpeted floor. “And I do.” He stood up and peered outside. “And yet I feel lucky… lucky to have had her and to have the love that’s with me even now.”
He looked out his window at the bright summer day. It was as though the world hadn’t gotten wind of Grandma’s departure. The sun streamed brightly down. Big puffy clouds dotted the sky. Through the screen, Mac could smell fresh-mown grass and hear a chorus of early morning birdsong. Somewhere, a couple of lots over maybe, someone was running their lawn mower, and its buzz was oddly comforting and homey, despite the early hour. Birds twittered in the maple next to the trailer.
It was only a little after six, and Aunt Virginia wasn’t due to pick him up for calling hours until ten.
He remembered the woods from his dream. He slipped on shorts, sneakers, and a T-shirt and then headed toward the front door.
Outside it was hot. But the heat didn’t deter him. He headed around to the back of the trailer, where, just behind the storage shed, a trail led sharply downhill into the forest.
Mac estimated that, even this early in the morning, the temperature must be at least in the upper eighties, if not the lower nineties. Sweat immediately broke out on his forehead. His armpits were damp. There was a low insect hum all around him. As he descended deeper into the forest, the treetops swayed above, and it grew darker.
He came upon the creek he remembered from his childhood. He used to wade in its tea-colored water and could recall the icy shock, no matter the heat of the day, when he would dip his feet into the stream. He didn’t feel like wading today, but he found the trunk of a fallen tree and sat down to rest on it.
He felt Grandma all around him. In the songs of the birds. The buzz of the insects. Even in the whisper of the leaves when a breeze saw fit to whisper through. The two had never spent much time down here together, but he could always look back and see the beige aluminum hulk of the trailer, perched on the hilltop at the forest’s entrance. It felt like Grandma was watching.
And as he sat there, mosquitoes diving for the moisture in his eyes, the sweat running in rivulets down his neck from his hairline, he realized something about the dream he’d had earlier. That dream hadn’t taken place in the wooded beauty of Seattle’s Ravenna Park but right here. Of course it was here. This was home. This was his place. This, where he’d run from, breathless, up the hill when Grandma called him to come to lunch—chipped ham sandwiches, potato chips, and cherry Kool-Aid, his favorite.
These woods represented everything good about growing up. In spite of him losing his parents and his less-than-stellar academic life and his disappointing love life, these woods were always here for him. They offered a nonjudgmental, comforting embrace he could rely on.
Mac stood, brushed the dirt from the seat of his pants, and started back toward the path. He’d made a decision.
AUNT VIRGINIA was to pick him up a little after nine for the wake. Mac spent the time getting ready, showering, shaving, and simply making himself presentable for the many friends and relatives who would come to call. He felt a little bad that he didn’t have a suit to wear—he didn’t own one—but knew Gram wouldn’t have been upset with him in his khakis, button-down blue Oxford shirt, and blue-and-navy bow tie.
To fortify himself, he prepared a big breakfast of pancakes, eggs, and bacon, just as Gram had always insisted on whenever he “came home.” In the smells that filled the kitchen from his cooking, Mac could feel his grandmother’s presence.
BEFORE HE knew it, he heard the three short horn blasts in the driveway that signaled his aunt had arrived.
In the car, Aunt Virginia took a hand off the steering wheel to rustle his hair and ask, “You look sharp! How are you today, my boy?”
He peered at her as she squinted to see the windshield through the smoke from her cigarette. “Actually I’m better than I thought. Better than I thought I’d be.”
She took her eyes off the road for a moment to look at him. “Oh? And why’s that?”
“I took a little walk this morning. You know the woods behind Grandma’s?”
“Oh yes. Very well. Pretty. I’m too old, and my lungs don’t draw in enough breath to get up and down them hills anymore. But when Grace first moved in out here, the two of us used to love to walk in those woods, believe it or not. Sometimes we’d even bring along a picnic. Bologna sandwiches, pickles, and beer!” She snorted out a laugh that could also have been a sob. “Classy broads, us. Nothing but the finest!”
Virginia’s eyes went dreamy, and Mac knew she was recalling happier times.
They were both quiet for a long while as they rolled by the tree-covered hills, foothills of the Appalachians.
“I walked deep into the woods, almost to where it got so thick the sun didn’t shine through,” Mac said. He paused for a moment, unsure how Aunt Virginia would feel about what he had to confess next. “And I felt her. All around me. If I closed my eyes, I could see, kind of on the backs of my eyelids, her face. And she was smiling, Aunt.” Mac sighed. “I realized then that even though her body isn’t with us anymore, that doesn’t mean she’s gone. Does that seem weird?”
Virginia smiled and lowered her window to flick her butt out onto the side of the road. “When you get to be my age, Mac, you come to see that’s not weird at all, but completely true. I’ve lost enough folks I loved to know this. People we love always live on in our hearts.”
“Dogs too?”
Virginia snorted. “Yeah, dogs too. What makes you mention dogs? My sister could be a bitch, but—”
Mac burst into laughter and cut his aunt off right there. “You can just stop right now, Aunt Virginia. Don’t you dare say anything bad about my gram. I mentioned dogs because I had one. Back in Seattle? He was the sweetest beagle, and his name was B—” Mac stopped abruptly. “And his name was Hamburger.”
He looked out the window. They were on River Road now, and the Ohio, brown and languid, flowed alongside them. A barge, filled with mounds of gravel, moved barely perceptibly on the water. “And his name was Hamburger. He’s not mine anymore, not really. He never really belonged to me in the first place. But I loved him so much, and just like with Grandma, I understand
now that love doesn’t really ever go anywhere, even when we’re separated from the people—and yes—the dogs we love.”
“He sounds nice. Where is he now?”
And Mac just blurted it out. Seconds before he said it, he wasn’t even sure he would utter the words, but then they came, strong and true. Undoubtable. “He’s with a guy I might be falling in love with. He’s a sweetheart.” Mac closed his eyes.
Virginia put her turn signal on, waiting to make a left into the funeral home parking lot. “Who?” Virginia asked, distracted. “The dog?”
“Well, yeah, of course. But I meant the guy.” And he had a quick image of Flynn in his head then, his blue eyes and the wonderful contrast they made with his black lashes. He saw him on his sun-dappled sheets, eyes just fluttering open.
Virginia pulled into the parking lot, and Mac was heartened to see it was almost full. People were streaming into Walker’s, the only funeral home in town. “So you finally gonna settle down with a fella?” She put the car in park and lit another cigarette. “It’s about time. You’re not gettin’ any younger, son!”
“Oh, I don’t know, Aunt Virginia.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? Grace and I have been wondering why you’ve never found anybody to love. Nice-looking boy like you with so much to offer.”
“Thanks. I said I don’t know because I think I might come back here.”
Virginia swiveled her head to look at him. “Why on earth would you wanna do that?”
And Mac wondered himself.
Yet, yet…. Seattle had never been home for him. Not really. Sure, it was beautiful. Cosmopolitan yet always close to nature. But being here now, in the place where he’d grown up, he felt a pull back to the river valley and the tree-covered hills rising up around it. Starting over didn’t seem like such a bad idea. “This is home,” Mac said in the end, simply. “Maybe it’s where I belong.” And maybe it’s where reminders of Grandma are strong all around me. And… there are no reminders of a dog I loved. “I’m pretty sure she’s left the trailer to me.”