Interlude: Cavatina

by Bauer, Tal

  * * *

  14

  Washington DC

  New Year’s Day - 2100 Hours

  Simplicity won out in the end.

  “I want it to be about us. Us coming together. I don’t care about anything else.”

  “Are you sure?” Mike had asked a hundred times. “We’re only getting married once. I’m not planning on two weddings in my life. Let’s make sure this is right.”

  “It is right.” Tom had kissed him a hundred times in response. “It’s us. There’s nothing that could be wrong about that.”

  They decided on New Year’s Day. Starting the year right, they said. And simple. The thousands they could have spent on a big wedding were put toward airfare to Tahiti, two weeks on a private beach, and a cabana over the water.

  They decided on a courtroom. Tom’s courtroom. Judge Dana Juarez, Tom’s friend, agreed to preside.

  Only the accent lights were on, warm orange stripes at the floor casting a glow up the maple walls. Candles flickered, resting on the railing around Tom’s bench, on the jury box, and the witness stand. Serenity. Perfection.

  Kris, Dawood, and Behroze were there. Kris and Dawood held hands, and each of them had a hand on Behroze’s shoulder as he stood before them. The teen was beaming, looking from Tom and Mike and then back over his shoulder to Kris and Dawood. “Was this what your wedding was like?” Mike heard him whisper loudly.

  Dylan Ballard was there, and Deputy Marshal Rob Villegas and Chief Marshal Winters. Etta Mae sat before Winters, freshly bathed and sporting a pink bandana. Her tail wagged fiercely, watching everything with her tongue hanging out. Since it was after hours, they’d been able to sneak her in for the ceremony.

  Dylan pinned Tom’s boutonniere on his jacket and squeezed his shoulders.

  Kris slipped Mike the rings. “Hanging in there, meathead?”

  Mike couldn’t breathe. The world had gone thin, the edges blurred. A train was roaring somewhere, heading straight for him. He held his breath, exhaled shakily. The wobbliness passed, but not the breathlessness. The way he felt like he was about to skydive or freefall from the moon. “Are you supposed to feel like this? Terrified and excited all at once?”

  Dawood laughed. “Yes. That’s exactly how you’re supposed to feel. Alhamdullilah, this is perfect.”

  Mike exhaled again, hard. He picked at his suit jacket, at his lapels. Dusted his sleeves of lint that wasn’t there. Smoothed his pompadour.

  “Gentlemen,” Judge Juarez said. “Shall we begin?”

  Mike stood before Tom and Judge Juarez and took Tom’s hands. Tom beamed at him, smiling as wide as he’d ever seen him. Wider than when he told Tom he loved him. Wider than when he came back to Mike, when he said he had to be with him and nothing else mattered, nothing in the world, beyond how perfect they were together.

  “Thomas Brewer.” Her voice was strong, filling the courtroom. A candle flame flickered behind Tom’s head. The world narrowed until all Mike saw was Tom, Tom’s glow, Tom’s smile. Tom’s eyes staring into his own. Happiness, radiant joy, and wonder gazed back at him, reflected in the candlelight. Was that Tom’s joy or his own? Or was it shared? “Do you take Michael Lucciano to be your lawfully wedded husband, from this day forth, for as long as you both shall live?”

  “I do,” Tom said. He squeezed Mike’s hands.

  “Michael Lucciano. Do you take Thomas Brewer to be your lawfully wedded husband, from this day forth, for as long as you both shall live?”

  “I definitely do.”

  Mike pulled his hand free of Tom’s and fished the rings from his pants pocket. He passed one to Tom, and then grabbed Tom’s hand. He held his breath. His hands shook. Tom stroked his thumb over his palm.

  “With these rings, you will seal your love for each other. They will represent your union and the promises and commitments you make here today forevermore.” Judge Juarez nodded at Mike.

  He slid the ring on Tom’s finger. His vision blurred. He blinked fast and a tear slid down his cheek.

  Tom wiped it away.

  Then it was Tom’s turn. He took Mike’s hand and drew it to his lips, kissing his fingers, his palm. Another tear slid from Mike’s eye, and then another. Tom smiled, mouthing I love you as he slid the wedding ring on Mike’s finger.

  “Tom and Mike,” Judge Juarez said. She smiled. “By the power vested in me by the District of Columbia, it is my great honor and my absolute privilege to now pronounce you husband and husband.”

  Applause thundered through the courtroom, and even though there were only six of their friends with them, to Mike it sounded like hundreds, thousands of people, a million happy cheers for their wedding. The world lengthened, stretched, everything around him melting aside from Tom, Tom smiling at him, Tom mouthing I love you again, Tom pulling him closer—

  “Now, please seal your vows with a kiss.”

  Tom cupped Mike’s face, cradling and tugging him the last few inches until their lips joined. He kissed him, the first kiss as Mike’s husband. “I love you,” Tom breathed.

  “Holy shit, we’re married.” Mike leaned into Tom, their foreheads pressed together. He beamed, his cheeks aching. He couldn’t stop smiling.

  Tom laughed and kissed him again. And again. Etta Mae barked. Their friends were still clapping, still cheering.

  “I’m going to wake up, aren’t I?”

  “No, babe.” Tom stroked down Mike’s face, traced his cheekbone with his thumb. “We did it. We’re married.”

  Mike closed his eyes as he held his husband, as he kissed his cheek, his temple, his hair. “Husband,” he breathed into Tom’s ear. “Love that word.”

  “Husband forever,” Tom whispered back.

  They pulled apart reluctantly and smiled at their friends, still clapping and cheering and taking photos on their phones. Etta Mae rushed Tom, leaping up and pawing at his waist. Tom kneeled and let her kiss his face as he scratched her ears and sweet talked her.

  Behroze jumped up and down, looking back and forth between Tom and Mike and Kris and Dawood. “You should get married again,” Behroze said, his eyes sparkling. “You should do it again so I can see it.”

  Dawood ruffled his hair and pulled Behroze close, hugging him and laughing. But over Behroze’s head, Kris and Dawood shared a long, lingering look, their gazes melting in lovesick hopelessness. Mike chuckled. He supposed he looked like that every time he looked at Tom.

  Tom squeezed his hand. “Ready?”

  Their packed bags were in the back of Dylan’s car, ready to head to the airport. In three hours, they’d be on their way to Tahiti. Etta Mae was spending two weeks with Winters, a vacation of couch naps and playtime with his three kids, and lots of begging for slices of cheese.

  Mike threaded their fingers together. He was more than ready for the rest of his life. He’d been ready for it, for this, from the moment he’d met Tom. He’d always been ready for forever with this man. Sunday mornings and waffles and late nights on the couch snapped in his mind, kisses and stolen glances and held hands. Waking up and seeing Tom’s face and kissing him goodnight before they drifted off to sleep. Forever and always.

  He was ready for everything with Tom.

  “Ready.” He squeezed back. “Husband.”

  * * *

  15

  Wyoming

  They flew into Casper, Wyoming’s second-largest city. It was still only a fraction of the size of Jack’s suburban hometown. While Jack’s parents had a ranch, it was more of a play ranch, a large piece of rural property outside of Austin. Close enough for cell reception, as Jack had teased once, and yet far enough to feel like you were in the country.

  In Wyoming, country was all there was.

  They rented a truck at the airport, enduring the wide eyes and the whispers and the finger pointing from the teenagers behind the counter and the herds of vacationers moving through the airport on their way to ranches and ski slopes across the state. Casper had a ski culture, but the snowfall had declined over the year
s, and so had the tourists.

  They went north, driving for hours. Plains rolled by outside the window, and sleepy, snaking creeks, tributaries off the Powder River. Dark water rumbled ever onward beneath chunks of broken ice. Grasslands lay dormant, dusted here and there by a soft layer of snow, the total accumulation for the season barely reaching a foot. Horses bounded in a free-range pen, frolicking. Cows clustered together and chewed on giant rolls of hay, pulling apart the grasses as their tails flicked and swatted.

  “You gotta find the right mix of hay for your herd,” Ethan blurted out.

  The truck was silent, a pressurized silence like a balloon overfilled and ready to pop. Jack was waiting for him, giving him space. He’d let the hum of the truck’s tires on pavement and the soft strum of the radio, tuned to the station he’d grown up on for eighteen years, fill the cabin. These were the sounds of his dad’s truck, day in and day out. Lonely country music, mostly instrumental pieces. I wanna get away from people, his dad had said once when Ethan wanted to listen to some actual singing. Why do I want their voices bouncing around my truck for? ‘Sides, the only voice I wanna listen to is yours. And the only voice I have to listen to is Mr. Hollis. He’d grinned and winked at Ethan, and that was the last time Ethan had tried to play a different station. He’d talked to his dad instead, rambling about school and his dreams and wondering about life.

  You’re going farther than this ranch, son. You’re going farther than this state.

  He’d been to South Dakota once, by then. He’d felt real proud of that. But when the time came to start talking about college, his father had that look in his eyes, that pinched, gut-punch look of shame he’d seen only once before when Ethan had asked about his mother. I tried to save up, his dad had said. But every year, things get more expensive, and it was everything I could do to keep us going. I’m sorry, son. I got nothing for a fancy college.

  He’d never wanted for anything. Warm food, a comfy home, days with his father on the ranch. Enough supplies for school, and a bike that he wore the tires out on ten times. There was no shame in how he was raised, how his dad took care of him.

  So, he came home with papers for the Army instead. You wanted me to go far. Well. This is about as far as you can go.

  But 9/11 had happened, and there were wars raging, and his dad had stayed up all night, smoking on their porch and staring at the fire he’d lit in the pit outside their trailer.

  If this is what you want, he’d said in the morning. If this is what you truly want, I support you. Don’t do this because you think you have to. You do this for the right reasons. Because you believe in it.

  If his dad had given him one thing, it was that bone-deep sense of loyalty, a conviction, like fire in his blood to do the right thing, to see it through, to see that it was done. To leave his mark, however small that was, and leave it good. Do something worthwhile, and proudly. Believe with his whole heart. He wanted to serve and be a part of something bigger than himself.

  Darkness chewed on his thoughts every day, though. He’d already figured out he wanted to roll in the hay with the other hands. His eyes lingered over flannel clad shoulders and on legs encased in jeans, bowlegged from riding horses for years. The scruff of a jawline beneath a cowboy hat made his heart pound, his palms sweat. The other ranch hands had pictures of naked women up in the tack shed, in the trailer office. Mendoza and Carl were all talk, first going on for two weeks about the ladies they were going to woo in the city, and then after pay day, equally as long describing their curves, their lusciousness, their breasts. Jimmy had gotten so worked up from their stories he’d had to stop and beat off behind the west field’s water pump while the others howled, almost falling out of their saddles. Ethan had to pretend to care while he kept his eyes away from Phil’s ass.

  One drunken night and a couple rounds of bluster, and he’d gone all the way with Davey from school, spending the night at Davey’s family’s apartment in town. Horny boys playing games, fooling around, and then Davey was pushing inside of him and he was gritting his teeth, trying to keep from screaming and waking up Davey’s parents on the other side of the apartment wall. Davey wasn’t gay, and Ethan wasn’t straight, and they both thought the night was something other than what it was.

  He wanted to serve and he wanted to escape. He was suffocating under all that big sky and open range and the same fifteen people that made up his world. His father needed only ten people in his entire life, but Ethan needed more.

  And he needed to understand himself, the need in his blood, the itch he couldn’t scratch. He’d driven all the way into Colorado to buy porn magazines once, hiding his face from the cashier at the ramshackle adult video store off the highway. He couldn’t look into her eyes as he bought his first gay magazine. He’d spent an afternoon beating off, tucked onto a dirt road, miles from everywhere, gazing at naked men and taking his time, exploring, fantasizing, examining. Oh yes, that’s what he liked. That’s what he wanted, and lots of it. He’d used his entire two weeks’ pay to afford the gas and the magazines, but what a day that had been.

  He told his dad he wanted to enlist, that he believed in it, in what the Army represented. Service and freedom. He’d have to keep his head down in the military, but he had to keep his head down at home, too, so that was no different. At that time, there had been talk of things changing in the military for guys like him.

  There was never talk of things changing at home.

  I am so proud of you, his dad had said. And I always will be. You hear me? He’d shaken Ethan’s hand, pulled him close. Hugged him for what felt like an hour. I will always be proud of you and I will always, always love you, son.

  If he could turn back time, he’d go to that afternoon. He’d go to that afternoon, standing in their little trailer, washing dishes and talking to the dirty window as his dad drank coffee at the kitchen table. He’d confess, spill his secret, the one that he’d barred away from his dad and that had pushed distance between them after he’d left.

  It was only years later he’d realized that had been his dad’s fumbling way of explaining that he knew, that he didn’t care. That he’d love Ethan to the end of his days.

  But Ethan had clammed up like he always did, then and every year after when his dad asked if he was happy. Never asked about girlfriends or women or wives. Only if he was happy.

  Dad, I’m happy.

  “There’s different kinds of hay?”

  Jack’s voice shattered his memories. He jerked, the truck swerving slightly.

  “Yeah. Yeah, you gotta blend alfalfa and legume. Some grass hay, too. Get the right blend of protein and nutrients without causing bloat in the herd, especially in the dairy cows.”

  “I always thought hay was hay.” Jack smiled softly from the passenger seat. He held out his hand. “Hey, hey, hey,” he teased.

  Ethan laughed. He took his hand and kissed it, then rested their joined hands on his thigh. Jack stroked his thumb over Ethan’s knuckles and watched the road roll by.

  They turned off the highway at a one-stop-sign-town. “This is the closest civilization. We’re still an hour out. Need anything?”

  They stopped at the Cowhand’s Hitching Post Tack, Auto, and General Store for water and hot dogs. Ethan slipped right back into Wyoming’s tempo, the slower steps, the slower speech, the drawl. Jack stuck out like a tourist, his Washington DC city slicker personality blazing like a mosquito light. He had a fleece pullover and a ball cap on, and he looked like he stepped out of an LL Bean ad. The attendant arched his eyebrows at Jack.

  “My husband ain’t from around here.” Ethan smiled when the clerk’s eyes went wide. “Can I get twenty on pump three, ma’am?”

  Pavement turned to dirt roads a mile outside of town, and another hour later, gravel. Another turn, and they wound up a rumbling road, finally pulling up to a rusted, padlocked gate shutting the entrance to Blackberry Creek ranch.

  “Did Marion give you the code?”

  Ethan grinned. “It hasn’t cha
nged in forty years.”

  Sure enough, the same code worked, numbers he and his dad used to make up stories for. It was the code to a secret safe from the Wild West buried on the property, full of gold bars. It was the code to a grid location on a map where bank robbers hid their buried treasure. The code to a secret radio signal. And on and on, as many stories as they could come up with while riding together.

  The ranch was almost like he remembered, except older. And empty. The animals were long gone, and the property was worn through in places. The barn had weathered, slats missing here and there, the paint chipped, flaking in strips from the side. Shingles were cracked and missing. The pens and enclosures choked with overgrown weeds. Fence rails had fallen. Frosty mud clung to the tilted posts.

  The main house was still there, sagging in places, the front porch buckling. The paint was dull, stripped in patches off the north side where the winds came billowing down. There hadn’t been one blemish on the property when Ethan lived at the ranch. If a single piece of paint chipped, they repainted the whole side of the house. Pride in ownership, in upkeep, was part of their duty. They lived there, same as Mr. Hollis. They all wanted their home to look good.

  Ethan parked in front the house. As Jack hopped out of the truck, Ethan pointed down the property line, beyond a grove of bare-limbed fruit trees and empty, snow-frosted crop fields. “See those trailers?” Jack nodded, drawing close to him. “That’s where we lived. My dad, me, and the other full-time ranch hands.”

  Jack slid his hand into Ethan’s.

  Marion had told him to come on in and take a look. She’d pulled everything together for Ethan in the kitchen, she’d said, and he knew where the key was. Ethan flipped the blue mosaic flower pot on the front porch.

  He led Jack inside. The ranch house was dusty, unlived in. Marion said the ranch had gone unattended for a bit. If only he’d known. He’d have come up here. He’d have offered to do something.