“Agreed.” After a beat, I went in with the real reason for my call. “Hey, Mom. My buddy Hendrix had a health scare and is back in Seguin. I’m coming into town for at least tonight, maybe a couple of days. Do you mind if I stay in your guest room?”
Her soft inhale told me how much this meant to her. “Of course you can. Your father and I would love for you to stay here. You’re always welcome.”
I let out a sigh. Mom and Dad had not exactly been supportive when I’d come out to them in my first year of college, and we had more or less stopped talking to each other.
Thankfully, Truman and Evangeline, my brother and sister, had my back, as did their spouses. When they started having kids, they made sure I was welcomed to all family events. I began to visit Seguin more regularly, and after a few awkward encounters, my parents and I began speaking again. The fact that we’d progressed to the point I felt comfortable asking to stay at their house was huge.
Mom and I ended the call, and I hit the road.
Ozzie opened the door, concern marking his features. “Come on in. He’s in the guest room.”
Needing no further invitation, I made my way through his house, careful to be quiet. Hendrix was curled up on Ozzie’s guest bed, illuminated by moonlight through the blinds. He looked so pale and small that my heart ached for him.
I went to his side and knelt next to the bed, watching his narrow shoulders rise and fall on breaths that smelled sour and seemed too shallow. His normally shiny hair was greasy and overgrown. Nothing was more telling, however, than the ragged condition of his cuticles and the chips in his black nail polish. Hen pridedhimself on a fresh manicure, and I’d never seen his nails look like this before.
I brushed a kiss on his cheek and then walked back to the living room, where Ozzie was waiting for me.
“He looks like he belongs in the hospital,” I said, unable to keep the waver out of my voice.
Ozzie’s jaw clenched. “He wouldn’t let me take him.”
“I know a good concierge doctor. I’ll see if she can be here tomorrow,” I said, shooting off a quick text to my friend.
“Good.” Ozzie’s rough voice betrayed his emotions. “I know it’s stupid, but… did you see how bad his nails were?”
I bit the inside of my cheek, willing myself to keep it together. “Yeah. I’ll, uh… We’ll figure out his health, and then I’ll take care of the rest.”
“Okay, and I’m calling Ren in the morning. Hen’s not fucking going back out on the road.”
My phone buzzed in my pocket. “No,” I said, checking the screen. I showed Ozzie Dr. Ahmed’s confirmation. “He’s not going anywhere.”
We said our goodbyes, and I headed to my parents’ house, haunted by the image of Hen, so fragile in that bed.
My parents were waiting for me on the front porch, and we exchanged hugs. It was late for them, but Mom insisted that we take a detour to the kitchen for Dad’s homemade cowboy cookies and milk.
As I tucked into the delicious baked goods, I thought about how my mother had reached out to Hendrix’s mom, Portia, for adviceon how to be supportive of a gay son. I’d always thought that’d been a really brave move on her part.
Things with Dad had required more of a nudge. After Mr. Paige passed away, my mother had offered me her condolences and invited me to lunch at our favorite Jim’s location in San Antonio. She’d surprised me by arriving with my father. A man of few words, he’d pulled me into a hug and said how sorry he was for my loss.
That had surprised a few tears out of me. His eyes had also been suspiciously red, but both of us had kept it together, because that’s what the Finch men did.
Still, the choice of restaurant had been a sentimental one. Both my father and I had lucrative careers. We could’ve easily gone to any number of high-end restaurants, but I suspected Jim’s had been his suggestion because their waffles had been my favorite ever since I was a kid. He’d gone with nostalgia rather than a big financial outlay.
That simple gesture carried a world of weight and healing. After, Dad had started emailing me his favorite recipes. We didn’t talk or text much, but those recipes were his way of connecting with me.
I’d once mentioned that cowboy cookies were my go-to comfort food, and I was deeply touched that he’d made them for me. I downed three as I gave my parents an abbreviated explanation of what was going on.
Once we’d caught up on Mom’s test results and had put a sufficient dent in the cookies, they walked with me to their guest room. My mother’s love of florals and lace was evident, but the decor was carefully curated, and I kissed her forehead, offeringthanks as I accepted a brief hug from Dad. They seemed to pick up on the fact that I needed to be alone, and we said our good nights.
I opened the closet to hang up my garment bag, and my mother’s myriad sewing projects flew from the shelves as if they’d been spring-loaded. I organized them and put them back so they were visible but not a risk to innocent bystanders.
I should have left it at that, but her sewing notions were an entire mess. Kinda like my head. She had an organizer that she’d ignored in favor of dumping gnarled-up spools of thread, all sorts of needles, and knotted piles of embroidery floss into a bin. I spent half an hour unpicking everything, then placed each item in its appropriate section.
I then snuck down to the garage and grabbed a couple of large, flattened Amazon boxes that my father had neatly stacked in the organization area of his garage, quickly putting them back together with the shipping tape he’d hung on his precisely outlined pegboard.
Spotting his label maker, I grabbed it and went inside .
Once I’d affixed labels to the notions drawers, I pulled the clothes I hadn’t worn in over a decade out of the closet. I folded them into precise squares and stored them in the boxes, which I set aside to take to Lupe the next chance I got.
