“About three hours?” said Clay. “Maybe four in this weather. It’ll be just about dinnertime when we get to the ranch. You’ll like it there. The food is good, and it’s quiet.”
Austin nodded but didn’t say anything, and remained watchful the whole time Clay drove them along the road and onto I-25, which, just like every afternoon, was turning into a parking lot. By the time Clay reached Exit 221, he’d had enough of the stop-and-go traffic and so turned onto 104thStreet.
“Why aren’t we going on the highway the whole way?” asked Austin.
“I hate highways, especially this one,” said Clay. “We’re going to take a nice little backroad, it’ll be great. Maybe we can pick up some coffee along the way from one of those little in-and-out coffee shops. Sound good?”
“Sure,” said Austin, though again, the tone of his voice told Clay it simply didn’t matter to Austin what they did.
There was a kind of hangdog air about him, a dimness to his eyes. Not quite passive, but resigned. He must have gone through the wringer with that divorce, and this was what was left of him. Sometimes, marriage seemed like a hell Clay would never willingly enter, and Austin was proof of that.
5
Austin
As Austin had imagined that the rain wasn’t coming down very hard, and as his winter coat was stuck in the POD in a storage facility on 58thstreet, he’d made do with his windbreaker, the one Mona had purchased with a keen desire that he take up golfing so she could hang out at the Cherry Creek Golf Club bar.
The golf lessons Mona signed him up for had been a failure, as Austin had always been too distracted by the lush green of the course itself, and how the edges of the trees cut sharp lines into the Colorado sky.
The golf clubs were probably still in the closet in the house that was now all Mona’s, and the only remainder of the golf experience was the beige windbreaker. Which was proving to be completely inadequate for a mid-June rainstorm. Which meant that by the time he’d received Leland’s phone call and watched as a yellow truck pulled up at just about the same time, he was chilled through, feeling a little like he’d been standing on a rock overlooking a tumbled sea, being dashed by waves.
His life was not hard, but right then, as the truck parked right next to the office of the Motel 6, he felt hard done by. A little bit battered and a whole lot cold and tired. And not thinking straight because if he had been, then when a young man in a cowboy hat stepped out of the truck and smiled at him, he would not have felt like he’d been showered with sunlight. A lemon gold array of sunbeams and sunflowers and blue cornflowers.
In addition to all of this, the young cowboy had a black eye and a split lip, which added to this magical aura a sense of grit and danger. Should Austin actually be letting such an obvious ruffian drive him all the way to Wyoming?
Austin must be exhausted, pure and simple, to be thinking such thoughts when the remains of his life had been torn into a million pieces, flakes of ash, which were still swirling, grey and pain-tinged, all around him.
The young man came toward him and offered his hand for Austin to shake, which he did, feeling a tad unbalanced. When the young man introduced himself as Clay and that he was from the ranch, the words washed over Austin as he took in the yellow truck, thinking only about where he’d store his luggage so it’d be safe from the rugged weather as they drove.
Clay took care of the suitcases, eager and energetic, and then slipped into the driver’s seat. There was nothing for it but for Austin to slip into the passenger seat, where he tucked his backpack between his legs and buckled himself. As Clay started the engine, the warmth from the truck’s heaters washed over him in another way, an enveloping way, that made his muscles ache as he became warm all the way through.
Clay drove out of the parking lot and, at some speed, joined the traffic on I-25 headed north. At this time of day on a Sunday there weren’t a lot of vehicles on the road, but as always, there was a melee at the junction. And while he might have been worried, remembering Mona’s urging him to get in the fast lane, always, so he could show off his new Mercedes Benz, Clay drove smooth and sure, sticking to the middle lane. His hands were steady on the wheel as the windshield wipers swept back and forth across the glass, hypnotizing Austin to where all he wanted to do was cry like a baby and fall asleep, never to wake up again.
It was only when Clay took the exit onto 104thStreet that Austin thought to question Clay. The answer, something about taking the back highway, lulled Austin back into his stupor where memories and regretted words swirled around the painful jagged place where lingered his sorrow and worry over Bea. She was his only child, maybe the only one he’d ever have, and though he knew, logically, that he’d not done anything wrong, he was wholly responsible for the tears in her eyes as his taxi had pulled away.
“Want some coffee?” asked Clay. “It’s real good here. Or at least it was last time I came this way.”
Blinking as he did his best to focus, Austin looked at Clay, and then at the storefront of a little shop called Martha Sue’s Cookies. He could have sworn they’d passed at least two Starbucks along the way, and yet Clay had stopped here for the coffee he’d promised Austin earlier.
“Yes, please,” said Austin.
He clambered out when Clay did, sniffing in the crisp rainy air laced with diesel fumes that built in him a sense of longing for a home he’d never had. Then, shivering again in his windbreaker, he mindlessly followed Clay inside to the small shop whose well-shined linoleum checkerboard floor glittered almost too brightly to be borne. He felt like he was wincing as he gave his order and reached too slowly for his wallet as Clay paid for both their drinks.
“Here’s yours,” said Clay as he handed Austin his drink. “Be careful, it’s hot. Blonde mocha, no whip, huh?”
“Yes,” said Austin, unable to muster the energy to explain that while he enjoyed fancy sugary coffee and had taken up this particular drink at Mona’s encouragement, he didn’t really know now what kind of coffee he enjoyed. Maybe at the ranch there would be something new he could try. “Thank you.”
He followed Clay back outside where the rain had taken on an urgent, almost aggressive slant. He was cold by the time Clay started the engine and turned the heater on high, and sat shivering as he drank his coffee, blinking almost with astonishment as the caffeine rushed into his system.
Right about this time, had he been with Mona, and had they together stopped at such a place as Martha Sue’s Cookies rather than a Starbucks, Mona would be giving him a piece of her mind. No, Mona would be giving himseveralpieces of her mind, though she’d take back every other one, wary, perhaps, of upsetting Bea in the back seat, but still going on in that way she had, shrill, strident, opinionated.
“Are you warm enough?” asked Clay as he pulled out of the parking lot and back onto Highway 85, headed north. “You’re shivering.”
“Thank you, I’m good,” said Austin. He sipped his drink, wincing at the hot liquid, at the sugar on his tongue.
Sometimes, coffee was just too much when a nice, cold beer would have been better. He wasn’t much of a drinker, though he loved the crisp coldness of a beer. Mona never liked beer, didn’t like for him to drink it, either. To her, the only acceptable drinks were the expensive kind, like she saw influencers making on YouTube and Instagram. But enough about thoughts of her.
Clay drove along, steady hands on the wheel, keeping to the right-hand lane. The windshield wipers set a predictable beat that lulled Austin into a deep doze where his full-hearted attempts to talk with Mona about what was going on between them mixed in a dizzy dance with their happy times during the early years of their marriage.
