“There you boys are.” Tilly hurried toward them, a broad smile on her face. “Now, look at that little birdy,” she chirped, picking up one of Colton’s battered turkeys. “Ain’t he just a funny-looking fella, this one?” she laughed. “Oh, and look at this little guy?” She cooed, picking up the bird’s even uglier twin. Placing the two birds in the center of the table, she adjustedtheir—beaks?—slightly, taking them in, arms crossed across her chest. “Don’t they just look cute together, boys? Like two little lovebirds, dontcha think?” Brushing at her right eye, she squeezed Henry’s shoulder. “He did good, your man.” If Finn didn’t know that it was physically impossible, he could’ve sworn that the veterinarian grew a few inches as he, too, took in the pair of perfectly imperfect birds.
*****
“Well, you’re practically a Nebraskan now,” Hank hummed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down from swallowing the beer.
“Yeah? How so?” They were sitting on the porch, staring out into the dark, the outline of the pine trees only a faint shadow against the sky. As their white breath danced in front of them, Finn felt the weariness from a long day ending with a Thanksgiving dinner filled with townsfolk settling in his bones.
“Surviving one of Til’s dinners, mingling with townies, sitting next to Pastor Midlake’s wife, of all people… Jeez, that woman can talk. Til ain’t got nothin’ on her. You get the whole family tree, too?”
“Yeah, all the cousins and the great-grandfather from Sweden.”
“You did good, kid.” Hank nodded, his boots resting on the porch railing in front of them.
“Why, thank you, Mr. Dietrich,” Finn smiled ceremoniously. “I feel different, too,” he teased. “Born again Nebraskan and all.” Hank chimed in with a deep, hearty laugh before taking another sip.
For a few minutes, the quiet of the late November night stretched out between them as they sipped their beer. Imagine December was just around the corner. He couldn’t help but wonder if Hank had a Christmas tree. He kind of hoped that he did. As overwhelming as tonight had been, he’d felt mostlycomfortable, placed right across from Hank at the table, feeling his familiar hazel eyes grounding him whenever he felt himself drifting. Finn couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in the company of that many people. Well, he could. It’d been Cara’s eighteenth birthday and his mom had gone all in, inviting friends and family from near and far. He’d never been a fan of social gatherings like that, preferring when it was just him and his parents and Cara. But somehow tonight had been different. Every time he’d felt the panic rise inside of him, his gaze had searched and found Hank’s across the table, and he’d felt this invisible power grounding him immediately, preventing him from spinning out of control. Like two blocks of lead were tethered to his ankles, making it impossible for him to drift off like he usually would.
“You should open a clinic, young man,” the pastor’s wife had cooed mid-pumpkin pie. “Or go into business with young Henry.” It wasn’t the first time that people around town had made similar suggestions.
“You should take it as a compliment,” Hank had told him once when he’d recounted being flanked by Ms. Costa in the dairy section. “If they didn’t want ya to stick around, you’d know. Folk around town ain’t subtle about these things.”Do you want me to stick around?He’d wanted to ask, but he didn’t want to put Hank on the spot like that.
“How come you aren’t home, Finn? With your people.” Hank shifted next to him, his beer-scented breath hitting him.
“I… I don’t know.” At one point, he’d known, but with time, the reasons had blurred together. That night in the car. The increasing desperation in Cara’s voice when she realized she couldn’t feel her legs. That day in the hospital when the doctor had given them his two cents of wisdom that always—no matter how you looked at it—amounted to the conclusion that Cara would never walk, run, and dance again. Not ever. And then,those small fragments of a conversation that he wished to God that he’d never overheard.‘I don’t know if I can. Every time I look at him… I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive…’You couldn’t forgive something like that. That was the reason, wasn’t it?Theycouldn’t.
“You must miss them, is all,” Hank muttered, playing with the label on his beer. He felt fear rising inside. Had Hank not meant it when he’d offered he could stay for the winter? Was he done with him, bored with him, by now?
“Look, if you want me gone, all you have to do is say so, and I’ll be out of your hair.” Anger. That was better. Anger always felt so much better than fear. Fear was all-consuming, whereas anger was fleeting, and afterward he always felt this strange sense of relief. Never lasted long, though.
“Now, don’t be stupid, kid. Why would I want ya gone? What kinda dumb-ass question is that?” There was no annoyance in Hank’s voice. He spoke the words quietly, matter-of-factly. Some days Finn wondered if Hank could even get mad or if it was a concept so foreign to him that he couldn’t muster that feeling. Another thing that made him like Hank even more. He never raised his voice in anger. He never yelled. “I was just wondering, is all.” And there it was again, wasn’t it? The vulnerability that just spoke to the vulnerability inside Finn. The lilt in Hank’s voice that made him raw, and wanted him to tell Hank about himself. The small hum that made Finn want to shed this skin of pretend and the bullshitI’m fines.
“My sister Cara is—was—a dancer,” he started. “And… she wasn’tjusta dancer, you know. No, it was more than that. She had this God-given gift, you know. When she moved across the stage, you’d forget everything else around you. Only the music and her slight figure blowing, twirling, flying across the floor would matter. Like she’d set you free with one small dip of herchin or sway of her hand.” Taking another sip of his beer, he spoke out into the night.
“Cara is ten years younger than me. I’m adopted. My parents had long given up hope of having a child of their own when they adopted me. And then, ten years later, Cara came along and from the day she was born—fuck, even before that—she became everything to me. Like this shining star, you know. Mine to hold, to love, to keep. To protect,” he croaked. She had been, hadn’t she? Everything had felt like a new beginning after she was born. Like with one stroke of an invisible paintbrush, everything was wiped clean.Poof, it’s gone.
“Was?” Hank whispered next to him. “What happened to her?”
“I looked away. One night, eight years ago, for one stupid moment, I looked away and…” A hollow laugh escaped him, the image of that night so vivid, so clear in his mind. “I came away with a few scars, you know. Just… just cuts and bruises here and there.” Brushing at the pale scar across his eyebrow, bile rose from his stomach, the sour taste reaching his mouth. “Cara wasn’t that lucky. She was paralyzed from the waist down.”
“Finn…”
“No, not you, too, Hank. I don’t want to hear those fucking words coming out of your mouth.Notfrom you. That’s not who we are.” He sensed Hank nodding next to him, then his heavy palm landed on his thigh, a simple gesture instead of the words he wasn’t allowed to speak.
“So, you just left?”
“I did.”
“And you’ve never spoken to any of them again?”
“No. It was… The accident changed everything. Like there’s a before when everything was just… I don’t know…golden.Right. And then, in a split-second, everything was just flipped over, and I woke up to an entirely different reality.”
“Yeah, I get that. But accidents happen, kid.”
“I know. ButIwas the one driving.Iwas the one who looked away.”
“Finn…” Hank’s hand squeezed around his thigh, a silent message penetrating his jeans. An almost unbearable itch spread across his skin. He didn’t deserve this. He didn’t deserve Hank’s understanding. Why was he always so fucking understanding?
“Cara will never walk again, run again, dance again, because of me!” He got up from the chair, pacing to the other end of the porch. “She was supposed to go to New York. She had a fucking scholarship. She was the most vibrant, beautiful creature, and then I took it all away from her. I was like that fucking… that bird that doesn’t belong. Somehow, it sneaked its way into the nest, pretending to be something it’s not, something it was never born to be, and then…”
