Paul glances at me. “How long are you going to be back for?” His voice sounds stiff.
I hesitate before I reply. “Tonight. And tomorrow.” I fib just a little.
He slows his steps just a little.
I look ahead of us, suddenly realizing we’re pretty far from Eckert’s and where I parked. “Where are we going?”
“I don’t know.” He stops. “I was just walking. Following you.”
There’s an easiness between us right then, shy grins. So we go back, retrace our steps. I’d borrowed my brother’s truck, and I sense Paul’s hesitation behind me when he doesn’t see my bike. But it’s too cold for the bike, and I’d needed Glen’s truck.
After a quiet and not completely uncomfortable drive, I park in front of the apartment building. I can tell from how he lingers he wants to come up, but he doesn’t want to ask. So, I invite him up and he gets to see all the boxes and the few things still unpacked. I’d meant to be further along than this, but I had to see him. And maybe I’d subconsciously wanted him to see my place all boxed up. Let him figure it out on his own.
He sits on my crappy recliner, and I take the sofa. He looks around, trying to hide the obvious disappointment on his face.
I offer him a beer from the icebox, but he says no. I light up a cigarette. “I won’t need a lot of this stuff.” I touch the toe of my boot to the coffee table. “Probably just give most of it away.”
He nods, pushes up his glasses.
I almost ask him if he wants any of it, but that’s pointless, so I say, “I think I’ll keep renting the garage, though. For a little while longer. So, I’ll have to come into town.”
He nods again.
The difference in him I’d noticed before is gone now. Now he’s back to being the Paul I know. The Paul I knew. The one before he came looking for me, bringing a Jell-O mold, a pastel purple suitcase, and his heart.
“Hey.”
He looks over at me.
I don’t say what I want to say; the words get lodged somewhere in my throat and different ones come out. “You want to come by in the morning? I mean, if you don’t have to work? I could use some help.”
The look on his face nearly makes me crack and tell him right then. It’s not so much a surprise as it is an admission, a way for me to make things right between us once and for all. I’m not sure how he’ll react, though. What his answer will be. I just know that there is nothing in this world that is worth having if you don’t have to risk something to get it.
“Yeah, okay,” he says after a minute.
I stare at him, the words on the tip of my tongue, but that’s going to have to wait. Later.
He stays for a while longer. We don’t talk about much, mostly about his new job, before he excuses himself and goes back over to his aunt’s.
I close the door behind him, knowing I can open it again.
See, I just didn’t think about it.
Didn’t even cross my mind.
But one day there was a cloud of red dirt behind this shiny green Ford coming up our drive. By the time it got to the front of the house, it wasn’t so shiny and didn’t look so green. The square that got out of it said he was a lawyer. He had all these papers and an air of importance. He shook mine and Glen’s hands, tipped his hat to our mother, and sat with us at our kitchen table.
It was the exact place I’d told my mother and Glen about Jimmy just a few days earlier. And, if spirits are real, my father probably listened in. Afterward, I felt as if all the blood and bones had left my body. That secret gave me structure, held me up, it was something to lean on. But once it was out of me, once it wasn’t mine anymore, I felt like a dried-up creek. They sat at the kitchen table and mourned with me, the loss of Jimmy and what could have been, but there was no blame. No accusations. I didn’t know how to process the relief I felt. So, I’d just sort of reconciled it all in my own mind. Came to a compromise with myself. As long as I was welcome, I’d stay.
And I was still welcome even after that. After the three of us decided to go to Jimmy’s grave and just be there together for a time. In the sunshine. In the middle of the day. None of us spoke, but there were birds. My mother replaced the flowers with fresh ones. Glen removed his hat. I stood to the side and thought about how it was a day Jimmy would never see. More days had passed with him dead than with him alive. And I had the faintest feeling that he was looking down on me from somewhere, shaking his head with a smirk, mumbling to himself as to why I’d let the cat out of the bag now. Huh, Ash? But he’s smirking because he knows why, and he’s glad the three of us are together again. Even though we’re missing pieces.
And so the lawyer sat at the confession table with a confession of his own. He explained it all in legal jargon none of us were familiar with, but it was the check he signed over to me and the one he signed over to Glen. That was the thing that changed it all. My mother didn’t seem the least bit surprised. She barely batted an eye at the five numbers being offered to me. My eyes swam and my heart pounded. She probably saw my unasked question written all over my face.
“Don’t you see, Asher?” she’d said to me, her voice heartfelt, her eyes beaming. “He knew you’d find your way home again.”
I didn’t want it at first. I tried to sign it over to her, then to Glen. Both of them refused. So, I said I just wouldn’t deposit the money. How could he have thought to leave me anything? I’d left. I’d gone away without a goodbye. It didn’t make sense. It must be some kind of mistake. I wrote to the lawyer, called him up, but it wasn’t a mistake. Every single penny of that money was really, truly mine.
Then, late at night, as I tried to sleep, an idea began to form. It was just a little acorn of a thought at first, but soon it grew into a full-blown tree with bright leaves and strong limbs.
