The air inside seemed listless and dank, and it was almost as if the trailer were leaning to one side, as if it hadn’t been settled right or had begun to sag. And there, on a worn couch with lumpy cushions was a man beneath a single tattered blanket.
Dale had to blink, absently taking Rebecca’s hand when she scooted up next to him, and reached up for his hand.
“Is that your dad?” he asked, his voice thin.
In spite of the bruised look of the man’s face, the aching thinness of shoulders where the blanket wasn’t covering him, Dale knew the man. It was Pete Branson, who Dale had known back in his school days. They’d been best friends since junior high and that feeling had only deepened during their high school years.
The summer of their senior year, when Pete had been planning to go to local two-year college in Cheyenne, while Dale worked on the family cattle ranch, Dale’s feelings had begun to grow. From shy acknowledgement that he liked boys to a full blown crush for Pete, he’d tried to keep everything to himself and then had miserably failed when his feelings had developed into a full-out devotion.
He’d always felt that Pete had the same feelings in return, as Pete would welcome Dale with hugs and friendly touches, and always sit by Dale at the baseball games, come to pick him up for swimming in the lake, save the last bite of his Peanut Buster Parfait for Dale at the Dairy Queen on Main Street.
But then Pete had started hanging out with Raynette, a nice enough girl, Dale had figured, at least in the beginning of thatsummer, thinking that Pete would come back to him eventually. But eventually turned into never.
Raynette had gotten pregnant and named Pete as the father, and the two of them got married and moved to Casper and then, even before the baby was born, to Houston, Texas. Which left Dale in a dusty hollow place with only his memories of Pete to keep him company.
That had been just a little over twelve years ago, and now here Pete was, two children in tow, living in a dilapidated trailer. The walls of the trailer were like sieves, and Dale could feel the growing cold outside leaching into the living room, even as he looked at Pete’s still form.
Now he knew why he remembered the old Meyer’s place. It was where Pete had gone from time to time over the years to spend time with his grandparents. That had been when they all lived in a suburb south of Cheyenne, went to school together, and spent their time at the drive-in and the city pool.
He’d never been to the farm Pete’s grandparents owned, but he’d seen pictures, only back then there’d been a cute white two-story farmhouse, a barn, a grain silo. Chickens. Kittens in springtime. There had even been an old-fashioned windmill. Now there was nothing but the trailer and scrap metal littering the yard.
Between then and now, Dale had grown up, saved up, and bought some land outside of Wheatland to raise his small herd of grass-fed Gelbvieh cattle. He had done his best to move on from the sorrow that followed in the wake of Pete’s leaving, though nobody he’d met along the way had ever made him feel the way Pete did. Like he was strong and wonderful and funny and smart. Handsome too, or maybe he’d merely interpreted the way Pete used to look at him.
Pete’d had the face of an angel, fair, easily freckled. Big brown eyes, long-lashed to trap Dale’s heart. Ginger hair. Narrow shoulders. And the sweetest voice, warm, burry whenhe’d whisper to Dale in the front seat of Dale’s dad’s truck when they would go to the drive-in, just the two of them. And that when everyone else they knew would stuff themselves into somebody’s station wagon and treat the event like a tailgate party at a football game.
No, those times he’d spent with Pete, building up to daring to kiss this beautiful boy, they’d always been on their own. Even when they went bowling with their friends as a crowd, it always ended up with him and Pete heading over to the snack bar to share onion rings and a coke. Like nobody else existed. Like they were the only two people in the entire world.
And it had come to this. Pete had come to this. Alone, ill, unable to care for his kids.
CHAPTER 4 - DALE
As to where Raynette was, or why Pete was alone with two little girls was a question that would have to wait. The more important thing was to figure out how to best take care of Pete. Which meant either making the trailer livable by fixing the heating, and checking the windows to make sure they were all closed properly. Apply a bottle of Pine-Sol to get rid of the musty, moldy smell. Make something to eat for Melanie and Rebecca. Wake Pete up–
Pete sat up as if suddenly aware that there was someone standing over him, and that he and his two little girls were not alone.
“Rebecca?” he asked, rubbing his chest as if holding back a cough. “Melanie?”
“Daddy,” said Melanie. She came close and sat beside him amongst the frowsy flump of cheap blanket. Rebecca came and stood right by her. “A man is here.”
Dale realized he’d never introduced himself to the girls, but he’d been so intent on getting them off the road and out of bad weather that it had gone clean out of his mind.
Now, on top of the absence of that nicety, he was lookingstraight into the tired brown eyes of the boy he’d once loved, a thousand thoughts swirling inside of his brain, memories of starlit nights, and breakfast, just the two of them, at the local Denny’s. And the time he’d leaned forward, determined to brave it out, waiting for the touch of those sweet lips on his.
That’s when the waitress had come by, and that’s when Pete had spotted Raynette. Who, as Dale recalled with a sudden, painful burst of clarity, had, at that moment, begun her campaign to win Pete over. A girl who, Dale recalled with a dart of pain to his heart, was later rumored to already have been pregnant when she’d fetched up to Pete.
He guessed he couldn’t blame her for trying to fix her life so she’d have a chance in hell to bring those kids up right, but did she have to pick Pete? Did she have to take Pete all the way to Texas and, effectively, cut Pete off from all of his friends, including Dale?
Well, maybe Pete was the father, and maybe he wasn’t. But that didn’t matter now. What did matter was that Dale had to make a decisions and that right quick, as to whether he’d fix up the trailer, heat up a frozen pizza, dose Pete with some Theraflu, and leave–
Or.
Or he was going to pack them all into his truck and take them home with him. His small white farmhouse was tight as a drum, stocked with supplies, and could shelter them all. A blizzard was coming, and by nightfall the roads would be slick with ice and everywhere would be covered with six inches of snow, or maybe more, depending on how hard the wind blew everything into drifts.
“Hey, Pete, it’s me. Dale.” Dale crouched by the couch in the same way he’d crouched down next to Melanie and Rebecca on that snow-strewn road. “How long have you been sick? Is it a bad cold or something worse?”
“Flu, I think.” Pete’s doubled over cough, punctuated by him clasping his chest, made up Dale’s mind for him.
“Do you remember me?” Dale asked, just to be sure.
