Judah walked past him toward the study, a little steadier on his feet since fertilizing the hydrangeas but not as steady as he would’ve liked. His shoulder caught the door frame; he didn't address it. The lights in the hall were off — he didn't turn them on, mostly because he couldn’t remember where the light switch was. He navigated by memory and the ambient glow from outside, and the fact that he'd walked this particular path several thousand times. And yet, still didn’t know where the light switch was. That was an impressive skill — to not know things about your own house.
But that was the way with the wealthy. Until very recently, Judah had had a housekeeper who’d taken care of everything. When he’d gone to work, lights were off, when he’d come back — they were on. Those were the little things he didn’t think of.
Until now. His housekeeper, Anita, had passed, and the knowledge of the light switches had gone with her.
He pulled open the French doors to his study and proceeded toward the shelves behind his desk.
He stood in front of them and ran his finger along the bottles until he found the one he wanted. Tennessee whiskey. The good kind. The kind his father had kept locked behind glass and Judah had still managed to drink anyway.
Billy appeared in the doorway. “You're not serious.”
“About what.”
“About continuing.”
Judah broke the seal. “I'm very serious.”
Billy exhaled through his nose and came in. He dropped into the leather chair across from the desk — not the desk chair, never the desk chair, that was a line Billy had held for twenty-two years for reasons neither of them had ever said out loud — and shook his head. Then — he held out his glass.
Judah poured.
He found the record player without looking. The shelf to the left of the window — his grandfather's, too heavy to move, so it had stayed when everything else was rearranged around it. He didn't look at what was on the platter. He set the needle down.
Nothing Else Matters came out of the speakers and filled the room.
Billy stared at him.
“Metallica,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Coming fromvinyl.” His eyebrows pulled together. “That’s too pretentious even forme, man.”
Judah sank into his chair with a glass in hand. “It's for clarity.”
“Clarity,” Billy repeated. “Because what we need right now is clarity.”
“Exactly.”
The whiskey was different from what they'd been drinking all night — richer, more complex. It wasn't meant to beknocked back like they were doing. It was meant to be savored, contemplated. Judah's father would have had some choice words to say about how they were drinking it now. Thank fucking God the bastard was dead, Judah thought.
The guitar came in low and slow and the study felt different with it — larger, or maybe emptier, or maybe just… honest? Judah didn’t know. His eyes locked on a shelf with pictures. The framed photograph on the far left — his mother, young, before… He caught himself mid-thought and looked away.
Nothing else matters.
He'd always thought it was a love song. Probably was. He was beginning to understand that love songs and eulogies came from the same place, and only when that place had become too small to hold them.
Billy was watching him with an expression of deep contemplation; he was waiting for the right — or perhaps the wrong — moment to reveal some age-old truth that only Billy could’ve come up with.
It came soon enough.
“She's upstairs,” Billy said.
“I know.”
“You going up?”
“No.”
