As I stepped over the threshold of his double-wide into the wan light of his place, the back of my neck pricked from the easing of the dry, baking noonday sun.I cast my eyes around his living quarters, realizing that was exactly what his house amounted to: living quarters.There were no warm, homely things to offer me welcome, save for?—
“That’s my mother,” I said, pointing with a shaking hand to a piece of art on his wall, painted in the same style I’d learned about in high school, a renaissance rendering of Merv standing in a field, wearing a white summer dress, laughing with tall grass surrounding her and the sun at her back.
The painting was the only thing inside my father’s house that I could seem to focus on, framed in fake gold and hanging right in front of me like some priceless Degas ballerina.
“Sure is.I painted it a while back, but it’s the one that seems the realest so it’s the one I like to look at every day.”
“Youpainted this?”
I was no art expert, but the painting showed an innate gift and a deep understanding of shadow and color, and it was the last thing I had expected to find when I got it in my mind to track down my father.
“Sure did,” he said.“Did some of you too.Look behind you.”
Speechless, I turned, expecting to find a TV, but all I saw was a pile of Louis L’Amour paperbacks stacked up ten tall on a rickety end table next to a dingy, tan corduroy armchair.The ridges and edges of the fabric had long been smoothed away by the weight of William’s life, but the matching chair five feet away looked like it had never been sat in.
The whole place reeked of a time long passed, when cowboys ruled this land, and ranches and rodeos were the only social media known in these parts.A man living alone didn’t decorate or try to make his house feel inviting because he was never in it.He was out on the range, working cows or tending to his horse.And on the rare occasion he wasn’t doing those things, he could be found at the nearest watering hole, drinking and shit-talking his hard days with his buddies.
But between two windows offering an unguarded view of the Wind River Range, another painting had been hung.Maybe three-by-two-foot, the image showed a boy with wavy brown hair and blue eyes like his mama’s.He held a thick hardback book, and he looked off into a sunset, daydreaming of the characters he’d been reading about.
I knew he was daydreaming because the boy in the painting wasme, probably thirteen years old.Still too young to ruin his life with alcohol, drugs, and lies, but not so young he hadn’t thought about it yet.
Stepping closer to see it better, I said, “But you— How did you— Why did you never say anything?Why didn’t you tell me who you were?”
“And here’s the hard part,” William said, and he walked to his chair and sat.I swore I heard his old bones creak, but then he motioned for me to take the other chair.“Take a load off.This story, like any proper one, might take a while to tell.
“Before I start, though, can I get you somethin’ to drink?Ice water?It’s a scorcher today.”
“No, sir, I think it’s best if you just start talkin’.”
“Fair enough.”
A deep breath whistled down his lungs when he drew it in, but then he released it and began to tell me where I came from.
“I fell in love with your mama when she wasn’t mine to fall in love with.God, how Ilovedher.I’d had women.Plenty of ’em, but Mervella, she was… I’d never seen anything more beautiful in my life.
“I didn’t mean to fall in love with her.Noah was my friend then, before I learned the truth about how he treated her, and I never would’ve chosen to hurt him, but there was never really any choice to make.
“I saw her, and I knew.
“But I’ll have you know I didn’t go after her.Not right away.I worked alongside Noah for weeks, helped him on the farm.And I tried not to notice Mervella every minute of every day.I really tried.But she wore me down.She was such a good mom to your brothers, firm but fun, and her laugh?First time I heard it, I knew God made it just for me.I thought to myself, I’ll never forget that sound.And I never did.I can hear it still.”
“If you loved her so much,” I said, “if you wanted to know me, why?Why am I just meetin’ you today?I don’t mean to interrupt your reminiscin’ and all that, but get to the shit that matters to me.You knew who I was when I knocked on your door, so I think you owe me that much.”
William nodded, but a little defensiveness sounded in his voice when he answered.“My best childhood friend tried to kill me for fallin’ in love with his wife.”He watched my eyes when he said it.“I can see you already knew that, so maybe your mama finally told you the truth of it all.And even though Noah didn’t love her, not the way she deserved to be loved, she still wasn’t mine.I didn’t have the right to love her.
“I did my damnedest to forget.Went back to chasin’ my eight seconds.But after the rodeo and after I’d broken so many bones in my body I lost count, I struggled to know who I was and where my life was headed.My head had grown so big with small-town fame, and I had all that money, which I blew first chance I got.
“And Mervella, she was never gonna leave Noah.I knew that.And she hurt me the day the ambulance took me away.She didn’t stand up to him, like I’d been dreamin’ she would.
“Mind you, I knew she was scared to go against him.She was scared of a lot back then, and he abused her.That was all muddied up and messed up in her head.I knew that, but still it hurt when she didn’t speak up for me and tell him she loved me.
“And shedidlove me,” he said, shifting in his chair, moving from one hip to the other, “like you read about in books, with the speed of an avalanche and the strength of one too.I knew that, but after it was all said and done, I just couldn’t reckon it.I couldn’t let the hurt part of it go.
“And the drinkin’ didn’t make it any easier to forgive her.It let the hurt inside me turn into anger and betrayal, and then it became rage, and I drank more to numb it.”
“You’re an alcoholic,” I said.It wasn’t a question, and it didn’t surprise me in the least.
“Yes, son, I am.Recovering, but still a drunk.Got sober for good, oh, ten years ago now.”
