Page 100 of Levi

I stand in the hall and feel it. I don’t blame him. He’s hurt, and he used what he had to gut me back. I deserve it. He tried to be good to me and I lied to him.

I go to the little room with boxes and I lie down on the floor. No double sleeping bags this time. No, sir. Just the thin carpet and the shut door down the hall.

This is the way it goes. Back to the floor. Which is worse than the floor I started on, because back then I didn’t know any better. Now I know what the bed he made for me felt like and exactly whose fault it is that it’s gone.

I lie there and I take it.

I’ve taken much worse.

And then, maybe ten minutes later, I hear his door. Footsteps in the hall. I don’t move. And something drops to the carpet next to my head. He stands over me and then goes back down the hall. I hear the door again. But not the latch this time. It doesn’t click. He’s left it open.

I reach for whatever he dropped. It’s his pillow. His, the one off his own bed, the one that smells like him, like his soap and the back of his neck. He didn’t say a word. He just put it down next to my head and left the door open behind him, headed back to a bed he’s now sleeping on without a pillow.

I lie there and I try to figure out what it means, if anything.

He was hurt enough to shut the door, and he couldn’t hold it ten minutes. The same hands that took the sleeping bags up gave me the pillow off his own bed, and the same arm that shut that door came back and opened it. He gave me back the way out, without a word. Because there’s still some part of him that can’t be as mad as the rest of him has every right to be.

Dante hasn’t forgiven me. I know that. Nothing’s fixed. He’s going to wake up still knowing what I am, and I’m going to wake up still being it.

Instead of putting my head on it, I pull his pillow close against my chest where I can hold it tight.

It’s not forgiveness. It’s not even a start.

But I’ve built songs out of less than this, and I know how to start small.

Chapter 38: Dante

I’m awake at five-thirty. Through the open hall door I can see him on the floor of the second bedroom, on his side, one arm under my pillow. There’s a Rosemary Beach buyer who wants a third look today and a listing to keep being normal about. I get up and make coffee.

The cafetera’s where it always is. I fill it, pack the basket, tamp it, set it on the burner. The first morning I poured two and set his at the edge of the counter. He looked at it and walked away. I drank both, standing up. You don’t pour out my grandmother’s coffee.

I pour two cups again. I set his at the edge of the counter, same spot. He comes out of the bathroom and he sees it. Then he picks it up, drinks the small dark shot of it, rinses out the cup, and places it in the drainer.

“Thank you,” he says. “That was good. For some reason, these little cups of coffee have been on my mind a lot lately.”

I don’t say anything.

We drive to the house. Fifteen minutes, no talking. His head is back, eyes open, watching the road. I want him behind the gate before the kids wake up in their cars. Before someone takes a shot of him dropped off at his door by a realtor at dawn.

He gets out and stands a second with the door open. Then he shakes his head and goes in. I back out and drive to the Roadhouse.

The lot’s empty. The sign’s off, the kitchen’s dark. Around back there’s a wheelbarrow stacked with firewood sitting by Big Bertha, and Tex is at her open firebox with a rake, dragging out yesterday’s ash.

“There he is,” he says, and points the rake at the wheelbarrow. “Grab that and start handing me splits, Dante. It’s brisket day. She wants feeding early.”

I look at the wheelbarrow, then back at him.

“The wood, Dante.” He jabs the rake at it. “That piece right there. Lord. Don’t they teach you anything down there in Miami?”

I hand him the piece right there. He takes it, turns it over once like he’s grading it, sets it in the box.

Tex doesn’t get to it right away. He builds the fire the way he builds everything, one piece at a time, squared up, no hurry. The slower he moves, the closer he comes to whatever he means to say. I keep handing him wood, one piece at a time, and wait him out.

“Heard your fella sings,” he says.

“He’s not my fella, Tex.”

He knocks the loose bark off a piece against Bertha’s lip, sets it in. “Heard he’s a big one. Famous and all that. Sheila recognized his face off that poster and nobody believed her at first. Now look at what happened. She’s insufferable about it. Telling everyone her and Stormy served a special tasting menu for a country music star.” Tex grins at me. “Don’t be surprised if it ends up as a regular menu item. Lee Streeter Special. Sheila says it’s the funniest thing that’s happened in here for a while.”