One by one, we hung up the jerseys, placed them under the mantle like stockings, allowed ourselves the childish hope that they had some magic in them.
One by one, we set out tiger-striped trinkets, put on our ball caps and loud orange pants, prayed for such little things as completions, conversions, touchdowns.
Then one by one, the grown men turned, stopped, splintered, broke: became little boys again as they watched the ambulance back onto the football field, park over the big painted-on B, and carry away their brother.
And one by one, they hung up their jerseys, ceased to be blue or black or orange or red, donned instead the colors of humanity, bowing heads and breaking rank to buoy each other in brokenness.
I worship these wild summers with you, hold them like a treasure, open my mouth and drink in the lazy hours that uncoil like gold ribbons, the peach tea sun. But I want your fall, your first frost— want to be there in the worst of your winters. For you, I will hold fast the doors, for you, I will tend even the smallest fire on even the coldest hearth. And I will wait. Because as much as I love your summers, the truth is that I live for your springs— for how you widen your windworn branches, shake off the snow, and invite the sun to light on you, to hold you again, and to draw out a life, a stubborn white will, a jewel that had been there all that winter.
“So that’s it?”
But he wouldn’t answer, and Garret couldn’t bring himself to ask the usual follow-ups. Can’t we talk about this? Can’t I have a chance to be better? Can’t you just say it—say it out loud—say that you don’t love me anymore?
Under normal circumstances, he would ask. He would push. Under normal circumstances, the guilt trips and veiled accusations would well up and spill out of his body, a wild flood of hurt needing to hurt back. Under normal circumstances, it felt natural—good, even—to be unfair, to be venomous, to be wounded animal. Coiled self-preservation was so much easier than opening.
But these were not normal circumstances. This was Tom, and his car was running in the driveway, open trunk waiting to be fed the last bag of loose things. And it was Tom’s face that stopped up the torrent inside him, something in it, something Garret had never seen before. There was no righteous fury, no ember of searing indignation. There was only sadness.
This was new, and it froze the fire that had always fomented Garret’s choicest words. It stopped up his throat like a dry pill and tied down his tongue. It sucked the burgeoning tears back down and drew him into silent passivity. This was not a fight. This was a funeral.
Almost ceremoniously, Tom rested the remaining artifacts of his presence there in a Safeway bag: nail clippers, a phone charger, a couple of thumb drives, the magnet he had brought home from a business trip to Sydney.
Garret remembered the day that Tom had come back with that magnet. It had actually been a private joke. (“Bring me back something nice,” Garret had said. “Really nice this time; if I get another t-shirt I’m donating it.”) Tom had brandished the 50¢ token like it was the cure for infectious disease and slapped the thing on the fridge. They laughed, made love. Cooked something inedible. Ordered takeout. That day had unfurled slowly, so slowly as if to pretend it were eternity. The red fingers of afternoon light murmured through the slit blinds, inched across their bodies as if they had forever. Garret had been so full that day, so submerged in sun and sweetness that he thought his body might give up on him then and there. And it would have been okay.
Now, that day hung in his chest like an anchor. Garret ran his fingers tenderly along it as he watched Tom grab the Safeway bag, look around the room one more time, and go.
He didn’t say anything—there was nothing to say. Under normal circumstances, he might have tried to stop him. Under normal circumstances, he might have begged. But these were not normal circumstances. This was the only person he had ever loved. And so, he watched. He watched Tom close the door softly behind him like a coffin. Listened to the sound of the trunk door croaking shut outside. And he let Tom go.
Colorado is opening like a lotus when we leave it San Juans snake by, and we tug our little trailer behind, Jeep huffing like an ancient steam engine. Provo trains a magnifying glass on us, Boise gathers clouds like cotton balls, but July chases us into corners and under trees. Oregon leaves teethmarks in the 19-foot Flagstaff trailer we put our last dollar into, and Peter damn near quits on us. But soon, we tumble into Tillamook, sleep in a field next to a cheese factory. Bend opens fat, feminine arms, embraces us. It’s July 4th, and we’re here, and we exhale, and we find a BLM spot, thinking ourselves explorers, and we hunt down a 7-11, buy Slurpees like we’re kids again, and we bring Akiko to the river, sit and eat pizza on park grass, and we discover the Peter and Margaret we had forgotten, and we watch as America discovers the self she forgets about, too, until one day in July that explodes into color and sizzles into sweet, cool breath
And it is nothing like what he expects. Knuckle cracks against cheek bone, and the force of it splits through his body, like how lightning rends a tree. Instinctively, he extends his hands to catch the floor. He rests there for a moment, refuses to look back. He cannot believe that this man is his father.
He lifts his gaze to confirm this thing he cannot believe. The man steps closer, and Rory inspects him for some indication that it is not true. But it is his father’s black shoe. It is the crooked scar on the back of his father’s knee, the one he got in a motorcycle accident. It is the tattoo, scrubbed gray by time’s rubber hand, that marks his father’s right shoulder, branding him as the man who once touched the meaning of an old rock song and drank enough whiskey one night to consummate the love. And it is the face of the man he calls his father, but also it is a cruel face, a face that he has never seen.
