Lost Along the Way (5 page)

“Okay.”

“I have to go.”

“I love you.”

But he didn’t say it back.

“Y
OU
SEEM
upset,” Landon said to me on Saturday as we worked. “Is everything all right?”

Our current strategy was for him to do a preliminary check of the boxes—“triage,” he called it—and pull out all the trivial belongings, then pass the more personal stuff—usually photos or paperwork of some kind—on to me. As a result I faced his question while examining a photo from my high school graduation, me in cap and gown, my parents smiling proudly on either side of me.

“Danny?” he asked again. “Is something wrong?”

“No.” But the word sounded unconvincing, even to me.
I’m not sure if I love my husband anymore. I’m quite sure he no longer loves me.

No way in hell was I going to say that out loud. Not to him, at any rate.

I studied the photo in my hand, gazing into my mother’s sweet, sympathetic eyes.

God, I missed her.

I set the photo aside and wandered into the kitchen. I opened the refrigerator and stared blindly at its contents, seeing nothing, wanting only to find some clarity.

Nope. Not in the fridge. Not lingering there behind the half-empty ketchup.

I shut the door and leaned against the counter. A white porcelain bell sat there, painted with tiny pink flowers, somehow left behind after the shelf of bells had been cleared. I picked it up, turning it over in my hand. Its tiny jingle seemed out of place in such a heart-wrenching moment.

I felt Landon’s gaze on me. I sensed his openness. His selfless willingness to grant whatever anybody needed, be it somebody to mow the lawn or a sympathetic ear. He was so much like my mother in that way. But we were men, and I was reluctant to reveal too much.

“I wanted Chase to come with me this weekend,” I said at last. It was only a fragment of the full problem, but it was all I could manage to say.

Landon was silent for a moment. When he finally spoke, his voice was strangely taut. “Oh? What happened?”

Nothing. Nothing happened. Maybe that’s the problem.

But I remained silent, and eventually, he spoke again.

“Your mother was really excited to meet him.”

This simple statement triggered too many emotions to deal with at once. Grief because we hadn’t made peace sooner. Thankfulness that things had been on the mend. But also anger. I’d had to choose between Chase and my parents. Suddenly, for the first time in fifteen years, I wondered if I’d made the wrong choice.

I turned the bell over in my hands again.

Clink, clink, clink.

Fifteen years.

What would my parents think if they could see me now? Would they feel vindicated, knowing my relationship was falling apart?

I didn’t think so. They hadn’t handled my homosexuality well, but they’d never been cruel.

“Why now, after all this time?”

“Excuse me?” Landon said, looking up from the box he’d just opened.

“You said she was excited about meeting Chase.”

“She was. She was already making big plans for the Fourth, although she hadn’t yet decided between hot dogs and ribs.”

Yes, the Fourth of July, which was now only a month away.

“Chase and I have been together for fifteen years. Why were they suddenly willing to meet him now?”

“Well, I don’t want to give myself too much credit, but I think it was partly because of me. I mean, I’d been helping them out for a year or more before they figured out I’m gay, and—”

The words shocked me so much I dropped the bell. It crashed to the floor, shattering on the tile.

His head whipped my way. “Are you all right?”

“Of course.” I bent to pick up the bigger pieces. I kept my back to him, lest he see how stunned I was by his confession.

“Anyway… your mom was so surprised when she found out. I think she had in her mind we all wore feather headdresses and leather harnesses, you know?”

I laughed at his joke because it seemed like the thing to do, but in truth, I was as unnerved as my mother must have been. Landon was gay? How had I not known? How could I have spent this much time with him and not wondered? Was my gaydar so rusty from years of disuse that I failed to notice when a guy as attractive as Landon was playing for my team?

No, I told myself. It wasn’t only that. It was because he was so… burly.

What? Never met a burly gay guy before?
my inner critic asked.

Of course I had. But still….

I supposed the mint green Vespa should have tipped me off.

I dropped the bigger pieces of the bell into the trash and went to the pantry for the broom. Landon continued talking, unaware of my embarrassment.

“So one day two or three years ago, when your dad was out, she started talking about how she wished she knew how you were doing. She wished she knew if you were happy or not. I said she should call, but she was afraid, I think. So I… well, I looked you up on Facebook.” He laughed. “I have to tell you, I was really hoping I didn’t have to give her bad news. If you’d been posting pictures of your weekly booty calls or something—”

“Not a chance,” I said, sweeping the tiny remnants of the knickknack into the dustpan. I’d never been unfaithful to Chase. I’d never even considered it.

Landon laughed again. “Well, thank goodness. It would have broken her heart. But it seemed like you were doing fine, so the next day, I showed her the pictures of you and Chase.”

Understanding dawned. “That’s how she got it.”

“What?”

I tilted my chin toward the picture on the mantel as I emptied the dustpan into the trash. “The picture. I wondered where it came from.”

“Oh. Yeah. I printed it for her.” He brushed dust from an angel’s head and set her aside. “It probably sounds creepy, knowing I was cyber-stalking you, but we spent a long time going through your photos. All of your vacation pictures. Everything.” He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “She was so emotional. Relieved, I think. But just so sad things had gotten out of hand.” He picked up another angel and turned her over in his hands without really seeing her. “That’s how she put it. Things had ‘gotten out of hand.’ She was so desperate to reach out to you, but terrified of rejection. And your dad….”

I stood riveted, watching him, waiting for him to go on.

“Your dad was still unsure. Not mad about you being gay so much as about how much you’d hurt your mother.”

I ducked my head, closing my eyes tight against the tears burning behind my lids. “I was a fool.”

“She didn’t think so.”

“I should have called.”

“Maybe. But the blame goes both ways.” We were silent for a moment, and when he spoke again, his voice was soft and gentle. “Danny, I want you to know, talking to you on the phone those last few months meant everything to her. I know it was only a handful of conversations, but she knew you’d forgiven her.”

“There was nothing to forgive.”

“There was, Danny. On both sides. Don’t belittle what they did to you because they’re dead. They hurt you, and they knew it, and they wanted to make amends. The fact that you wanted the same thing was the greatest gift you could have given them. It’s a tragedy they died before you got to see them again, but they didn’t die wondering, or feeling guilty or resentful. They loved you, and they knew you loved them. Please believe me, Danny. That was the only thing that mattered.”

I had to turn away, to duck my head and hide my face, and Landon gracefully chose that moment to go check the mail. He took a long time doing it, too. He gave me plenty of time to dry my eyes before he came back in, and we went back to work without saying another word.

T
HE
NEXT
three weeks marched by. Every Friday afternoon I drove to Laramie where I worked on clearing my parents’ home. Sometimes I worked alone, but more and more often, Landon worked at my side. We finished the living room and started on the guest bedroom, which proved more time consuming. The boxes in the living room had been carefully packed, their contents consistent. In the bedroom we found boxes full of odds and ends. Insurance paperwork stuffed in alongside a collection of potholders. A photo album of my kindergarten year boxed with a first aid kit and thirteen skeins of yellow yarn. The deeper into the mess we went, the stranger things became.

I spent my weekdays at home in Westminster. My job at Channel 9 seemed more tedious by the day. The head meteorologist had never liked me. I knew he feared I’d eventually replace him. Once upon a time, that had been my dream. Now I began to wonder about searching elsewhere for a job. Maybe working at a smaller network would grant me more leeway.

Or maybe it’d only mean losing a third of my pay.

In theory, being back in Denver also meant spending time with Chase, but the truth was, we barely saw each other. By the time I arrived home from work, he’d left for his shift at the restaurant. By the time he got home, I was asleep. When I rose for work in the wee hours of the morning, he slept on. I spent my evenings cleaning up after him, trying to tell myself this was temporary. Trying to convince myself my relationship of fifteen years wasn’t dying a slow, painful death. On the occasional evenings he had off, our conversations seemed even more stilted than normal. Was it my imagination that he seemed to become more buoyant as the week drew to a close? Was he beginning to look forward to me leaving?

Was he wondering the same thing about me?

Regardless of whether we both secretly longed for it or not, Friday afternoon inevitably arrived, and I’d toss my duffel into my car and head north. As Denver fell away and the clear, broad landscape of southern Wyoming opened up before me, I found myself questioning everything. I found myself wanting more, even if I couldn’t quite put my finger on what that meant. I watched the falcons soaring over the windblown road and longed for their perspective. “Big sky country,” my mother used to say, staring into the blue depths above us. Returning to it now, I longed for change. I watched the clouds march across the plains, rolling toward the distant eastern horizon as if they had a purpose, and I waited for a sign.

Any sign at all.

And then one dry, hot Sunday evening toward the end of June, when it felt like the entire front range was holding its breath, waiting for a bit of rain to take the edge off the heat, I came home from Laramie to find Chase waiting for me in the living room, his expression wary.

My heart sank. I knew what he was going to say before the words left his mouth.

“I lost my job.”

I dropped my bag unceremoniously onto the tiled floor of the entry. “What happened?” Although Chase’s version of the story hardly mattered. The truth was he couldn’t ever keep his mouth shut or his ego in check. He couldn’t let slights slide off his back. He hated waiting tables, so he sabotaged himself, whether he was able to admit it or not.

“The manager never liked me. You know that. It wasn’t my f—”

“So what will you do now?”

“I don’t know. Find a new one, I guess.”

Maybe I should have comforted him. Maybe a good husband would have said something supportive, but we’d been through this too many times in recent years. I was tired of assuring him the next job would be different, because I knew it wouldn’t. I was weary of pretending like his loss of income didn’t matter. True, I made enough to support us both as long as we lived frugally. But why was working an option for him and a necessity for me? Why was it so hard for him to do what needed to be done?

He sighed and stood up, running a hand through his dark blond hair. “The good news is we’ll actually get to see each other again.” He gestured toward the kitchen. “I made dinner. It’ll be ready in about thirty minutes.”

That, at least, I was truly grateful for, and as we sat opposite each other at our tiny dining room table eating lasagna, I found my spirits lifting. Maybe he was right. For weeks I’d lamented our lack of time together. I’d wondered countless times if we should break up, but had never had the nerve—or the opportunity—to discuss it. I’d begun to brood on the apparent death throes of our relationship. Yet now the universe had granted us a reprieve, and I wanted to hold it against him? I suddenly felt terribly selfish.

I reached across the table to stroke the back of his hand. “It’ll be fine.”

He smiled sadly over at me. “You think so?”

“Of course. You’ll find something else.”

He slumped a bit and pulled his hand away. He stood and took his plate into the kitchen. “Another job waiting tables, I guess.”

His voice was bitter, and I fought the twinge of annoyance at his childish tone. “Or something else. Maybe you should try retail?”

“Maybe.” But I could tell he was unconvinced.

I thought of Landon, working in a studio I hadn’t yet seen, building strange metal contraptions that sculpted the wind. When was the last time Chase had played his guitar? I followed him into the kitchen where he was slowly loading dishes into the dishwasher.

“Maybe you’re looking at this wrong,” I said as I handed him my plate.

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe this is your chance to do something else. To go back to your music.”

He froze, staring down into the dirty sink as if I’d slapped him. As if I’d reprimanded him. Or maybe I’d only ripped the Band-Aid off a very old wound.

“You could check Craigslist,” I went on. “Maybe somebody’s looking for a guitarist. Or maybe you could give lessons?”

“Don’t be silly,” he snapped, jerking into motion again. He grabbed the lasagna pan and began scraping the leftover ruthlessly down the drain. “I’m too old. I barely even remember how to play.”

“I doubt that’s true. I bet it’d all come back to you in—”

He flicked the switch on the wall, drowning my words with the abrasive sound of the disposal. I decided to take his none-too-subtle hint and change the subject. I waited until the kitchen was silent again before putting my hand on his arm. He didn’t pull away. He might even have leaned into my touch, although only barely. He refused to meet my eyes.