The House on Hancock Hill (28 page)

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly, “I wasn’t looking—Johnny!” The first flash of recognition was the kind from running into a long lost friend, and I saw a similar realization in his surprise. Johnny looked good. He carried more muscle on his shoulders alone than I probably had in my entire body, but he hadn’t grown an inch since we were fifteen. So he was stocky and muscular, and if his short cropped hair hadn’t sprouted in a burst of red like feathers from a startled bird, I’d have said he hadn’t changed a bit.

“Jason Wood,” he said, wary. “It’s been a long time.” By his side, his hand flexed, and he was grinding his teeth. He was gearing himself up for a confrontation. I didn’t want to deal with that, and I was about to turn and walk away when I caught a look in his eyes. I realized Johnny thought the confrontation would come from me.

I peeked in his cart. “Birthday?”

“Huh?” He looked bewildered and then down. “Oh. No, it’s for my wife.” Johnny glanced at me and rubbed a hand over his mouth. I tried to convey careful interest without seeming nosy. It appeared to work. Johnny relaxed a little and grinned sheepishly. “She’s upset. I was supposed to watch the kids this weekend, and I went hunting instead.”

“Ah,” I said. “Well, that cake isn’t going to make her any happier, believe me. Why don’t I make something?”

“You uh… don’t have to do that, Jason. I mean—”

“It’s no trouble. Go put your stuff back, and I’ll meet you outside. You can give me a hand.” Without waiting for an answer, I went in search of ingredients. I decided to cheat and bought a box of cake mix. It would save me the effort of measuring everything out, and by the time I was done with it, no one would be the wiser.

I checked out and made my way over to Johnny. He looked uncomfortable where he was waiting under the awning, quickly grinding out his cigarette when he saw me coming, making sure to blow the smoke away from me.

“This is very nice of you,” he said, following me to my truck. “I didn’t expect—” He didn’t go on.

“No worries,” I told him with a half shrug and deposited my bags on the backseat. Even hunched over in the passenger seat, Johnny made the cabin feel small.

Plucking nervously at a piece of thread where his jeans were fraying at the knee, he said, “So I hear you’re doing up that old farm.”

“Yeah, although doing up aren’t the right words. The farm is completely gone now. Instead, there’s a house and a bed-and-breakfast.”

“Right.” We lapsed into silence again, and I began to wonder what I was doing. This was the guy who had nearly beaten Henry to death fifteen years ago, and I’d invited him into my house without a second thought. It must’ve been the desolate loneliness in his eyes that did it, an expression I’d seen too often in the mirror.

“This is me.” We pulled up in front. I’d salted the path from my front door that morning, and it was still fairly clear.

“Nice. You renting?” Johnny took the bags from me so I could open the front door.

“Just until I can move into the house on Hancock Hill.”

Johnny eyed my kitchen, its extension into the living room, and all the appliances neatly lined up. He looked as at home in a kitchen as I would on a shooting range, so I deposited him at the end of the table, safely out of reach.

“You want a beer, Johnny?”

“Sure,” he said. “And I go by Joe these days.”

Why are all adults so set on leaving everything from their childhood behind? It seemed like all the best things worth keeping came from the summers everyone had called me Jay.

“Aren’t you supposed to be some baker?” Johnny indicated the box.

“Yeah, I am. This just saves me a bit of time. Don’t worry, she won’t know the difference.”

“I’ll pay you,” he offered awkwardly, but I shook my head.

“This one’s a freebie. I’m expecting your wife to love it and place all future birthday cake orders with me.” For the first time, Johnny offered me a small smile. “Who is your wife, by the way? Anyone I’d remember?”

“Nah. Chrissy’s from Saugatuck. We met during my last tour of duty. Real smart girl, you know? She could’ve done anything she wanted when she got out, but she came here with me. Sometimes….” He shook his head and looked away.

I took pity. “How many kids do you have?”

“Three boys. Josh is four, and Adam and Jack will be two next month.”

“Twins?” I whistled between my teeth when he nodded. “That can’t be easy.”

“It’s not.”

For a while, he watched me work in silence. I added extra flour and sugar to the mix, together with sour cream and almond extract. For the frosting, I made vanilla bean buttercream while the cake was in the oven.

Out of nowhere, Johnny said, “So I bet Henry told you all about it, huh?” I nearly dropped my bowl.

“Ah, no, actually. We’re not exactly on speaking terms either.”

“Oh?” Johnny looked at me with surprise. “That’s not what I heard. Not… that it’s any of my business.”

“It’s all right. We kind of fell out too.” I gave him a wry smile. I found it impossible to reconcile this burned-out man with someone who would hurt Henry.

“Not like we did.” The sigh he let out was shuddery and sad.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.” I began to turn away, but he went on. “But maybe I should.”

“Okay.” I set the buttercream aside, grabbed two more beers, and sat down opposite him.

“He never told you anything?” I shook my head. “You two were my only friends, did you know that?” I didn’t, but I wasn’t going to interrupt him. “It was all I had to look forward to those summers. Dad was terrible back then. He used to beat the shit out of Mom until I was old enough to stand up to him. He’d go on and on about how useless she was. And if she wasn’t around, he’d come after me, demanding to know what I got up to with my faggot friends. Always that word, over and over.”

Leaning forward on the table, I tried to catch his eye. “You never told us any of this.” He rubbed a hand over his face, then drank half his beer in one gulp.

“We were just kids. It wasn’t something I could go around talking about. Mom… asked me not to.” I didn’t know what to say to him, but I guessed he didn’t need me to offer platitudes. “So when Henry told me he was in love with you after you left that last time, I completely lost it.” Johnny blinked and stared wide-eyed into nothing. “Everything just went red. I told myself it was because I was supposed to hate gay people, but the truth is, I was afraid I’d lose you both. You and Henry would get together, and I’d have no one.”

“Joe,” I said, but he didn’t hear me. Jesus.
It’s time I got over you
. Had Henry never stopped—I couldn’t even
think
the word in the privacy of my own mind—for all those years? What it must’ve been like, to tell his friend, land in the hospital, only to hear I’d never be back. My heart ached for Henry, the teenage one and the one who’d asked for a clean break at the bottom of my stairs in Traverse City. It was with effort I dragged my attention back to Johnny, who was still talking.

“Not that it mattered in the end. Henry never spoke to me again, and you never came back. Why was that?” He looked at me, and I nearly gasped when I saw that his eyes were red. The world was full of lonely people, living side by side. I didn’t have the heart to tell him we hadn’t come back because Dad was afraid I’d get beaten up, too.

“Dad never told me.” It wasn’t a lie. “What happened afterward?”

“I joined the army as soon as I could. Dad was proud of that at least. As soon as I was out of the house, Mom left him. The old bastard’s in a retirement home now. I haven’t seen him in years.”

Go to him
, I wanted to say,
before it’s too late
. The thought of Johnny still having his dad around and not being in touch with him gave me a pang of distress. But who was I to talk? Mom was still alive, and we were on no better terms. I wondered if this was what Henry had felt like tenfold, when he heard I didn’t have any connection with my mother anymore. He’d never known his, and yet he’d never called me out on it even though it must’ve been painful for him.

Instead of making the mistake of saying any of that, I told Johnny, “I don’t think Henry blames you anymore, you know? Have you tried to get in touch with him?”

“I don’t have the balls.” Johnny laughed weakly and began to pluck the label off his beer bottle. “It’d take a whole load off my back if I could just hear him say, ‘I forgive you, Johnny.’ And still I don’t have the courage to go see him.”

“You should,” I said. “It weighs on him too.”

Suddenly, Johnny looked up and pinned me with shrewd eyes. “You planning on taking your own advice, buddy?” He sounded so much like the kid I remembered, I laughed.

“Probably not.” I rose to my feet. “Listen, the cake needs to cool before I can frost it. You want to stay for dinner? I was going to make spaghetti.”

Johnny grinned at me. “Sure. I can call Chrissy if you like. My mother lives with us, and she can look after the kids for a few hours.”

“Absolutely,” I said. “I’d love to meet your wife.”

Chapter 18

S
KY
A
blue straight from a crayon box, I had to squint against the glare off the snow even with my sunglasses on. My pickup’s hood was nice and toasty under my butt from the ride over, and I was reasonably warm everywhere else too as I watched snowmobiles zoom noisily up and down the lift bridge. The frozen canal was covered with several inches of snow. Couples trudged through it with their dogs while two kids busily swept a patch of ice free with brooms so they could skate. I wished them luck, knowing from experience how bumpy that ice got.

A Jeep pulled up next to my truck, and a guy stepped out, gave me a brief nod, and let a huge Bernese Mountain dog out of his trunk. It yipped happily, came to sniff my knee, then darted away to roll in the snow and eat some like it was a giant buffet before the guy could catch the beast. Amused, I watched them disappear down the trail that led all the way into Keweenaw Park.

It was my first Sunday off in a long time, making me pine for my old partnership with Denny where we’d swap weekends off, and I hadn’t wanted to stay cooped up inside on such a gorgeous day. Later, I might make my way down the trail into the park too, but for now I was happy drinking tea—I hadn’t gone back to drinking coffee, but I found I couldn’t function entirely without caffeine either—and watching winter traffic on the ice. December would bring Christmas, but with it would come dark blizzards and short daylight, and I wanted to make the most of it. Clutching my chai latte—I’d found one that rivaled the bookstore’s dirty chai—a little tighter than usual due to the delicate state of my head after a night with Johnny, Caleb, and Ron in Houghton’s Irish pub, I stayed out until my nose turned numb and the sun slowly began its descent. The introduction hadn’t been as awkward as I’d feared it would be. Caleb and Ron were both young enough not to know the details of what had happened, and I figured if Johnny could sit at my table and eat my spaghetti, he wouldn’t be offended by Caleb and Ron. He hadn’t been. In fact, he’d gotten along with Caleb so swimmingly, I had to reassure Ron that Johnny was very straight and very married.

Traffic on the canal dwindled, and I was about to head home when I heard the sputtering noise of a dying engine. Just off to the left of the bridge, a snowmobile had stalled, and I watched as the owner tried and failed to kick it back to life. A quick glance around told me there was no one else here, and I set my cup on the roof of the cab and trudged over.

“Need help?” I called before I was even halfway down. As the guy straightened, his shoulders stiffening, I instantly knew who it was before he even turned around. Sounding to my ears a little weary and a lot resigned, I said, “Henry.”

I’d given up hope of kissing and making up, but maybe this was the chance to shake on it and be friends again. Henry ripped off his hat and sunglasses and turned.

Or maybe not.

“I’m fine,” Henry said tersely, putting his back to me again, and all of a sudden I was fucking done with this.

“At least let me give you a ride to the gas station, Jesus,” I snapped. It took Henry by surprise. I could see that in the way he stilled before he spun around. For a fraction of a second, I thought he was going to pop me one, he was breathing so hard, but I knew he never would. What was going to happen, I could see very clearly, was that we were going to have it out here and now.

“I told you I’m fine. Leave me be.” There was something hard about him, something that hadn’t been there before, and again the thought that this was my doing hit me.

“Stop being so childish.” Not the best placating I’d ever done. I sighed and gestured toward my truck. “I’m parked right up there. Why won’t you let me help you?”

“Why?” Henry hissed, taking a step closer. “Why would you suddenly care?” His eyes were bright and a little bloodshot, and all at once I was back in his kitchen, peeling wet paper towels off his snow-blinded eyes, Henry looking up at me, putting his fingers over mine as I touched his face.

He must’ve seen something in my eyes as that memory filled my mind, because all the anger drained from him, just like that. On its heels came exhaustion and sorrow, which was worse in every way. “For fifteen years,” Henry’s voice went from a sharp smack to a soft brush so fast, it left me feeling winded, “I imagined myself in love with you. I was okay with it. It was just something left over from my childhood, something solely
Jay
. It didn’t interfere with my life. And then out of nowhere, you literally crashed back into my world and I
had
you. In one week, you upended everything I knew and then disappeared again.”