by Rick R. Reed
There’d been a strain between them. Billy, he thought, might be here to fix things, to remove the awkwardness that had sprung up between them. Wouldn’t that be nice? Wouldn’t that be wonderful?
From out of nowhere, a little voice in Milt’s head told him, Maybe things are better left as they are—broken….
And at that thought, the strangest thing happened.
Milt felt a sharp rap to the back of his head. He whirled around, frowning, to look. Of course, there was no one behind him. He gingerly touched his head. He knew his face must have gone quizzical and confused because Billy peered at him strangely, a question in those blue eyes.
“What’s the matter? You okay?” Billy asked.
“Weird.”
“What’s weird?”
“I could have sworn—” He waved away the rest of the sentence. Saying it out loud would just be, well, too weird. He suspected Billy thought he was odd enough without his adding to the impression.
And then he got a chill. Because one of the things that annoyed him most about his sainted husband, Corky, who could do no wrong now that he was gone, was that he would always give Milt a quick rap to the back of the head, playful, when he thought Milt was out of line. It was never abusive and only in good fun, but there were times when Milt got so irritated by it that he came close to hauling off and punching Corky—seriously. Hard. Corky never should have done that. Yet he did. Repeatedly.
In casting Corky only in the golden light of memory, he’d obliterated most of his less endearing qualities. With each passing day without him, Milt made Corky more and more perfect in his mind until the man approached sainthood.
Now that the sensation had vanished, Milt questioned whether he’d actually felt it at all. Is my mind just playing tricks?
Or is something more going on here?
Billy put his hand on the doorknob, poised to open it. “I’ll come back. Eat your supper.”
In his reverie, Milt had almost forgotten he was there.
“Don’t go,” he blurted out. More than anything, he suddenly didn’t want Billy to leave. He sensed something vulnerable and precious in this moment and feared that if Billy left now, they could never recapture it.
Billy’s face, up until that moment a bit confused, relaxed. He smiled. “You sure? It’s no problem. You might have forgotten I live just behind you.”
“Don’t be silly. The potpie will reheat.” Milt had an idea. “Or I can heat one up for you. I’ve got more in the freezer. Chicken, turkey, beef—even a chili-filled one. I haven’t tried that variety yet, so no promises.”
Billy grimaced. “That’s okay. I already ate.”
“Liar.” Milt chuckled. “But please stay and let’s talk.”
An uncomfortable silence, lasting a full minute or two, followed.
Billy finally broke it by moving into the living room. He plopped down on the couch. “Okay,” he said on an exhalation. He stretched his long legs out before him.
Is there anything more beautiful than a man’s bare feet? Milt was surprised at the thought, having never had any particular fondness for that portion of a man’s anatomy, yet Billy’s feet suddenly made Milt feel he could almost write an ode to them.
Milt hovered by the breakfast bar, not wanting to give in to the irrational yet colorful urge to go all Mary Magdalene on Billy and get down on his knees and wash those sexy bare feet for him. He had to put a quick hand to his mouth to contain the laughter, aching to burst out. You, Milt Grabaur, are a crazy person.
“Are you gonna come in and sit down or what?” Billy asked. “You can eat that mess, excuse me, your dinner, while we talk.”
Suitably shamed, Milt picked up the bowl with the potpie and set it on the floor. Ruby leaped on it, and Milt thought he’d be sorry later. It took her all of one minute, maybe even slightly less, to get that whole potpie in her tummy.
“You didn’t even taste it.” Shaking his head, Milt sat in his recliner, across from Billy.
“So.” Billy eyed him.
“So,” Milt said, sitting too straight, muscles tensed.
“I feel bad about how things have been between us ever since you came to the meeting at Sunny Dunes.” Billy looked away, down at the floor, as he said, “But I felt a little like you invaded my privacy. If you wanted to come to one of my meetings, to see what they’re all about, you should have asked me. I would have taken you.”
Milt nodded. Part of him wanted to be defensive and ask, “Aren’t the meetings open to the public?” But he knew Billy was right. He’d been sneaky and deceptive. He should have at least asked how Billy might feel about his being there, especially since he was there for no other reason than to see Billy, even if it was to somehow know him better.
“I’m sorry, Billy. I don’t know why I followed you that night.” Now it was Milt’s turn to look down at the floor, abashed. “Well, that’s not true. I do know.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to know you better, to see what this important part of your life was all about.” Milt looked at him, trying to ensure his smile was gentle. “I just want to know all sides of you—not just the whole parts, but the broken ones too. Lord knows, we all have them.” Had he revealed too much? “I’m sorry if you feel I invaded your privacy. But I’m not sorry I went to the meeting. Your story, about the butterfly? It was beautiful. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.”
Billy shrugged. “It’s just my truth. I have to work hard on surrender. I have to take it to heart and remind myself that doing so isn’t about being weak. It’s about being strong. Becoming powerless can, paradoxically, make one powerful.”
“I got that.”
“It’s about not controlling.” Billy sighed, threw his hands in the air for a moment. “Yet here I am tonight, about to try to control something.” He laughed. “We are so imperfect. Us human beings. Don’t you find that to be so, Milt?”
“Oh yeah.” Milt regarded Billy and thought this moment felt good. They were two men acknowledging not their weakness, as some might say, but their vulnerability, their humanity. “I want—” Milt began but couldn’t finish. What did he want, anyway? To be relieved of being a perpetual widower? To be delivered from his horrible fear it would make him somehow less than human? That it would make him selfish to desire new life and, even, just maybe, new love? Did he want to be made callous?
“What do you want, Milt?”
The words came without warning, without conscious thought. The words that came were unexpected, yet when Milt uttered them, they rang as true as anything he’d ever said in his life. “To be seen. Isn’t that all anyone wants?”
Billy’s hand leaped up to touch his heart. He looked at Milt then, really looked at him. It was as though he not only peered at him but peered into him. “I see you,” he said softly.
“I know you do. And that’s what scares me.”
“Why would that scare you?” Billy leaned forward and then sat back again. He patted the couch next to him. “Come sit beside me, okay?”
Milt wanted to. And yet he wasn’t sure he could—for to be that close would make him vulnerable, would open a door to something he couldn’t be sure he was ready for. He leaned back into the recliner, so hard it almost made the footstool extend. “I don’t think I will, Billy.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Milt ached to take them back.
But he couldn’t. Not yet.
Again, a sharp rap to the back of his head. “What the hell?” Milt shouted, rubbing at the now-tender spot on his scalp.
Billy laughed, and the odd tension in the room broke just a little. “You are nuts.”
“I am. Totally. I think I went off the deep end the day I realized Corky wasn’t coming back.” Milt sucked in a breath. Again, he hadn’t expected to say what he did. He wasn’t sure what he was going to say but knew it should have been something more mundane, something more pedestrian. He’d never been much for revealing his innermost feelings. He said, in a hushed tone that he wasn’t sur
e was even audible, “I broke a long time ago. But I couldn’t let it show. Someone needed to be strong.” Milt bowed his head. “It had to be me. I wasn’t given a choice. And if I had been, I would have chosen to take care of Corky, even as he got more and more impossible. To the very end—when he no longer recognized me.” Milt’s voice caught, and the lump in his throat grew. He stared down at the floor for a long time.
And then he got up and moved to sit on the couch beside Billy. Billy leaned over and hugged him, pulling him close. “Is this okay?” he whispered in Milt’s ear. Milt thought it was nice of him to ask. Billy recognized and saw his boundaries and respected them.
In response Milt simply reached up to put his hand on the arm that was around him, to squeeze it. He nodded.
They stayed like that for a while, maybe even longer than Milt realized. It was long enough for Ruby to come into the room, circle around several times on her fleece bed, and then lie down. Long enough for the hurt Milt felt during those final days, taking care of someone with dementia, being all loveless and selfless, to dissipate. If he were being perfectly honest, there were times back then when he’d wanted to say the hell with it all and hide away in bed, the covers over his head. He’d felt so much guilt about those feelings and now, right now, with Billy close, he realized he needed to forgive himself. He’d done the best he could.
The people who loved him back home called him a hero. His best friend, Dane Bernard, had pleaded with him to put Corky in a home. “The one out in Glenmoor is very nice—they’ll take good care of him there. You can be with him every day, still. But they’ll be around for him at night so you can get some rest. They’ll make sure he doesn’t get into trouble, wander off, harm himself.”
Dane’s advice had been heartfelt. He’d only been looking out for Milt. He’d wanted only what would be best for him—and for Corky. Milt knew, even back then, the constant caregiving and vigilance had worn on him. He could see it when he looked in the mirror—and a prematurely gray and weathered older man looked back at him.
But he couldn’t do it—at least, not until the very end, when it was only a few days until Corky would, mercifully, draw his last breath. The thing that stopped Milt from doing it sooner was always the same. He had only to think of Corky and his occasional moments of clarity “coming to” in some sterile nursing home room and wondering where he was. Milt could clearly picture the look of hurt and confusion on Corky’s face, and he’d known there was no way he wouldn’t be in this fight until the very end.
And he was, even though there were a few days in the nursing home. He’d done the good thing. The selfless thing. The thing everyone praised him for, telling him he was a saint and that there was a special place in heaven waiting for him. They’d mostly said this at Corky’s wake, adding that he and Corky could one day be together again.
Finally, Milt wriggled just a bit to politely break the hug. He scooted over, away from Billy, so he could talk.
“I just realized something,” Milt said. “I’m still doing it. I’m still caring for Corky. I’m still here for him.” Milt smiled sadly and looked toward Billy to see if he understood what he was saying. It was a little crazy, wasn’t it? Still caring for a man who was beyond care? Still caring for someone who was buried almost a year ago?
But then Billy, God bless his empathic and caring soul, put some perspective on things. “You’re not crazy. You’re just grieving, Milt. That’s normal. I’m being selfish, wanting something from you that you’re not ready to give. It hasn’t been that long. In a way I’m jealous of you for having what you did with Corky—and for so long. I’ve never really had that, and sometimes it feels… hollow.”
Milt wanted to ask, “How do you know what I feel?” but thought, quite sensibly, that now was not the time to argue but to listen. In some ways Milt realized he was more than ready to accept what Billy had to give. Just look at those feet! Imagine what they’re attached to. And for a moment Milt pictured working his way upward from those feet. On his knees. Until he arrived at that beautiful, radiant, and caring face. Stop! We’re talking about Corky here. Milt let that thought sink in, and then he thought And that’s just the problem.
Milt wondered what to say, caught as he was between his loyalty to a man he’d loved with all his heart and soul, a man with whom he expected to spend the rest of his life, and the desire to free himself from the very shackles his heart imposed. His head told him it wasn’t terrible, or even unhealthy, to want to reach out for a new person, a new life, to move forward, upward, any direction away from the wallowing and the pain.
But because it was his head talking to him, Milt was mistrustful. He knew his heart told him the truth a lot more often.
But what to say to Billy?
Fortunately for Milt, Billy again had the right words.
“Earlier I said I was here trying to control things, and I just realized I’m not. I know I’m powerless over your grief, and I suspect you are too, for now. So I’m here for you. Not to control, not to push my own agenda, even though I know, in the end, it’ll be you that benefits most from that agenda.” Billy gave him a wink and a smile. “Joke. I’m here because I wanted to say that I’ll take whatever it is you want to give me. I don’t want to pressure you.
“Here’s what I propose. That we start seeing each other again. By seeing each other, Milt, I mean only hanging out. Hiking. Seeing a movie. Having breakfast at Myron’s Café. Me cooking you something decent for dinner.” Again, that smile.
“Not dating. Lord, no! Just hanging out.”
Milt felt two things arise at once inside him—disappointment and hope. Why wasn’t life simpler? Black and white? Milt chuckled in his mind as he thought Black and white like Corky and me? Again, he wasn’t sure what to say. The old heart-head conundrum was really confounding him tonight. If he went along with what Billy was saying, it felt like settling, like admitting defeat. If he challenged it, he knew the lover of Corky would rise up once more, chastising him for being untrue to his memory.
He wondered if he could ever win. Will I be trapped in this limbo forever?
“Would you be willing—for us to see each other again?”
Milt nodded.
“Good. And I’ll say this—when, or if, you want to change from calling it ‘hanging out’ to dating, we can do that.” Billy grinned. “Okay?”
Milt nodded again. My, aren’t I eloquent tonight?
“Good.” Billy stood. “Now I’m gonna leave you alone. Partly because I don’t want to break the spell here. And partly because I want you to have just a little more time by yourself to grieve, to think. I know you need it. And I’ll give you that space.”
Billy moved toward the door. With his hand on the knob, he said, “Two weeks. I’ll come over in the morning two weeks from now to pick you up. We’ll take a hike. Okay?”
“How do we know the weather will be okay for that?”
“Dude, we’re in Palm Springs. The sky’s always blue.”
“You got a point.” Milt grinned. “Okay.”
“Two weeks. Bright and early.”
Milt watched Billy leave.
What had he done to deserve such kindness? And unbidden in his head, Corky’s voice rose up, the one before he was taken ill, and it said, “You really have to ask?”
Chapter 14
IT TOOK forever for two weeks to pass.
Billy kept himself busy, trying not to notice the snaillike passage of time. He went to meetings, of course. He shared. He set up the coffee table. He stacked chairs after. He led one meeting. He did the closing prayer at another.
He worked at Trader Joe’s as usual and even put in for extra shifts, stocking shelves, unloading trucks, or filling in as a cashier when someone couldn’t make his or her regular shift. Extra money was the bonus; the real reward was the filling of time productively.
He meditated. Maybe he did it more than ever during this self-imposed two-week period, where he was trying to show Milt how selfless his feelings were. H
e also wanted to demonstrate in a very real way his powerlessness over other people. He’d sit on his bed with the morning sun warming his back and let his body relax and his mind go blank, using his favorite mantra, the word “quiet.” During those times, he’d trained himself enough to actually still (well, almost) his monkey mind enough to get some answers, to know he was on the right path with Milt and, more importantly, himself. Sometimes an image would come to him of the two of them together, Milt’s head on his chest as they rested on sun-drenched sheets. Sweet.
He read. Right now he was going through the “big book” of Alcoholics Anonymous. He’d read it more times than he could remember. But like the Bible for some people, each journey through its stories and guidance he’d discover something new to give him hope, to ensure his progress. Within those dog-eared and well-worn pages, there was a connection to his fellow alcoholics and, more importantly, to his higher power, whom Billy saw not as some judgmental figure in the sky, but as a radiant being within his own self, shining and whole, representing his highest and best self. The words on those pages lifted him up and let him know that, no matter what, he wasn’t alone.
His first sponsor, Jon, back in Chicago, had given him the “big book” as a gift at Billy’s second meeting. Then its cover was glossy and its pages pristine. Now it looked old, tattered, its spine in danger of breaking, but Billy could never dream of giving this particular copy up. It had taken on the power of a talisman over the years. He knew he’d miss not only the highlighting and the notes in the margins. He’d long for those coffee stains and the small tears. Most of all, he’d miss the quiet energy the book had given him—as if it embodied Jon McGregor himself, that kind and caring angel who, once upon a time, had saved Billy’s life.
And when he wasn’t meditating, reading, working, or going to yet another meeting, he was dreaming. See, even though he was respected and liked as a Trader Joe’s cashier, he still thought about singing, about sharing his voice. He didn’t think it was vain to say that it was a gift. To say that, for him, was only expressing gratitude. Billy wanted to simply give so much, not for himself or for fame and fortune, but so he could touch another’s heart with his voice, with certain lyrics he adored because they were so universal and true.
