“How was California?”
The question startles Dan, and it takes him a moment to even understand what Chris is talking about. “It was all right. Nice place, nice people.”
Chris nods. “Jeff seems like a good guy… seemed concerned about you yesterday.”
Dan feels like a bit of an idiot. “Yeah. I kinda… I might have screwed that up a little. I fell apart a bit, I guess. Not exactly the ideal house guest. Or the model employee.”
Chris shakes his head. “I’m sure they understood. They know the situation.”
“Yeah, but it’s not their problem. I shouldn’t have dragged them into it.”
“Cut yourself some slack, Dan. You don’t have to be Captain Control all the time.”
Dan thinks about his behavior the day before, thinks about how he can’t even remember what happened between going to lean on the boulder and submerging his face in the basin of water. “Yeah, I kinda do,” he says softly.
Chris shakes his head. “Dude, trust me… you really don’t.” Then he swallows the last of his coffee. “I’m gonna go home, get some clean clothes. I’ll call Karl and Molly from there, tell them you don’t care about the service… if you’re sure that you don’t care?”
Dan shakes his head. “I’ve never even been to a funeral before. And… that’s not Justin, right?” He finds himself tearing up again, but this time it feels okay, doesn’t feel like he’s on the edge of an abyss like it had the day before. “I mean… when I remember Justin, I’m gonna remember him outside, racing our horses across the hills in the back or swimming in the pond or….” He takes a moment to recover his voice, and then he grins through his tears. “Either that or in bed, and I really don’t think any of those things is gonna fit into a funeral service, right?”
Chris grins a little as he says, “Not a traditional service, no.” He nods his understanding and heads for the door, but when he gets there he pauses and turns around. “Hey, Danny?” Dan looks up, and Chris says, “Justin was my best friend for my whole life, for thirty-four years.” Dan nods, and Chris continues, his voice cracking and low. “And out of all that, when I remember Justin… I’m gonna remember him with you.” Chris turns and heads down the stairs, and Dan stands in the apartment thinking of how much he has lost, but also of how much he has managed to retain.
Chapter 14
DAN EVENTUALLY makes it down the stairs and finds that it is Robyn doing the chores. She tears up a little when she sees him, but she gets by with a quick hug, and then they both distract themselves with the horses. For once in his life, Dan doesn’t really feel like riding, but he wants to stay busy and useful, so he lunges a couple of the young horses in the corner of the dressage arena. It feels better to work with them than with any of the older horses, the ones he and Justin had trained together.
His phone rings around lunchtime, call display showing the Brown Hotel, the same place Jeff had stayed the last time he was in town. Dan flips the phone open. “Hello.”
“Hey, kid, it’s Jeff.” Dan wonders if his response is somehow Pavlovian. For a while, hearing Jeff’s voice was making him think of sex, but now it just makes him want to cry.
“Hey, Jeff. How’re you?”
“I’m good.” He sounds a little cautious. “How about you?”
Dan tries to make his voice sound light. “Hung over and generally fucked up, but, you know… I’ll be fine. I’m really sorry about yesterday, man. I can’t… I can’t really explain it.”
“Dan, you don’t have to. It’s not a big deal.”
Dan laughs a little bitterly. “Yeah, I’m sure it happens every day in the Happy Land of Kaminski.”
“Careful, Dan… they’ve lost people, too, remember.”
Dan immediately feels terrible. “Shit, I know, I’m sorry. I’m just… I don’t know. Sorry.” He searches for a topic change. “But I just lunged Kip, and he didn’t seem sore at all, so at least we don’t have to worry about shipping a lame horse out to California.”
“Yeah, good. Listen, I was thinking of coming out, having a look at the horses. Are you going to be there? I could pick up something for lunch.”
Dan doesn’t think that sounds like a good idea. He’s got a nice pattern of distraction set up, and Jeff would just get in the way of that. Jeff would make him start feeling again. “Oh, thanks, man, but I’ve already eaten.”
“Oh… I was talking to Chris earlier, and he said you didn’t have much food in the fridge.”
So Chris is reporting to Jeff, now? “I had stuff in the cupboards.” Dan doesn’t like lying, especially to Jeff, but he doesn’t need a nursemaid. “Thanks for the thought, but I’m fine, really.”
Jeff doesn’t sound convinced, but he lets Dan off the phone, at least.
Almost immediately, the phone rings again; this time it’s the Archer house. Dan doesn’t want to answer. He thinks about letting them leave a message. They might be just as relieved to avoid the contact as he would be. But Chris is right; he’s going to have to deal with them eventually, so he flips his phone open. “Hello.”
There’s a pause, and then Karl’s voice. “Dan, it’s Karl. How are you?”
Karl doesn’t make it sound like a casual greeting, he makes it sound like an invitation to bare his soul, and Dan feels a flash of anger. It’s none of Karl’s damn business how he is. But he puts a lid on that and makes his tone neutral. “I’m okay. How are you? And Molly?”
“We’re both… as well as can be expected.” Karl sounds old and tired, and Dan is annoyed again. These people shouldn’t be his problem—how did he get himself in a position where he is supposed to care about them? But he knows he isn’t being rational and tries to think of something to say that won’t show his feelings.
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Oh, no, Dan, nothing for you to worry about.” There’s another pause. “We spoke to Chris earlier, and he said you didn’t think you had any preferences for the funeral. Is that right? No favorite Bible verse or anything?”
Dan almost snorts. Has he ever said or done anything that would make Karl think he knew a single Bible verse, let alone had a favorite? “Uh, no, not really.”
Karl continues, and Dan feels like bashing his phone against the wall of the barn. He wonders if Karl is still drugged, if that would explain his slow speech and apparent inability to accept that Dan doesn’t care about any of this. “We thought we’d go with the Twenty-third Psalm. We know it’s overused, but it’s beautiful.”
“Okay.” Dan doesn’t know how much of this he can take. “Have you got a time set for it yet? Do you know where it’s going to be?”
“Oh, yes, we’ve got the schedule here somewhere….” There’s the sound of rustling papers, and then Karl’s voice calling to someone.
There’s a rattling sound, and then Chris’s voice. “Danny? Listen, let me call you back—a bunch of aunts and uncles just arrived, and everything’s a bit crazy.”
“Sure, fine,” Dan says, and clicks the phone shut. Chris is over at the house again. Chris is taking care of everything. Dan feels a flash of resentment before he settles into being ashamed. Is it any wonder the Archers didn’t trust Dan with being part of the earlier decision when this is how he acts when something bad happens? He’d melted down the day before. Today he’s hiding in the barn, avoiding taking any responsibility for anything. He decides he should be grateful for Chris. Let him take the heat and deal with them all. Molly and Chris’s mom are close, so she’s probably involved, and the woman has never been a big fan of Dan’s. She’d once called him an “opportunistic drifter” when she didn’t know he could hear. And Chris knows all the relatives, has a knack for keeping track of cousins and grandparents that Dan would just as soon forget about. Family comes easy to Chris, so let Chris deal with the family.
Dan helps Robyn clean the remaining stalls and then heads upstairs. He hunts through the kitchen for food, wishing that there really was a secret stash in one of the cupboards. He knows he should just
go and buy groceries or at least pick up some takeout. He knows he should have just let Jeff come over. But he feels like he’s walking a fine line of control, and somehow being with Jeff makes it harder to maintain the facade of calmness, makes it more likely that he’ll wobble out of balance. He remembers his little display the day before and grimaces. He knows he can’t blame Jeff for it, but thinks maybe he would have managed to get it together faster if Jeff hadn’t been so understanding and gentle. And Dan knows that Jeff doesn’t have any business in Kentucky, knows that he seemed so weak that Jeff thought he needed to be baby-sat. The fact that Jeff is still here is embarrassing evidence of Dan’s inability to make himself appear normal and in control. He thinks guiltily of Jeff’s actual business, in California, and of the upcoming art show that he had said he’d need to spend a lot of time preparing for. Instead of doing any of that, he’s hanging out in a Louisville hotel worrying that Dan is unable to even feed himself.
Dan’s stomach growls as if echoing Jeff’s concern. He looks at his phone, thinks about calling Jeff and taking him up on his offer, but it’s too pathetic. Then there’s the sound of footsteps on the stairs and a knock at the door, which Dan has left ajar, as usual. Dan is only a little disappointed when the door is shoved open to reveal Chris’s face.
Chris pushes the door the rest of the way open with his foot, and Dan notices that Chris is carrying a lot of stuff. It’s mostly in bags, but there are a couple of boxes, some Tupperware… Dan’s stomach growls again, this time in delight. Chris has brought him food.
Chris takes everything over to the kitchen table and manages to set it down without dropping anything. “They’re drowning in casseroles over there—I said I thought I knew a good home.” He pokes around a little. “I tried to pick the good stuff.” Then he opens up one of the bags and pulls out two cartons of milk and another bottle of Wild Turkey. They hadn’t finished the one from the night before, but apparently Chris wants to be prepared.
Dan closes in on the table. “Is there anything that doesn’t need to be heated?” He finds a Tupperware container filled with little sandwiches and eats one as he walks over to the cupboard. “You want a plate?”
“Yeah, sure.” Chris is still sorting, putting things in the fridge or over on the counter. He pulls out one glass casserole dish. “His Aunt Debbie’s mac and cheese—trust me, man, this is excellent. I’m putting it in the fridge, on top—you should have that for dinner.” When Chris is done fussing, he takes the plate from Dan and they both take a few handfuls of the little sandwiches. They go to sit on the couch.
After a few moments of silent eating, Chris pulls a sheet of paper from his back pocket. “This is the schedule. There’s visitation tomorrow, 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., that’s at the funeral home—Wilsons’, on Broadway, by the mall?” Dan nods blankly. He’s not altogether sure what a visitation is, but he supposes he can find the place if he needs to. “Then the funeral service is the next day at one, at St. Andrew’s United.” Dan nods again. He knows he’ll have to go to the funeral. Chris looks a little uncomfortable about the next part. “And then… they want to have him cremated. I know you said you didn’t care, but I thought I’d run that by you.”
“Cremated? Damn, they just can’t get rid of him fast enough, huh?” Dan doesn’t think that’s what he meant to say, but he’s not sure.
Chris looks a little pained. “Apparently it’s a family thing—they’re just not into graveyards.”
Dan isn’t too clear on all this. “So, then… where do the ashes go?”
“I guess they go wherever people want. You can scatter them, or keep them in an urn or something….”
“I thought they were trying to get away from keeping Justin in storage.”
Chris gives him a level look. “Do you actually object to this, or are you just being pissy?”
Dan sighs and runs both hands through his hair. “I don’t even know.” He eats two more little sandwiches before he says, “I guess it’s no worse than having him in the ground, right? I mean, either way….” Dan is proud that he said all that without crying. It’s a lot easier to be irritable than to be honest, but Chris is doing a lot, and he deserves Dan’s best effort.
“Okay. I’ll let them know… but, Dan… the visitation tomorrow, that’s going to be pretty public. Do you want that to be the first time you see Karl and Molly, or do you want to come back over to the house with me now?”
“Am I supposed to go to the visitation?”
Chris looks surprised. “Well, yeah. I think Karl and Molly were thinking you’d stand next to them.”
“Stand next to them? Chris, what the hell’s a visitation? And does it really last for four hours?” Dan is beginning to wish he had a bit more experience with funerals.
Chris snorts. “Feels like four years, usually. It’s for people to come through and pay their respects, give their sympathy to the family.” Chris scratches his nose. “Usually the coffin’s there so people can say bye to Justin, and then there’s a kind of line up that they go through, giving condolences. I don’t know. I’ve been to ones that are less formal, just sort of a gathering of people. It’s supposed to be a chance for people to talk one-on-one.”
“I’m supposed to talk one-on-one with Justin’s family? About what?”
“About Justin, mostly. But, honestly, the way Molly’s going, I think practically the whole family is going to be in the damn receiving line, so you won’t really have to talk to them.”
Dan’s mind is whirling. “Okay, wait, walk me through this… I show up at what time? At four?”
“A little before, probably. I can pick you up if you want.”
“Okay, and then what?”
“Then you get in a line with the rest of the family and stand there and feel awkward as people come through and say nice things to you.”
Dan tries to collect his thoughts, then shakes his head. “But I’m not part of the family. Why am I there? Do you have to do this?”
Chris smiles gently. “Karl asked me, but I said I might be more useful in the background, helping out. And it’s not family like there’s a blood test. It’s family like people who cared about him.”
“But then why don’t you have to do it?” Dan is starting to panic. He’d thought the funeral would be bad, but this is sounding a thousand times worse.
“Dan, chill out. You don’t have to do anything. It’s just—you and Justin were together for a long time. People know you. You know people. They’ll expect you to be there.” Chris pauses, and seems to be searching for more ways to convince Dan. “There’ll be a lot of horse people, probably. Justin was a pretty big deal around here—people will want to say goodbye. You can just talk shop with them.”
“For four hours?” Dan’s mouth is dry.
“For, like, a minute each person. And you can take breaks if you want to. Look, man, I’m not saying it’s going to be a good time, but you might be glad you did it—it can help remind you that a lot of people care.”
“Oh God.”
“It’ll make the funeral seem easy by comparison—does that help?”
“No, you sadistic bastard, that doesn’t help!” Dan is half-laughing, half-crying. He feels like he might be getting a little over the edge. He sees yesterday’s bottle of Wild Turkey on the table. He thinks for a second, and then leans over and picks it up, opens it and takes a swallow. It burns, but he waits a moment and then takes another. He offers the bottle to Chris, who considers it briefly and then stands up and goes to the kitchen, coming back with two glasses. Dan is already feeling better, the burn in his throat and stomach dispersing into a warm glow, but he takes the glass Chris pours for him anyway.
“Can I be drunk for it?”
Chris grins. “You probably shouldn’t be falling down, but I bet half the people there will have a flask.”
“Can I be drunk after it?”
“I dunno. Do you want to be hungover for the funeral?”
Dan doesn’t think it would make things any worse. �
��I was hoping to be drunk for the funeral too.”
“Damn,” Chris says mildly. “I should have bought more than one extra bottle.”
Dan lets out a deep, shaky breath. “This is really happening, huh?”
There’s a long pause, and then Chris drains his glass. “Yeah, it really is.”
They sit in silence for a moment longer, and then Dan reaches over and grabs the bottle, refills his glass and Chris’s. “Okay. What else do I need to know?”
DAN DOESN’T make it over to the Archer house that afternoon. It’s not that he thinks it’s a bad idea, exactly, but when he looks at the amber liquid in his glass and realizes that finishing this drink will make him too drunk to impose himself on a grieving family… he finishes the drink. And then a couple more. Chris is being more restrained, and when Dan’s eyes start drifting shut, Chris puts him to bed. Dan tries to resist, tells Chris that it’s only mid-afternoon, reminds him that he wanted Dan to have Aunt Debbie’s mac and cheese for dinner, but Chris dumps him on the bed, and Dan decides to stay there. It’s comfy and warm.
When he wakes up, it’s to the sounds of the horses being brought in and fed. The sun is going down outside his window. He doesn’t feel hung over, so he thinks he must still be drunk, but he pours himself another glass just to make sure. He wonders briefly if this is becoming a problem, this alcohol thing, and then decides that for the next few days, it’s allowed. For the next few days, anything that keeps him from screaming is allowed.
He gets up and goes to the kitchen, finds the casserole dish in the fridge and reads the directions on the attached Post-it note: Oven, 350 degrees, for an hour. He can do that.
While he’s waiting, he paces around the apartment. Chris had said the funeral home was looking for photographs and mementos to place around the room during the viewing, so the two of them had gone through the boxes and found whatever Dan had. He didn’t have much, really. Justin’s parents had been the chroniclers of his career, and Dan had never been much for photographs. When Dan had moved out after hearing about the sale of the farm, he’d packed Justin’s things along with his own, so he and Chris had unpacked almost everything Dan owned when they were looking for Justin’s stuff. It’s still spread all over the living room, and Dan thinks about picking it up. Instead, he picks up his phone. And then sets it down again. He’s a strange mix of drunk and hyperactive, and it’s driving him a little crazy.
Dreamspinner Press Year Four Greatest Hits Page 40
