Craft (The Gibson Boys 2)

“You know what I don’t understand?” I ask. “I don’t get why you let me in so much, knowing you didn’t want to keep me there.”

He looks at the sky, stretching his neck all the way back.

“You knew my reservations,” I tell him. “And if I didn’t know you better, I’d think you drug me in just to see if you could.”

His eyes fly wide. “That’s bullshit.”

“I know it is,” I say, biting back a lump in my throat. “But pardon me for feeling like you made me fall in love with you and then slammed that door shut.”

The words are into the universe with no way to reel them back in. His mouth hangs open like it’s some kind of epiphany and that just annoys me more.

There’s a bubble threatening to burst, one I’ve held back from exploding since he broke things off with me. But standing here in this parking lot, looking at him like he’s the hurt one, makes me want to scream.

“I have to go,” I say, climbing in my car with a hurried frenzy.

“What did you just say?”

I turn over the engine. “You heard me.”

“Mariah …”

With a final look his way, I smile sadly. “Goodbye, Lance.”

The door shuts as he continues his protest and I pull out with only a quick glance in the rearview mirror.

Thirty-One

Lance

I hate this fucking place. It’s no place to spend a Saturday morning.

My shoes sink into the soil. It’s never solid. For whatever reason, the ground is always soft here and I don’t even want to imagine why that is.

Machlan comes here a lot. He makes sure the stone is decorated for each holiday and that the crew that mows the cemetery doesn’t damage the headstone my siblings and I had designed when our parents died. Machlan says he finds peace here. Well, he doesn’t say it like that, but it’s what he means. It doesn’t do that for me.

My steps fall with trepidation at seeing the black stone sitting near the back. There are purple flowers in the urns. It was Mom’s favorite color and although Machlan acts like a badass, and is one, really, he’s the one of us who remembers things like that.

“Hey,” I say to the stone, a flock of birds taking flight at the sound of my voice. “I know you aren’t here and that I’m talking to an inanimate object. Yes, Dad, that worries me too.”

There’s a bench Mom’s bowling league asked to place on their grave perched right next to the stone on the slab. I sit, feeling the sun on my face.

Despite the warmth, I haven’t felt alive in days. It’s funny, really. I’ve always been a guy who springs out of bed in the morning fairly excited about my day. But since Mariah and I stopped talking, since she goes out of her way to avoid me, none of that is true.

“You always taught us to be a blessing to others,” I say out loud, wishing my parents were here to answer me. “Told us we had so many advantages, so much to offer that was given to us by no work of our own, and we had to share that.” I stroke my chin, trying to get my thoughts together. “How do you decide what’s a blessing to someone and what’s a curse?”

“Depends how you figure.” The voice rings out behind me, making me jump. I spin around to see Machlan standing a few feet back. “Didn’t mean to scare ya.”

“What are you doing here?”

“The landscaping crew left a bunch of trash the mowers cut up around the cemetery, so I picked it up and threw it in the garbage over there,” he says, motioning over his shoulder.

“Where’s your truck?”

“I walked down here. Not too far from my house.”

“Yeah. Guess not,” I say, getting to my feet.

“What were you talking about?” he asks. “Yeah, being nosy, but you have a lot of shit going on and I’m starting to worry a little. You haven’t told us one fuck story in weeks.” He looks at our parents’ stone. “Sorry, Mom.”

Shrugging, I look at my little brother. “I’ve been thinking a lot.”

“That spells trouble.”

“Right?” I sigh. “Mom always preached about blessings and all that, but …”

“Look,” Machlan says. “If you take one thing away from our parents’ lives, take this.” He bends down and circles the date of their death. “Take that.”

The numbers are etched into the stone, a stark reminder that the end of their lives was marked on a certain day, month, and year. Still, his point is lost on me.

“I don’t get it,” I tell him, still looking at the etchings.

“Did any of us expect them to die that day? Hell, no. If you would’ve gone with them, you would’ve been right beside them in the ground and I’d be sticking flowers on your grave too.”