“I’ll take the couch,” Ian said, speaking up for the first time since they’d returned. “Jamie and Dakota can stay in the master room, you can sleep in Jamie’s room and the kid and Steve can sleep in the guest room. It’s no big deal.”
“I just didn’t want to bring up any bad memories.”
“He’ll have to face them eventually,” Dakota whispered, patting Erik’s arm. “Besides, I’ll talk him down if anything happens.”
“I know you will, Dakota.”
Dakota stood and made his way toward Jamie’s old room. He didn’t know what he’d say if anything happened tonight, but regardless, he would still be there for him.
“I haven’t been in here for years,” Jamie said, settling down on the bed before them. He pressed his hand into the foam mattress and smiled as the imprint remained for a moment afterward. “I remember when Dad got this bed for Mom after her back started acting up.”
“Your mom had a bad back?”
“I think it was mostly because of all the stress she was going through. Dad was active military and all. She used to get stress spots on the back of her head. I could barely touch her shoulder without the muscles tensing up.”
“That’s a lot for a five-year-old to deal with,” Dakota said, setting the picture of Jamie’s mother and father back on the cabinet before them. He looked at their smiling faces for a moment longer before turning back to look at his boyfriend. “Are you ok with sleeping here?”
“I’ll have to deal with it eventually. Why not now?”
“I dunno. I just thought…” Dakota paused.
“You thought what, babe?”
“That you might not be ready.”
“I’ll never be ready to accept my parents’ deaths,” Jamie sighed, leaning back against the pillows arranged before the headrest. “I don’t think anyone ever really is.”
“So you think your mom is—“
“Gone? Somewhat, yes. I hope not, but I’ve accepted the fact that she’s never going to be in my life again.”
“I’ve kind of accepted it. It’s not the same though.”
“What? You accepting your family’s passing?”
“No. I…I don’t know how to explain it. My family was gone before this happened. I guess that makes it easier and takes less of the pain away.”
“Dakota, do you ever wonder what happened to your dad?”
“Sometimes, but I don’t really care. He killed my mother. I can never forgive him for that.”
Jamie nodded. He gestured Dakota forward and took his hand when he was only an arm’s length away. “I have a lot of respect for what you’ve gone through. I hope you know that.”
“I know.”
“And I hope you know that there’s no one else I’d rather go through this with than you.”
“Thank you.”
“Come on, let’s get some shut eye. We’ve had a long day.”
After stripping out of his clothes, Dakota crawled into bed, closed his eyes, and sank back against Jamie.
Beneath the covers of a past that should have been doubtful, Dakota felt nothing but warmth.
CHAPTER 11
“He’s dying,” Eagle said.
“I know,” Kevin replied.
Back against the wall and knees drawn to his chest, Kevin pressed his hand against his face and tried not to look at the Native American man before him. His heart felt like a thousand-pound weight and his head felt like it would explode at any moment, a bomb set to go off.
He bowed his head and closed his eyes.
This couldn’t be happening. It just couldn’t.
In the short moments that followed, during which he felt as though small and poised before the greatest hurdle his life would ever really throw at him, Kevin sought out Eagle’s eyes in the light seeping from the candle in the corner. He found them in near darkness, where he would not have expected them to be—directly in the corner of the room, seated in an old, wooden chair.
He’s not some Shaman sage wonder-maker. You already know that.
Still, that didn’t stop him from giving in to clichéd superstition and imaging that Eagle was something more than he really was. He’d never been prone to racist ideals, to imagining men of different colors and backgrounds as things they obviously were not, but at that moment, the Native man in front of him looked like a diamond in the night, a glimmering moment of hope in his worst night of darkness.
“Eagle?” he whispered.
“Yes, Kevin?”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“I don’t believe any man should know what to do in times like these.”
“That doesn’t help me any.”
“I know.” Eagle rose. The wooden chair creaked as it rocked forward, then again when it bounced back against the wall. It took a moment for Kevin to realize that the man was walking toward him. When he did, Eagle was already at his side, seating himself atop the bed they shared and staring at him with dark eyes. “May I say something, Kevin?”
“Please.”
“Only you can decide what’s best for your son. No one else.”
But what if you can’t decide? he thought. What if you don’t know what to do? What if you’re afraid of knowing what to?
With no answers to the thoughts running amok in his head, he sighed, stood, and pushed himself toward the door, but stopped short before he could wrap his hand around the doorknob.
He isn’t going to get better.
The reality of the situation froze him in place. At first he thought he would start shaking, as his hand trembled in front of him as though frail and without stability, then his eyes began to burn. Somehow, though, he managed to retain his composure, despite the stark realization that ran through his head.
“Kevin?” Eagle asked.
“He isn’t going to get better,” Kevin said, dropping his hand at his side. “His fever’s been at 103 degrees for the past three days. I don’t know what to do.”
“Kevin…”
“Is there anything you can do?” he asked, turning to face the man. “Anything at all?”
“I’ve tried everything, Kevin.”
“He’s fuckin’ suffering!”
“Quiet!” Eagle growled, slapping his hand over his Kevin’s mouth. “Don’t wake your children! They don’t deserve to go through this.”
“Neither do I!” Kevin wailed.
“It’s up to you to decide what to do. Your son is dying. Every waking moment is wrought with pain and agony. I’ve barely been able to keep him asleep. At this rate, he’ll just waste away if we keep him in the state he’s in.”
“What do we do?”
Eagle pressed a finger to his lips.
“Your. Son. Is. Suffering. Would you want to suffer the pain he does?”
“No.”
“Would you want someone to keep you in that pain if you had any choice?”
“Of course not,” Kevin said.
Rethink your answer. Repeat his question.
The breath went out of Kevin’s lungs.
His heart stopped in his chest.
Every memory that he could have possibly had swam to the front of his vision and pushed at the base of his skull. Them at the park, eating dinner, laughing at something on TV, going to the first day of school, taking him to the hospital after he broke his ankle, running amongst autumn leaves so red and yellow that they looked as though they would crumble at any moment, having ‘the talk’ when he turned thirteen, meeting the first girlfriend, going to the first day at high school, encountering the first heartbreak of teenage love and talks of college—everything came forward, all at once, together, as one.