Perhaps, Owen thought, this was one of the small benefits age had brought them, along with grief and loss and the earliest creeping onset of physical infirmity—a deepened awareness that sex wasn’t a race to the finish line, and neither was life. The journey was what mattered, and he took Kerry on a journey as long and loving and fond as he was able.
Kerry wept when he came, burying his face in Owen’s shoulder, shaking silently.
Afterward, they lay on the bed, hands laced together, the sweat on their bodies drying quickly in the room’s chill.
Homespun | Layla M. Wier
84
The motel’s heating system rattled fitfully. Owen roused himself enough to reach down to the foot of the bed and drag the comforter over both of them. They slept with the lights on, and there was frost on the window in the morning.
LAURA drove down for the funeral in Blue Thistle Farm’s rattling, smoke-spewing, five-mile-to-the-gallon hay truck.
“Like you could have stopped me,” she said, and hugged Owen before giving a much longer, gentler hug to Kerry. “I brought your dark suit, Daddy.”
Owen tried to stop adding up the gas bill for the trip in his head. “Who’s taking care of the stock?”
“The Walker kids are coming over to feed and milk the animals.” At Owen’s look of horror, she said, “You’re thinking of Studly Walker, aren’t you? Relax. I know he hasn’t got three brain cells to rub together, but his sisters are all right.”
“You have a neighbor named Studly Walker?” Kerry
asked.
“We don’t call him that to his face,” Owen said. “Stop looking so interested.”
Laura’s arrival came as a welcome relief. By this point Owen was thoroughly tired of pointy-faced Ruehling relatives, though, he figured, not half as tired of them as Kerry had to be. There was a seemingly endless number of them—aunts and uncles, cousins and nieces and nephews, all dark and skinny and clearly related to Kerry.
Kerry had visibly toned himself down for the funeral. He hadn’t gone so far as to wear a suit, but he’d compromised on a black sweater to go with his black jeans, had taken out his piercings, and even combed his hair down. It didn’t help; Homespun | Layla M. Wier
85
he still didn’t fit with the rest of them. Kerry’s sister was there, with her husband and teenage children and a bunch of Ruehling cousins—all of them well-scrubbed and well-trimmed and very… straight , Owen thought, in all senses of the word. They all were. It was exactly the sort of crowd that would have turned up for a church bake sale or a Fourth of July picnic in Hazel. Women in skirts, men with their hair trimmed above the collar. Male paired off with female, two by two.
For the first time in his life, he began to understand how out of place Kerry must feel on Blue Thistle Farm. For Owen, it was his own world, where everyone knew him and all his friends had known Nancy, and he swam in it like a fish in water. His neighbors liked him and accepted him—
but would they still accept him just the same if he turned up wearing a shiny new wedding ring, hand in hand with a queer punk from the city?
And he also thought he might understand why Kerry
was more comfortable with his artist friends in New York City than with the people he’d grown up around. Steeped in his own family history, never unwelcome among them, Owen had never grasped that rootlessness before. And he had a glimmering of a few more reasons, now, why Kerry might find a wedding ring more like a leash than a benediction.
Kerry’s family was friendly to Owen right up to the point when they realized he wasn’t one of the senior Mr. Ruehling’s friends—that he was, in fact, there with Kerry. There was no outright rudeness, just coolness and disapproving glances he felt across his skin like sandpaper. When the family retired to Kerry’s sister’s place for the reception after the funeral, Owen thought about heading out—but Kerry went, so he and Laura went
Kerry wept when he came, burying his face in Owen’s shoulder, shaking silently.
Afterward, they lay on the bed, hands laced together, the sweat on their bodies drying quickly in the room’s chill.
Homespun | Layla M. Wier
84
The motel’s heating system rattled fitfully. Owen roused himself enough to reach down to the foot of the bed and drag the comforter over both of them. They slept with the lights on, and there was frost on the window in the morning.
LAURA drove down for the funeral in Blue Thistle Farm’s rattling, smoke-spewing, five-mile-to-the-gallon hay truck.
“Like you could have stopped me,” she said, and hugged Owen before giving a much longer, gentler hug to Kerry. “I brought your dark suit, Daddy.”
Owen tried to stop adding up the gas bill for the trip in his head. “Who’s taking care of the stock?”
“The Walker kids are coming over to feed and milk the animals.” At Owen’s look of horror, she said, “You’re thinking of Studly Walker, aren’t you? Relax. I know he hasn’t got three brain cells to rub together, but his sisters are all right.”
“You have a neighbor named Studly Walker?” Kerry
asked.
“We don’t call him that to his face,” Owen said. “Stop looking so interested.”
Laura’s arrival came as a welcome relief. By this point Owen was thoroughly tired of pointy-faced Ruehling relatives, though, he figured, not half as tired of them as Kerry had to be. There was a seemingly endless number of them—aunts and uncles, cousins and nieces and nephews, all dark and skinny and clearly related to Kerry.
Kerry had visibly toned himself down for the funeral. He hadn’t gone so far as to wear a suit, but he’d compromised on a black sweater to go with his black jeans, had taken out his piercings, and even combed his hair down. It didn’t help; Homespun | Layla M. Wier
85
he still didn’t fit with the rest of them. Kerry’s sister was there, with her husband and teenage children and a bunch of Ruehling cousins—all of them well-scrubbed and well-trimmed and very… straight , Owen thought, in all senses of the word. They all were. It was exactly the sort of crowd that would have turned up for a church bake sale or a Fourth of July picnic in Hazel. Women in skirts, men with their hair trimmed above the collar. Male paired off with female, two by two.
For the first time in his life, he began to understand how out of place Kerry must feel on Blue Thistle Farm. For Owen, it was his own world, where everyone knew him and all his friends had known Nancy, and he swam in it like a fish in water. His neighbors liked him and accepted him—
but would they still accept him just the same if he turned up wearing a shiny new wedding ring, hand in hand with a queer punk from the city?
And he also thought he might understand why Kerry
was more comfortable with his artist friends in New York City than with the people he’d grown up around. Steeped in his own family history, never unwelcome among them, Owen had never grasped that rootlessness before. And he had a glimmering of a few more reasons, now, why Kerry might find a wedding ring more like a leash than a benediction.
Kerry’s family was friendly to Owen right up to the point when they realized he wasn’t one of the senior Mr. Ruehling’s friends—that he was, in fact, there with Kerry. There was no outright rudeness, just coolness and disapproving glances he felt across his skin like sandpaper. When the family retired to Kerry’s sister’s place for the reception after the funeral, Owen thought about heading out—but Kerry went, so he and Laura went
Similar Books
