Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club Read Free Page B

one day, she didn’t come home. She just disappeared.”
    That was the look he had, the look he wore on his face: the remnants of hurt, the emotional scar, the knowledge that all the laughter in the world could be swept away by a capricious wind at any moment. And there was nothing he could do about it.
    There weren’t any tears in his eyes. “I looked for her and looked for her and looked for her. The police did nothing. No one did anything. And who was she to them, anyway, just another woman who disappeared into the desert, her flesh swallowed up by the fucking sand.” And then his tears came just exactly in the same way that rainstorms came up in the desert, thunder,lightning, angry, monstrous rains that almost felt like bullets. I held him as he sobbed and wondered why the world was so cruel and why good and beautiful and decent men like Javier mattered so little when they should have mattered so much.
    “It’s not true,” I whispered, “that you don’t have anyone.” I held his face in my hands. “Do you hear me, Javier?”
    I made love to him.
    And then he made love to me.
    No one had ever whispered my name the way he whispered it. I fell asleep to the sound of my name.
    When I woke, he was already dressed. It was night. “I have to go to the hospital,” he said.
    “I’ll take you.”
    “No. It’s just a few blocks.”
    “It’s cold,” I said. “You didn’t bring a coat.” I got up and went to the closet. “Here. Put this on.”
    He didn’t argue with me. He took the coat, put it on and kissed me. Then he was gone.
    9.
    I wanted to call him, but didn’t. I’d leave it up to him. If his uncle was dying, he’d be calling his cousins to come into town, taking care of things. He’d always taken care of things. He was that kind of man. There were takers and there were givers and he was a giver. I thought about him, pictured him sitting next to his uncle’s bed.
    On Tuesday night, he called. It was late, near midnight. “Will you come?”
    “I’ll be right there.” I said. It didn’t take me long to get dressed and rushout the door. The hospital was down the street. I walked up to the fifth floor and found the room. He was there, holding his uncle’s hand. I moved next to him and placed my hand on his back.
    “They didn’t come,” he whispered. “His sons. They didn’t come.”
    “You’re his son,” I said.
    We sat and listened to his uncle struggling to breathe. The last breaths of the dying are loud and haunting. The body, even in the dying, wants to live, fights greedily for one more breath of air—and damn the pain.
    I knew Javier would stand there until his uncle took his last breath. I stood there with him. That was all I could do.
    Javier remained an alert and faithful sentry to the last. When the room grew quiet and still, Javier gasped as if he’d felt the stab of a knife. His body shook. Grief was like that—it was an earthquake in the heart. But grief was also a cruel thief that stole away the control you had over your own body.
    I kissed Javier’s shoulder—though I doubt he was aware that I was even there. I went to get the nurse. I took my time. Javier had more than earned a moment alone with an uncle he so clearly adored.
    He never left the room until the funeral home came to collect the body. By then the sun was rising.
    I drove him to his uncle’s house. We didn’t pass many words between us as we drove. When we arrived, I opened the front door and sat Javier down on a chair, Javier who was drunk with sorrow and exhaustion.
    “This was where he sat,” he said.
    I nodded. “Then it’s a good place,” I said.
    I rummaged through the kitchen and put on some coffee.
    Javier walked into the kitchen and sat at the table.
    “I don’t think I want any coffee,” he said.
    I nodded. “You should get some sleep.”
    “I don’t want to stay here,” he said. “It’s too sad.”
    “Get some things,” I said.
    He nodded.
    The drive to my apartment took less