Love Will (60 page)

“I would love to. Want some music?”

“No,” I tell her, already in love with the silence around us. To my ears that long to hear their own tune, it’s what I imagine a blank canvas is to an artist. I can already hear new melodies, and decide I should come back in the summer with my guitar and write. I sit in the middle of the back seat with my feet on the center console.

“Where do you want me?” Shea asks.

“That’s a loaded question, isn’t it?” She climbs in and shuts the driver’s side door, but stands on the floorboard beside me, waiting for a legitimate answer. “Sit in my lap.”

“No, that’ll hurt you.”

“No, it’s fine. You won’t be pressed up against that side. I’ll hold you against my chest. I want to have the same sightline as you. It’s easier to point things out.”

“Okay. But tell me if it gets uncomfortable.”

“Right,” I say mockingly, helping to get her settled, her back to my chest, and wrapping the blankets around us.

“Surprised you didn’t ask me to strip naked.”

“I’m waiting until we get really cold,” I tease her. I feel her laugh against me.
Well, that’s a turn on. I need to make her laugh some more
. I hold her close against me. “So tell me what you already know about the stars,” I whisper in her ear before kissing it.

We both look up at the same time. She points to a group of stars directly in front of us. “That… is Orion, I think, right?”

“Yeah. How’d you know?”

“The belt.”

“What do you see below the belt?”

“Will, we’re talking about
stars
!” she says, giggling again.

“Actually, below his belt is M42, which is the Orion Nebula. You and your dirty mind… from the Hubble, it is…” I pause, because it takes my breath away just thinking about it, just like it did the first time I saw it, “one of the most beautiful visions you’d ever see in the universe. I love it. If I could name a kid M42, I would. No, I wouldn’t. But seriously, it’s just a cloud of gas and dust, and new stars are being formed there as we speak. Thousands of them.”

“Maybe you can name M42 after your kid. Maybe it deserves a proper name, and maybe you’ll get the chance to do that someday.”

“I’ll just call it
Carl
,” I say, laughing at the first name that pops in my mind. Shea bursts out in hysterics, too. “They don’t want me naming shit in space.”

“Not if
Carl
is the best you can do.”

“What else do you know?”

“Sirius is that star there… the brightest star in the sky.”

“The brightest star in the
night
sky.”

“Okay, yeah,” she says.

“It’s called the Dog Star because it’s in Canis Major. We get the term dog days of summer from it. Did you know that?”

“No.”

“Those are the days when Sirius rises and sets with the sun. It’s a double star. There’s a white dwarf with it–Sirius B–it’s called the pup. It’s, like, the corpse of a star. But what we see here is simply Sirius, which is, like, twenty times brighter than the sun. But do you see that other bright star below it? It almost looks bluish?”

“Well, I see a star that’s not as bright. I’m not sure if it looks blue…”

“Well, that’s also part of Canis Major. It’s called Adhara, and it actually lets off a thousand times more light than Sirius. But it’s four-hundred-twenty-five-light-years away.”

“And how far is Sirius?”

“Eight-point-six.”

“Wow. What’s that other bright star?”

“That’s Procyon. Part of Canis Minor. It’s also actually a double star with a white dwarf.”

“Why do stars twinkle?” she asks me.

“They don’t.”

She points to Sirius again and argues with me. “It’s twinkling right now.”

“It’s not.”

“It is, too!”

“That is our planet, playing tricks on your eyes. That is simply our atmosphere getting in the way. If we were to go into space, there would be no pulsating. Just solid light.”

“Did you ever want to be an astronaut?”

“No,” I tell her. “I like human contact too much. Always have. And the thought of leaving behind my brothers? No.” I shake my head. “There is plenty to do from earth. I can make my contribution from here. Would I like to see space someday? Fuck, yes. But humanity is nowhere close to being civilized enough to colonize another planet without ruining it, so that’s not something that’ll happen in my lifetime.”

“Do you think there is life… out there?”

“I think it’s completely ignorant to think we’re alone. The edge of the observable universe is more than forty-six billion light years away. Forty-six
billion
. And we anticipate the observable universe to continue to expand. There’s no way we’re the only life forms. We may be the only humans. The only type we recognize. But it’s myopic to think that just because life
as we know it
hasn’t been detected in the solar system we have here, or anywhere nearby, that we’re the only ones. What is
life
anyway? We have
our
structure,
our
biology,
our
science,
our
vocabulary with
our
definitions… they’re going to have something altogether different. Alien.
Wonderful
. Right?”

“How can I argue with that?” she says, smiling.

“I didn’t mean to insinuate you’re ignorant, you know…” I say, realizing I’ve gone off on one of my rants.

“Fortunately, I agree with you. Even if I don’t understand the scope of the time you’re talking about.” She laughs against me again.

“Is it the light years that get you?”

“Yeah.”

“They’re a measure of distance, not time. The name is misleading. A light year is simply how
far
a beam of light travels in a year.”

“So…
that
has to be a finite distance, right?”

“It’s… roughly six trillion miles.”

“So the observable universe is forty-six billion times six trillion miles wide?”

“No. The
edge
is forty-six and a half billion times six trillion miles
away
. That’s, like, the radius. It’s ninety-three times six trillion miles wide. If you want me to get really nerdy, it’s twenty-eight-point-five-gigaparsecs wide. That number means nothing to you, though.”

“None of those numbers mean anything to me,” she explains.

I wrap my arms around her tighter and kiss her cheek. “This is my ideal date,” I confess to her.

“Really?”

“Yeah. I’ve always wanted to do this. I thought it would have to be in a planetarium. And I thought I’d have to twist the girl’s arm or bribe her to feign interest. I didn’t think I’d actually be able to see so many stars in nature and hold a woman in my arms who would ask me questions.”

“I think it’s fascinating. Tell me something about the moon. Something I don’t know.”

We both look to the east at the same time, taking in the not-quite-full moon. I’m overcome with immense sadness, remembering Laramie and Harmon telling me about their bedtime stories. The asshole wasn’t supposed to be sentimental. He’d told me months ago that he’d written me off when he’d done the same with my brother. I hated him for how he treated Max. My dad wasn’t supposed to be keeping my memory alive in made up tales that he told his little girls to get them to sleep every night.

I wasn’t supposed to be affected by shit like this. By him telling me he’s proud of me. By him telling me he’s sorry. I try to hide the tears from Shea, clearing my throat to fill the silence that builds when I should be responding with facts, but the broken gasps of air give me away.

She glances back suddenly, taking care in her movements. “Oh, Will.” She stands up in the car and turns around to face me, putting her arms around me and hugging me tightly. “I’m so sorry, Will.”

“This was about closure,” I tell her. “It was supposed to be me, getting everything off my chest and not letting him say a word. Just me and him. Those little girls were not supposed to be there, Shea.” The tears drip down my cheeks quickly. “I wasn’t meant to meet them. They opened doors I didn’t even see. I was just trying to board everything up. For Max. For me. For a lifetime of hurt.”

“I know,” she whispers.

“How dare he tell me he’s fucking proud of me! He doesn’t even know me. He never bothered. He chose this other family to know. To raise. To love. He didn’t pick me… he didn’t pick me, Shea.” My throat hurts from trying to hold back my emotions, and I can’t do it anymore. Feeling safe with her, I let myself cry over a relationship that was doomed from the day I was born.

“It’s okay, Will.” She runs her fingers through my hair. It’s soothing and calming.

“I can’t believe he tells them stories about me.”

“It sounds like he wanted them to know you. You’ve never been open to having a relationship with him, right? You told me that.”

“No. But he never tried, either. It was never my responsibility to fix our fucked up family.”

“No, it wasn’t, Will. And I’m sure there is a lot more a good father would have done,” she agrees. “Good fathers would never let their sons believe they weren’t loved. That they were unwanted. He obviously was not a good father to you and Max.

“Every day of my life, even when my dad was angry with me, I knew he loved me more than anything. He lived and breathed it. It showed in everything he did for me and my sister and my mom. I wish you could have had that. I’m sorry you didn’t.”

I nod my head. “I had Jon.” I want to make sure she knows I had someone who loved me like that. I’d be a lot more damaged if I hadn’t had him.

“You’re very lucky to have him, too.”

“I know. Even when we were fighting, I knew he had my back.”

“Good.”

“A part of me thinks I should consider his apology…”

“Really?”

“I intend to see Laramie and Harmon again. I can’t just turn my back on them; cross my fingers and hope they turn out okay. Who’s
their
Jon, you know? Who’s going to challenge them to be better than they are; to reach for things far beyond Divide? I can’t trust my father to do that.”

She wipes the remnants of tears away from beneath my eyes and kisses me.

“But I can’t forgive him until he makes changes, Shea. Until he accepts Max. Until he accepts
you
.” I take her hair in my hands, saving it from the billowing wind.

“Then make those ultimatums. You have the upper hand. You’re in control, Will. Didn’t you get that from your meeting with him today?” I shake my head. “
I
did. If you weren’t, he never would have come back out and apologized, or said he was proud. He would have turned on the water hose and chased us off the property. And who knows what his apology was encompassing?”

“I guess that’s true. I guess I have time to think about it… and talk to Max. I think it’s a decision we both have to make. We both vowed to leave him in the past.”

“You have no ties to him,” she says. “No obligations. Everything going forward can be whatever you two want. I don’t think you’ve made any mistakes. You have a family name you’re proud of. You’ve made peace with your mother. You told your dad what you wanted to tell him. The next move is yours. Whatever you want.” She kisses me again.

I dwell on that for a minute or two, then let it go for the night. “I want to get this date back on track,” I tell her.

“Yeah?”

I smile and kiss her. “Wanna make out under the stars?”

“I know your ideal date doesn’t have us simply making
out
, Will. That’s cute.”

“I was just trying to be polite and ease my way into it, Shea. You always know what my intentions are. Of course my perfect date would end with sex… under Sirius, with Gemini keeping a watchful eye on our surroundings.”

“What’s most comfortable for you?” she asks.

“Just like this, I’m afraid.”

“Perfect,” she says, unbuttoning my jeans for me. “But I think I’d like to share the same vantage point as you again…”

“Meaning…” I finish pulling down my clothes as she turns around and partially undresses, keeping the blankets tucked under her arms. “Backwards?” I ask, touching her behind, then pulling her onto me slowly. “Fuuuuck…” We both lean back, me against the seat of the car, her against me.

“Look up at the sky,” she says, taking my hands in hers and placing them strategically on her body, “see how vast it is. Imagine we’re the only two people on earth, and it’s our last day together. How would you make love to me then?”