*
Dan hadn’t gotten drunk last night, though that’s exactly what he’d wanted to do. Instead, he’d made plans. Mostly llama plans, because fuck Mel’s lack of faith, but also some hockey plans, because while he was mostly happy with what he’d told Dad and Scott, there’d been a niggling worry.
So he’d plotted and planned, and early this morning he’d called up Buck to help him out for the three days he’d be gone. He felt like shit when the llamas arrived, but even if he’d tried to sleep, he probably would have felt like shit.
He’d never been in love before, never felt loss like this. It was somewhat similar to his grandparents, except they still existed and loved him, when they remembered who he was. He didn’t have to accept that they were gone yet. He could pretend all was all right by not visiting or calling. Just send messages through an email with Mom or a card on holidays and birthdays.
That was probably wrong, but he didn’t know what else he could do. He took a deep breath and looked away from the new llamas getting settled in the pen, to the mountains, the fields, the cabin.
Maybe there was something he could do. Maybe it would mean nothing if Grandpa wasn’t lucid, but…he could try.
Dan pulled out his phone and brought up the number to the nursing home in Florida. After talking with a nurse for a little bit, his grandfather’s scratchy voice came through the receiver.
“Hello.”
“Hey, Gramps. It’s, um, me, Dan.”
“Who?”
“Dan. Daniel, y-your grandson.” He shouldn’t have done this. Why was he purposefully putting himself through more pain? What was this supposed to prove?
“Daniel. Ruth, do you hear that? It’s Daniel.”
There was a way Grandpa sometimes talked, like he didn’t remember but knew he was supposed to, so he pretended, and Dan couldn’t get over that feeling now. The way he said Daniel like he was some long lost friend, not his grandson.
“How are you?” Grandpa asked politely, clearly having no idea who he was.
“I’m good. Okay. How are you and Grandma?”
“Oh, you know, they keep us all shoved into this room. Won’t let me go see the horses. I know there are horses out there.”
As nice of a place as it was, there were no horses near the nursing home, and Dan had to close his eyes and lean his forehead against the rough wood of the fence. It was the old part. Grandpa probably built it, and he and Mel had added onto it.
And they were both, for all intents and purposes, gone.
“How do you feel about llamas?”
“Llamas?”
Then Dan felt like a tool for confusing a man with dementia. “Never mind. Sorry. Really. I…” Dan tried to think of something, something that would matter, that would make this stupid phone call worth it.
He looked around him. “You know, I’m, um, in the mountains. Montana. It’s, um, late morning and the sun is already really bright. Makes the mountains look like…glass almost.”
“Drought?”
“We had some rain last week. It helped.”
“That’s good. I’ve missed the mountains for years,” he said wistfully. “What else you got out there besides mountains?”
“Well, there’s a cabin.” A cabin Grandpa had been born in, raised children in, loved with everything he had. “It’s small, and old, but I think it was well lived in.”
It certainly put some perspective on the whole romantic heartbreak thing. Not that it alleviated the uncomfortable truth that Mel didn’t want his love. Didn’t trust it or believe in it. That the fence they built together was not a symbol. No, that still sucked, because in some half-cocked vision of his future, he’d wanted her there. Kids and all sorts of stupid, stupid shit.
Dan cleared his throat. One heartbreak at a time. “I just wanted to tell you…”
“You know, I know someone else named Daniel. He’s going to fix up my place back in Montana, you know? A cabin just like that. That’s right. He was going to spend the summer there. I think he’ll love it though. He’ll stay. He’s a good boy. I knew him when he was young, but I don’t think he’s young anymore.”
Even knowing Grandpa wouldn’t understand, that he was too lost in some confusing, muffled place, Dan said it anyway. “I’m staying, Gramps. I love it. You’re right.”
“Maybe you’d like to talk to Ruth? I don’t think my hearing aid is working quite right.”
“Sure. Yeah. Sure.” Dan cleared his throat again, trying to dislodge the tears—the happy and the brokenhearted kind. The words hurt as they healed, and broke as they fixed it all up. He didn’t know what to do with it.
Except say “I love you,” listen to Grandma talk about some neighbor she didn’t like, and then say “I love you” to her too.
Then sit on the damn ground and cry like a damn baby because no one was there to see it.
But once he was done, wrung all the way out, feeling worse and somehow better at the same time, he got up and went to check on the llamas.
Chapter 25