I walk in and find his closet, the door hanging open and a flannel already there in front of me.
“Fuckin’ early,” he gripes. “Does he want me up yet?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Cool,” he mumbles and crashes back down on his bed, face first.
He’s still wearing his jeans from yesterday, and I look around his room, seeing an array of discarded clothes, shoes, and other odds and ends strewn about. Messy but not really dirty.
Taking the shirt, I leave the room, closing the door behind me, and wrap it around my waist, tying it. Turning to walk down the stairs, I hear something behind me, and look over to see Kaleb coming down the third-floor staircase.
He veers for the bathroom, and even though I’m less than six feet away, he pretends he doesn’t notice me and disappears into the room, slamming the door behind him.
I linger a moment. I could barely see the cuts on his face from yesterday in the dark hallway, but I could definitely see the one on his lip.
It’s not my fault he got into a fight. But still…
Walking over to the door, I raise my hand to knock but then stop myself. I lean my ear in, but I don’t hear anything, and I struggle to walk away.
I have ointment…for his cuts…if he wants.
I…
Oh, never mind. I close my fist and finally drop my hand, turning to leave.
I head downstairs, spotting Jake outside on the deck, and walk out, joining him. He hands me a mug of coffee and stares out at the forest and the mist that hangs around the trunks.
“I like getting up early,” he tells me. “It’s the only time the house and land are quiet, and I have the energy to enjoy it.”
I look up at him. Me, too. Taking a sip of my coffee, I force the words out, even though my instinct tells me to be quiet. I want to make an effort.
“I like that you all work at home,” I tell him, seeing him look at me out of the corner of my eye. “There’s always people here.”
People who are a little abrasive, rude, and over-bearing, but I have a couple of those undesirable qualities myself.
He half-smiles down at me, and I drink some more of my coffee before setting the mug down on the railing.
“Come on,” he says, setting his down, too.
Walking around me, he leads me down the stairs and toward the barn, picking up a tool belt from the worktable in the shop as we pass by.
We walk beyond the stable to the paddock where Bernadette and Shawnee are already wandering and getting some fresh air.
I stare at the back of his head as I follow him and he buckles on his tool belt.
Questions. He mentioned I never asked them questions.
It’s not that I don’t have questions, but questions start conversations.
“Hold this up for me,” he asks, lifting a piece of the fencing around the corral.
I come in and lean down, lifting up the board so it’s level as he dips through the opening in the fence to the other side. Pulling out a hammer and nail, he bolts the board back in place as I help hold on.
“Why doesn’t Kaleb talk?” I ask.
He doesn’t look at me as he pulls out another nail and starts pounding. “I’m not sure I should talk about it, if Kaleb won’t.”
“Does it have to do with their mother?”
His eyes shoot up to me. “What do you know about their mother?”
I shrug. “Nothing, really,” I say. “But the boys obviously came from somewhere and not from the twenty-five-year-olds leaving your room every morning.”
He chuckles, pounding in the nail. “It’s not every morning, thank you.”
But she is twenty-five. Or younger, because he didn’t correct me on the age.
The silence hangs in the air, and his expression grows pensive as he fits another nail.
“Their mother is in prison,” he states. “Ten to fifteen up in Quintana.”
Quintana.
Ten to fifteen…years?
I stare at my uncle who’s not making eye contact, a whole bundle of questions now ready to pour out. What did she do? Was he involved?
Do Noah and Kaleb still talk to her?
He moves down the line, and I follow him, noticing another board kicked off.
When was she sentenced? How long has he been raising the boys by himself?
I soften my eyes, watching him. That must’ve been hard. It’s a different pain, I’m sure. Having someone taken away from you versus someone wanting to leave you.
“You loved her?” I ask.
But then I drop my eyes, embarrassed. Of course, he loved her.
“I dove into her,” he explains instead. “Because I couldn’t stop loving someone else.”