Here, have a bone. It's been marinated in maple sap and procrastination. Better have weak, gummy teeth, because it's the first piece in ages and probably the last, so you'll have to worry it for a bit.
It ain't supposed a be like this, Ennis thinks as he scrubs the dishes much harder than he should. He inspects the plate, making sure he didn't peel the decorative trim off, before hanging it on the rack. I love Alma, I do. I got two little girls a my own.
I ain't queer. He adds for good measure, as though that's that. Maybe if Jack were a woman…It makes him smile, out loud, imagining Jack in a floral housedress and frilly apron, hair long and flipped out. Ennis shakes head. And maybe we'll go to a place where bluebirds sing and there's a whiskey spring.
"Maybe we will," Jack had said, taking the flippant remark unusually seriously. He looked at Ennis through the flickering fire. "Maybe we will." And then he clambered over and pressed soft kisses to Ennis's jaw and thoughts of whiskey springs were shed with clothes as they sought their own paradise.
But Jack didn't forget it, that sonofabitch. No matter how hard he tries he can't get frustrated at Jack. Angry, maybe, punching him so hard bruises refuse to fade for days. Angry, like on nights after Alma's dropped off, her soft body not touching him but close enough to feel her warmth. Nights when he didn't know what took over him, just knew that he missed Jack so much he hurt. And not for sex as he tried to tell himself; not after he flipped a patient Alma onto her stomach and pounded her with such concentration tears nearly sprang to her eyes as she cried out.
He wanted Jack for Jack, because he was Jack Fucking Twist and he was all Ennis knew. "Damn him," whispers Ennis.
Alma stands in the doorway; pretty, sweet Alma, with puffy moviestar lips and sad, sad eyes. She watches him stare out the window, the shell of a man, broken as he never lets her see. Her husband, who is looking at the dusty, empty street so intently maybe her eyes shimmer, not with tears, no, never with tears. Her husband.
He turns around. Ennis notices her now, but his imagination has replaced her with someone else, someone tall and lean and a little worse for wear after being thrown out of Heaven and dumped unceremoniously on an easily-spooked filly. He crams on his hat so she can't see his sudden raw emotion.
Alma can't see him any more at all, and yet she can. "We should get divorced," she whispers, and then he crumples.
Ennis rushes to her and hugs her tight, and he's muttering something to her. Least, it seems like he is: his breath is hot on her ear, comes in ragged little spurts. "Jack, Jack," she thinks she hears. "Jack." And now he looks at her, tears in his eyes, her manly husband, not-husband anymore. And she has never seen him like this and her open mouth and eyes-not-blurring-with-tears seems to set him off more and now he is crying. "Jack."
Alma doesn't know what to do except fold him in her embrace like Junior, and speak of the devil, here comes Junior walking in to mamma and pappy crying in each other's arms.
"Mom? Daddy?" she asks, uncertainly.
Her nails nick him as she whirls around, her teeth snag his ear very briefly, and Ennis's eyes suddenly go very bright and he looks out the window again like he can see something they all can't.
"Jack," he says.
Alma looks over his ten-gallon hat and fancies she can hear the call of a bluebird and the rush of a whiskey spring.