Rob didn't say much when Gerry announced they were going to a movie. It was something he and Gerry did every couple of months, when her paycheck came in and the money wasn't needed elsewhere. He didn't much like her movie choices, but she was his little girl and he didn't give a crap what they saw anyway. Sometimes they went to Denny's first. Usually they went on a Friday night, but today they were going on Thursday because Friday, Kim would be back from college for winter break.

The theaters were a bit of a drive from Ucross, where Gerry worked the kitchen and Rob the stables of the Ucross Dude and Resort Ranch. He'd never expected to find himself working a dude ranch, but it's where Gerry found work after Rick left her, and the pay was a sight better than cattle places payed these days.

"What're we seein'?" Rob asked his oldest daughter across his Moon over My Hammy.

Gerry got that wide smile across her lined face. "You 'member Annie, right?"

Now Gerry had his full attention. Oh shit. "Annie Proulx? 'Course I 'member her. She and, what's his name, Woodrow was it? They still together?"

"Daddy, I don't have the faintest idea about that, but she made a movie. Or one of her stories made a movie. You 'member how she used to go around collecting stories?"

"Mmm… I 'member." He remembered really well, well enough to make him feel a bit light-headed. "We going a see her movie, then? What's that about?"

"Now, daddy, I want you to keep in mind this is a movie a Annie's, and be real polite about it, ok? 'Sides, I really want to see it."

"What's it about, now?" Rob felt his head swimming, and Denny's felt too damn hot, that was for sure.

"Well, it's about cowboys from Wyoming."

"Mmm… that don't sound too interesting."

"Well, thing is they're… they're gay."

"Gay cowboys? Never heard a such a thing. Nonsense."

"You be polite now about it, though."

Rob crammed a too-big-mouthful of eggs into his mouth, tried not to choke on it, and cursed the day he'd talked to Annie on the little porch arbor outside the dude ranch.

"You sure you don't mind my using this in a story. This is real good stuff, Rob."

"Nah, shit, I don't mind. Won't no one read a sorry, sad story like that anyway."

"I think they would. I mean, I think it'd make a real good story." Her grey eyes had hit him hard, twinkling fiercely, challenging him to say she was wrong a second time.

"I don't care what you do with it. Make a goddamn movie out of it if ya want. Just keep my name outta it."

"Alright. I'll change the names…how does 'del Mar' suite you? 'Ennis del Mar'? That enough of a change for you? It means 'of the sea' in Spanish."

"Do what you like. Don't matter a me none."

Shit. Goddamn shit. And now he was going a see Annie's movie with goddamn Gerry, that's who. Fuckin' shit and a half. Maybe he could just keep quiet through it, get through this, see Kimmie, have a normal Christmas. That's what would happen. Keep quiet, don't talk, don't trust his voice. Think on Kimmie.

The movie theater was uncomfortably full, and hot. How the hell so many people from Wyoming come to see a story about a couple a queer sheep headers? How the hell Annie know the story would have this kind a draw. These people, they were queer-beaters, these same moviegoers. They had themselves tire irons in their car trunks or lean-tos, sitting in the theater with fuckin' Rob Ennis and his little girl. Rob ate his popcorn too quickly, feeling he might have need of the bucket.

Even so, as the movie started, he did alright. He had to hand it to Annie, or whoever was in charge of this. The folks up there on the screen sure did look familiar to him. Annie'd sent him a copy of the story when she'd first got it published. He'd read it, then burned it quickly as he could. She'd changed Jack's appearance in the story a little bit, gave him curlier hair, made him shorter, but the film version… Rob found himself blushing a bit before the opening scenes had advanced far. Sure did cast an awful good-lookin' guy. The bulging in is jeans only made him clutch the popcorn bucket more tightly in his worn, white-knuckled hands.

He was alright. The theater was dark, no one saw him sweat, had to clear his throat, could probably pass it off as discomfort at all the, uh, familiarity 'tween those characters up there on the screen. No one could see his pants as he remembered that night in the tent. He hadn't related it to Annie in too much detail, but living in Ucross a couple years, she'd got to know Rob, figured out that night on the mountain well enough. Enough to make him turn beet-red, but the theater was dark.

Everything was alright, he kept repeating it to himself. Alright. Then they got to the scene. He'd known it had to be coming alright. He'd read the story even, although no one knew it. But the actors up there on the screen and the roadside in Texas and them tire irons. Goddamnit. He'd held on this whole wild ride like a saddle-bronc champion, leaning far back as he could, but he didn't see this one coming even though he probably could have. Probably could have excused himself to the bathroom. Threw up hard and fast into the popcorn container instead. And then there was Gerry rubbing his back, a real concerned, hitched up look on her face. He found he couldn't look her in the eye. The movie played back in his mind, the fishing trips, the divorce, the kids-this-is-Jack, Riverton waitress, and he saw them all echoed back to him, the telling not from himself or Annie this time, but from Gerry, whole 'nother perspective on the same events. Oh shit.

They didn't leave. He'd thought after he threw up, got a couple fierce glances from patrons, Gerry might take him out a there. He was wrong. She hung onto that chair with her own tenacity. Sometimes to Rob it seemed tenacity was the undoing of his life.

When the movie ended, they sat through the music a long time. The music was lovely and made wetness gather around the edges of Rob's vision. He thought maybe Gerry was waiting for his eyes to dry afore leaving the theater. Her lips were pursed in a tight line, and Rob knew his little girl well enough to know words were thinking of spilling out from behind them lips, but wouldn't, not yet, not until the thoughts that went with them were fully formed.

The nighttime highway flew past the truck windows. Gerry wasn't speaking, and Rob wasn't of a mind to bring up the subject, but she wasn't going to stay silent forever. Finally, only about five miles from home, Gerry's dam broke.

"So Jack, huh?"

Rob bit his lower lip. He'd hoped he might have escaped it, the subject maybe just a bit too hard for Gerry after all. "Jack." His voice cracked.

"Jack Twist?"

"Unhnn, Jack Williams."

"Mama know?"

"Yup."

"That the same Jack Judy and I met after you and mama got divorced."

Rob slid his brow further under his hat, gazed out the passenger side window into the night. "Yup."

"I don't really want to know more, daddy. I don't want to know none of it. It's alright for people in stories and movies to be gay, but…. Well, it just ain't part a God's plan."

"Yup. I understand that's how you feel, Gerry."

"You gotta tell Kim, though."

This made Rob jump up with a start. "Nuh uh, don't gotta tell Kimmie nothing, Gerry. Girl don't need to know this, no how."

"She's not a little girl, daddy, she's a grown woman."

"Don't matter."

"It's not just that. I wanted to see this 'cause it's her favorite movie now. You know that internet she's always talking about? She goes on to there and writes these stories, and talks to other fans, some of 'em in other countries, even. She's got to know."

"She seen that movie? Jesus, Gerry, what are you letting that girl watch?"

"She's twenty, daddy, she's allowed."

"Well I sure as hell ain't telling her nothing if she's seen that."

"You don't, and I will."

"Jesus."

"It would make her day, dad. Be the highlight of her year. Distract her from that crap of a present you bought her."

"I thought you said the tape was a good idea."

"I was being polite. Kids don't watch movies on tape these days."

Rob slumped against the passenger side window. For the first time in his life, he wasn't looking forward to seeing his grandbaby.