Gloria watches as Diego goes to Romy. He was stood there, frozen to the spot just outside the bathroom, and she'd been sure he'd do what he always does. Walk out of the bar without a word to either of them, or turn round and go back into the bathroom, slam the door behind himself. God knows he's done that more times than Gloria can count.
She or Jesse, that's usually who he walks away from, on unsteady legs, the soles of his shoes sticking to the High Noon Saloon's grimy floor. Out into the dusty night, or the glaring sunlight, whenever her incessant nagging, Jesse's concerned questions, become too much to bear. All three of them know that it's well-meant, and justified, and that the worse his health is getting the more painful the sense of helplessness is, too.
They talk about doctors, new cutting edge treatments. Traditional healers, herbal remedies. Anything they can think of, anything at all. And Diego listens to it all without comment. Until he just can't listen anymore, and then he walks away.
Now he walks right into Romy's arms. Clearly, Gloria thinks, that little French girl knows some secret the rest of them don't.
Or maybe he's realized he can't do this alone any longer.
There is no hiding it now, from anyone. The coughing is so frequent, and anyone who knows him a little can see how much it hurts, how his chest heaves with every inhalation, every hard-fought-for breath. There is no hiding the blood that's coating his hands afterwards, like so much sticky cherry syrup.
Gloria has watched it all, from a distance, many times over. Has watched him light a smoke with trembling fingers as soon as the cough will allow it, when the breaths become breaths again, are no longer the desperate struggles of a drowning man.
She hates the cigarettes. Surely they make it worse, drag by labored drag. But smoking also seems to help. Calms him down when nothing else can.
When Diego gets to that stage, hands no longer shaking, smoke flowing from slightly parted lips, Gloria pours him a whiskey, and he knocks it back, wincing as the spirit burns its way down his shredded throat.
He won't need that drink today. Romy came for him, and maybe that's good. A finger of whiskey doesn't cut it anymore. Maybe not even a whole bottle could.
"He's not doing too good," Gloria had said when Romy came in. She'd felt that bitterness in her throat that comes with a barely suppressed giggle of hysteria. Not too good, maybe that had been the truth a year ago. Now it's not even a polite understatement.
Diego hadn't looked ill, not for a day, since he'd come back from Iraq five years ago. Until recently you wouldn't have known anything was wrong unless you happened to hear him cough. But now that's no longer true, either. When he'd come in today and sat in his usual spot at the bar Gloria had seen it right away.
A pallor to his face, a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead. A high color on his cheekbones that had already reached his eyes.
For the first time ever Gloria had hesitated before pouring his drink. He could hold his drink, Diego could. Even when he has to stagger outside to cough every half hour his liquor never disagrees with him. Just like the cigarettes it seems to calm him down. Lets him forget for a while what's going on inside his body.
Some nights Jesse has put him up in the loft in Mickey's room, when he's looked a little on the wobbly side, and he's always handed his keys to them for safekeeping without a fuss. Stayed gladly, in fact, sitting up with Gloria while she closed the register, swept the floors and locked up. Then he would give her a peck to the cheek and take himself to bed.
When he'd come in today Gloria had thought she might offer him the loft again, drunk or not. He'd looked so lost and sad, he might appreciate not being alone.
"Don't look at me like that, Glor," he'd said as he'd sat down. "Just gimme a Beck's."
She'd been relieved and worried at the same time. No need to refuse him the whiskey, then. But if he only wanted a beer he had to be feeling pretty bad. Gloria had brought him the bottle, then returned to her chores. He hadn't looked like he wanted to talk.
He'd not even finished that one beer. Even from the other end of the bar she'd heard it, that wheezy sound on his breath, just before he'd started to cough. And it didn't let up. Gloria had half turned to him, even though she knows he hates the fussing. Maybe he should have a whiskey after all.
But before she'd plugged up the courage to approach him he'd slid off the stool, nearly overbalancing, and rushed for the bathroom.
With the bar deserted and silent, Gloria could hear the painful, violent hacking. It stopped for a short while but then started up again. She would've dearly liked to offer him support, but she knew it would be pointless.
That one time he'd gone home with her, right after he'd come back from Iraq, he'd locked himself in her bathroom with a fit not much less severe than this one. It had been the middle of the night and his sudden rush from her bed had startled her awake. Eventually Gloria hadn't been able to take it any longer. She'd crept up to the door and knocked, softly. There'd been a silence, mid-cough. Then, in a voice thick with pain, "Leave me the fuck alone, Glor."
She had, and they'd never talked about it. He'd never gone home with her again.
Now Gloria watches two retreating backs slowly make their way out of the bar. Romy has her arm around Diego's middle, and he is leaning into her, his gait slow and listing. Gloria has a bad feeling about it.
She didn't think much of that little foreign girl when she first rolled into town. But Diego trusts her, and he lets her help. And it's clear that he doesn't have the strength to fend for himself any longer.
-.-
He lies very still, heart hammering like mad in his chest. When he'd jerked awake a few minutes ago Romy had stirred by his side, and mumbled a little, but hadn't woken up.
Slowly his heartbeat returns to normal, but his breath still hitches and rattles in his chest. That's always the case now, he's almost used to it. Not so used yet to the pain, though, that recently comes with every inhalation.
This has been the first time in years that he's revisited that rubble field in his dreams. It was just as he remembers it, dry and dusty, air flimmering in the heat. And he could taste it in his dream, that tang of cement on the air. Of despair and tears and death. In his dream he was digging again, even though the cries for help had died a long time ago.
They'd spent four days in that bombed out Red Cross hospital, searching for survivors. They'd found three the first day, one the next. None after that. At the time he'd despaired as the cries of the wounded and trapped had died away one by one. Later he'd wondered if those who didn't make it hadn't been the lucky ones.
After the first day he'd been the only one left of his battalion who was still helping the inhabitants of Fallujah dig in the rubble. As Captain he hadn't had much trouble to get his request to stay behind approved by his field commander. Diego couldn't ignore the cries for help, had been unable to leave the site while there was still hope to dig out anyone alive.
When they'd finally conceded defeat four days after the insurgents' bombs had destroyed the hospital Diego had been exhausted, just like all the other men who had worked so feverishly to get to the people trapped in the collapsed building. He'd slept the rest of that day and all of the following night. Only later had he realized that he'd been coughing pretty much from the moment they had started digging. At the time he'd put it down to stone dust and the dryness of the air. It had been the dust all right, but not like any of them could've ever imagined.
The next day Diego had returned to his unit, and that night the vomiting had started. For days he'd been laid up with what he'd thought to be the worst case of intestinal flu he'd ever suffered. He'd been so weak that a few times he'd hardly made it to the latrines in time. And when he'd not been stuck on the john he'd been asleep non-stop. And he'd been so thirsty, which had been no wonder; everything had gone right through him.
After three days of this his men had gotten so worried they'd shipped him off to the nearest field hospital. Had anyone suggested then that he'd never see his men in the field again Diego would've laughed in their face. The Marine Corps didn't send you home for a bad case of the stomach flu.
Finally, after many bags of IV fluid and countless capsules of Imodium Diego had slowly started to recover, and the only thing permanently damaged seemed to be his dignity.
But he couldn't shake the exhaustion, and the nasty, painful cough. He'd been hell bent on returning to his men, but when he'd as good as fainted walking from his sick bed to the transport back to Fallujah he'd had to concede defeat. The doctors at the field hospital had scratched their heads over his symptoms for two weeks. They wouldn't release him.
Then the rumors had started, and Diego had heard them almost straight away. It seemed that military field hospitals were a breeding ground for gossip as much as for drug-resistant germs.
The whispers were of dirty bombs, of depleted Uranium found in several places around Fallujah and other Iraqi cities. The official party line was then, and remained to this day, that the danger of these deposits was vastly overstated by some left-leaning liberals with an axe to grind, but in Diego's mind something akin to real fear had began to stir. He'd used some of his accumulated telecommunication credits to search what had passed for the world wide web on the military network in those days for symptoms of radiation poisoning – and its long-term effects. What he'd found had confused him, but not yet really scared him.
Not much in the way of detail – where had the dirty bombs come from, who were their intended targets, and how had the Red Cross hospital gotten in the way of that kind of attack – ever reached the grapevine, or the media outlets much later. And Diego had quickly become distracted, for suddenly things had moved at lightning speed for him. They hadn't even called it an honorable discharge. Instead he suddenly became part of the first wave of decommissioning. Their argument had been that by the time he was fully recovered it would be time to pack up shop, anyway.
Oh, they made sure Diego got the best treatment available once he was stateside again. He had been packed off to a rehabilitation facility in the Rocky Mountains, which was as beautiful as it was secretive. Here Diego had learned that he was only one of many casualties of this war the government would rather have kept a secret.
At that facility Diego had regained most of his health. For a while he'd almost been able to kid himself that he might after all make a full recovery, and that he would, in time, continue with his career.
But that hope had been finally dashed just before he'd finished his six-month stay at the facility. One day the chief medical officer had come to Diego's private room.
"Captain Sheen, I need to talk frankly with you."
Diego had known that this could only be bad news. The weird thing was, he felt physically absolutely fine. By then, in the mountain air, even the occasional coughing fits were so minor they hardly deserved mentioning. But something was up, and in quiet moments Diego could feel it, like a lead weight deep inside his bones.
"Your latest chest scan and blood works have shown growths," the doctor had continued. Diego had had a chest x-ray or some other scan on an almost weekly basis for six months, and not once had anyone made a fuss about them. "The tests confirm that the anomalies we have been watching for the last six months have indeed turned cancerous."
Diego hadn't said anything. He'd had wanted to ask a million questions, chief among them how it could have been that nobody had mentioned any anomalies to him. But he'd been too stunned to speak. Only gradually had he gotten the full picture in the next few days: that the cancer was stage 3 already, that, yes, it could be operated on, but that he had to be prepared for the eventuality that more of the anomalies, which were in fact thousands of tiny encapsulated dust deposits, could (and most likely would) turn cancerous, too, and that there was no way to remove them all without destroying a large amount of lung tissue.
The doctors had, after several outbursts from Diego, made the careful prognosis that, if he complied with all treatments, he would have eight to ten years left.
Still stunned, and now also desperate, Diego had agreed to the first operation. He'd not told anyone about the diagnosis then - not his battalion, not his family or friends at home.
That first operation still remained the only treatment he'd ever agreed to. When he'd come round from the anesthetic he had immediately wished he'd died on the table. He couldn't breathe, each inhalation felt like drowning, and was so excruciatingly painful that he'd screamed until he'd passed out again.
It took Diego three more months to recover sufficiently to finally leave the hospital. He'd not set a foot in a medical facility since.
After being discharged Diego had traveled to Long Beach, where an old comrade from his Oceanside days had been happy to put him up for phase one of his recovery. Sam lived with his wife and two daughters in a cozy little house by the beach, and Diego had thought of him in particular because Sam knew neither his family or childhood friends nor anyone from his time in Iraq. Diego had spent a month lying on Sam's veranda and looking at the ocean. It had been a peaceful time, and when he'd left he'd felt ready to face his future – and his past.
Even though he'd not lived there in so long the urge to go home to Rowlands and reconnect with his family and his old life had grown stronger with every day that passed so peacefully in Long Beach. While Diego had still been in the Rockies Joe had written that he and Billie were going to have a baby, and that thought had given Diego unexpected pleasure in all his pain and misery.
At Sam's he'd overcome that initial phase of numbness and had worked through some of that helpless rage which overwhelmed him several times while sitting on his friend's veranda. Sam, who had only gotten the barest bones about his condition, had been the perfect friend to Diego. He would sit with him, drink beer and let him cry without comment when he had to. At home, Diego knew, he wouldn't have that luxury.
Oh, he'd tell them all the facts they needed to know, and he fully planned to do right by his family and friends, spend time with them while he still could. But they would make a fuss, so the more together, the more independent he was when he returned, the better.
Diego had always been methodical in planning his life, and he wouldn't abandon that now. He wouldn't be idle, and he would enjoy the time he had left. He was determined on those points.
But he would approach this last remaining stretch of time on his terms, and he wouldn't let anyone come too close.
Now, in the first rosy-dusty light of morning, Diego looks over at Romy where she sleeps peacefully by his side, and he begins to wonder whether maybe he was too hasty in making up those rules.
Maybe, just maybe, he could let her get a little closer. It would be nice to have someone really care about him one last time. And he's no longer so sure that he can walk this last walk of his life alone, even if he still wanted to.
-.-
"I could just do nothing, y'know. Sit in your bar all day and buy everyone rounds. I'd never run out of cash…"
Jesse says nothing for a moment. He's good at that, waiting for his time to speak. They've been out here a good twenty minutes already, and all he's done so far is wait. Wait for Diego to stop coughing, fight himself back to breathing once again. Wait for his friend to tell him what's on his mind that day.
Now Diego is very quiet, staring into the distance, and Jesse knows he's done for now. Done coughing, done talking. It's his turn.
"You won't, though."
"No."
Jesse watches Diego light his smoke with shaking fingers and take the first drag. They all hate that Diego won't give it up. But Gloria is right, it does calm him down. And he'll need a lot of calming down soon, Jesse thinks. Whatever number the Uranium has done on Diego's lungs, it's getting worse.
"I talked to park administration. It's true, old Herb Snyder is retiring at the end of the month."
"Really?"
"Yeah. If you want that job it's yours. Sally at head office, she likes me. Told me on the quiet that they can't recruit for it. They've been trying for months. Guess no one's crazy enough to move to our ass end of nowhere to look after a bit of desert."
"Thanks, man."
"Sure thing. Drove by Snyder's on the way back, too. He's moving to Cali, be with his daughter. His house comes with the job. You gotta take his pet iguana too, though. He says that beast's gotta stay in the desert."
Diego gives a little laugh that ends in a choked-off cough.
"Iguana, huh? Sure, why not."
He coughs again, this time for real. Jesse waits. It sounds rattly and painful but it's mercifully short.
"You still going to Vegas tomorrow?"
"Why wouldn't I? Been every weekend since I came back. No law says park ranger can't have some fun."
"Gloria doesn't like it."
Diego regards him with tired, slightly bloodshot eyes. "Why? She worried I'll catch something?" He snorts humorlessly, which brings on more coughing. He gets up from the overturned crate he's sitting on and walks a few steps until he can lean against the wall of the High Noon. Sometimes standing up seems the only way he can get any air at all.
Jesse waits it out, takes a swig of beer and looks thoughtfully at the broad back before him. Diego is nearly bent double now, shoulders shaking. Jesse wishes there was something he could do for his friend. Finally the hacking subsides. Diego spits and clears his throat, sucks in air in great gulps. He stays still against the wall.
"You could've had her, y'know." Jesse's voice is very quiet.
Diego turns round but doesn't look at him. Instead he squints at the far-off hills, the sun setting slowly. The low light gives his face an eerie, otherworldly glow, and Jesse finds he can't look at his friend for long. It hurts, like looking into a campfire when it's just starting to draw properly.
"Nah, man. I ain't right for her. She worries herself sick as it is. You and her, you're good together. And you're good for Mickey, too." He looks down at his hands, worrying at the filter of his dying cigarette. "Vegas ladies is all I need."
Better let it drop. There's no talking Diego out of something once he's made up his mind.
"What you gonna do with the money, then?"
"Trust fund, for Joe's little ones. Second one's on the way already."
"Is that so? He's not letting the grass grow, now he's found his missus, eh?"
For a moment Jesse is sure he sees tears welling up in Diego's eyes, but then his friend turns away. Maybe he imagined it.
"Hey, you wanna doss here tonight? Gloria's made Chilli, she'd love for you to rave about her cooking. And you look beat, man. You getting any sleep over there at Joe's? Baby keeping y'all awake?"
"Nah, 's not Austin. Just bad dreams, sometimes…"
He doesn't elaborate, and Jesse knows he won't get any details out of him. There's a legacy from Diego's time in Iraq other than the cough, but he's never told any of them about it, so far as Jesse knows. None of the vets ever talk about it.
There's a tense set to Diego's shoulders now. Don't touch me, that pose says. He rubs at his eyes and Jesse is very quiet. If he speaks now, most likely Diego will bolt, and Jesse doesn't want him to. He wants to take him back inside, feed him Chilli and watch Gloria make a fuss over putting him up for the night. It's good for Diego, spending time with his friends, and it's good for them to have him around. Mickey likes him, too, and is always on his best behavior. You'd hardly know Diego is there, most of the time, he's so quiet, but somehow, having him around is good for them. Jesse can't put it into words.
Then Diego snaps out of it, that far-away place he goes to, and straightens up, already making for the front door of the High Noon. "Let's go eat some Chilli."
"And drink some more beer," Jesse adds, getting up from where he's sitting on an old barrel.
"Yeah." Diego grins round at him, but then his eyes are serious again. "Thanks, man. For the heads up on the job, and, y'know…"
"Any time, man," Jesse growls with a smile, patting his friend on the back. "Any time..."
-.-
Joe watches the dust cloud Diego's truck has scared up and wonders why it always ends like this. Some dumbfuck fight over shit neither of them remembers five minutes later, and his big brother stalks off, hardly a muttered word, never mind a curse. Diego doesn't yell, not at him, anyway.
Joe wishes he'd scream and shout, sometimes.
Oh they've fought, all right. Over their combined lifetimes Diego's knocked him on his ass a good few dozen times. Not since he came back from that goddamn war, though. Iraq has changed the older Sheen brother, that's for goddamn sure.
Joe's thoughts are interrupted by Billie coming back outside. He watches his wife as she grabs another armful of bottles and walks back up the steps. Nah, more like waddles up, is the truth. Joe follows her progress with his eyes. Maybe that French chick's right, maybe it's time for Billie to take it a bit easier. Joe loves Billie especially when she's big like this. He's fascinated with that new life in her belly, and proud that he put it there.
If only he could give his family something more than this shithole existence. The urge to load them all into his banged-up Dodge and get the hell outta here is strong more days than not. Why don't he just do it, he wonders to himself, not for the first time. Diego would give him the money, too.
Joe doesn't have the specifics, but he knows his brother got a nice pay-off from those fuckers what ruined his life. Sent him home in pieces and gave him enough dough to keep him quiet.
That thought always gets Joe in a right state, and he shifts around on the ratty sun lounger now, feeling the rage build up. He rants plenty at Diego about it. Yells at his big brother until his throat's raw and he's dizzy with the exertion. The last time that happened, a couple months ago right here in the yard, Joe had worked up such a fury he'd nearly started bawling with the injustice of it all.
Diego had let him get it all out, on that occasion like on all the previous ones. Lying on this selfsame faded sun bed, swigging beer, smoking, and saying not a damn thing. When Joe finally flopped down in his wire chair, exhausted, Diego had given him a long look and waited a couple minutes more, just to make sure he was really done.
"What's the point, brother? Won't change nothing, going after their fat asses."
By that point Joe had been done all right. He'd returned Diego's look, and his rage had drained away, replaced by a feeling of utter helplessness. Joe hated that feeling. It reminded him of all his failures, and this big one he can do nothing whatsoever about is just a culmination of his fucked-up life. He can't save his brother. Diego is dying, and that's a fact. That day Joe had realized that even if Diego had wanted to fight he doesn't have the strength left for a trial.
And his brother had accepted that, so Joe better do the same.
Billie is back now, picking up the toys that always litter the dusty yard. Joe feels some guilt for not helping her, but as always it doesn't get past a vague embarrassment at being a lazy fuck. Maybe if he could get them all away from here he'd be a better father and husband, too.
That had been the plan, to give his kids a childhood better than the one he and Diego had shared.
When they'd been young enough to dream impossible dreams both Sheen brothers had forever talked about getting out – and they'd nearly made it, too. Back in their own childhood version of the shitty trailer park home they'd made plans that seemed just about possible, for a minute or so.
"You gotta stay in school, brother," Diego had said more than once, his face set. "You got the brains for it, you might just make the cut for the State College scholarship. I'll support you, but you gotta stick with them books."
The last time they'd talked about it had been the day before Diego left for basic training in Oceanside. He'd meant it, he'd support Joe. That was why he'd signed up, so he could send money home regularly.
Diego's own dreams of being a police officer had died the day their father took the shotgun from the back of the shed, walked into the desert a mile or so from their home, and blown his brains out.
To get into the police academy a high school diploma was a must, and after that pain-filled, awful day school hadn't played a big part in Diego's daily struggle to help their mom support the family.
They'd gotten by, just about. Their mother had found a second job, waiting tables at the motel's diner in town after her shifts at McGinty's cattle ranch, where she scrubbed cattle pens all day. That was where Diego found a job as well, first helping out with odds and ends on weekends, then, as soon as he'd turned 18, dropping all pretense, and high school, too.
But that law enforcement dream of his had never died, had only grown stronger with each day of back breaking work with the bulls. When the Marines had come to their little speck of a town looking for recruits Diego had signed up at once.
And it had suited him. After basic training in Oceanside he got stationed around the country as he rose through the ranks. Joe wasn't exactly jealous, but every time Diego came home he felt a bit more left behind, a bit more insignificant before his brother's glorious prospects. He'd done what they'd both dreamt of. He'd gotten out.
Joe had stuck to his promises. He studied hard, and he helped their mom at home. Diego sent most of his paycheck every month, so they got by all right.
But then their mom got sick. At first it was just a cough, not unlike the one Diego came back with from Iraq. Another reason for Joe to hate that fucking cough.
By the time mom had admitted something wasn't right and gone to the doctor the lung cancer was stage 4. She had lived another six months. She never gave up smoking, and Joe didn't ask her to. It had been her crutch after dad blew his brains out, just like it was Diego's crutch now. But he himself hadn't touched a smoke since the day of her diagnosis.
The day after the funeral Joe had caught the bus to Vegas and signed up at the Army's recruitment office. He'd been two months away from high school graduation
Diego never forgave him for that. He didn't come home for their mother's funeral. He'd only just gotten his first assignment abroad and Joe had insisted he shouldn't bother. What would be the point? She was dead, she wouldn't know one way or the other. And what of it, that he had his own motives for not wanting Diego to come home?
They hadn't seen each other again until it was all over. Joe had been back a week when Diego had shown up at the downtown motel where Joe was dossing until something better came up.
"How you even know what happened?" Joe had asked his brother.
Diego had tossed him a beer from the six-pack he'd brought out to the empty pool where Joe spent most of his days. "Took five minutes to come over the grapevine. Sergeant Sheen's little brother got a dishonorable discharge for a bar brawl. What happened, man?"
Joe had hung his head. He'd known Diego would be disappointed, but it was worse than that. He'd been sure this time his brother would yell at him. But he hadn't. He'd just looked at him, eyes full of sadness.
"You're an idiot, Joe. You could've made it out, you got the brains. Why you throw college away like that? And then not even follow through…"
They'd never talked about it again, Joe making a mess of his life. They hadn't really talked about anything else, either. Diego had only stayed in Nevada three days, then he'd gone back to the airbase in Iwakuni, Japan. The brothers hadn't seen each other for twelve years after that.
Life had been all right, mostly, for Joe. He'd not thought about it much, that he'd almost made it out. He had work, most of the time, with the cattle ranch, and he'd settled into this life. Now and then, when people talked about Diego and his rise through the ranks Joe had felt that diffuse sense of jealousy again, but he'd just pushed it down. It served no purpose.
And then he'd met Billie, and gotten her pregnant right off the bat. He wasn't sorry for a minute it had happened like that. He'd not even known he wanted a family until he'd knocked her up, but he'd been over the moon. But it had also awoken that yearning for a better life at the back of his mind. When the baby was born they could get away, start over. Go to California, maybe.
The reports from Iraq around that time had been worrying, but Joe hadn't ever equated those pictures on TV with his brother. Not until Diego had shown up at their trailer home a week after Joe had brought Billie and Austin home from the hospital had he connected the dots. His brother had been there, in the middle of the bombs and machine gun fire in the street of Fallujah, and he was lucky to be standing here in their shitty little kitchen and tell the tale.
Diego had shown up that day with a six-pack and a wad of cash, and Joe had taken one look at his brother and known that he and Billie weren't going to uproot to California. They would stay right here, with his brother. With the instinct of a sibling he'd known that Diego hadn't come home because he fancied a change of scenery.
Something had happened to Joe's big brother in Iraq, and home was the only place he could go after that. Little by little Joe had gotten the story out of Diego, and what his brother couldn't say Joe had been able to guess. He'd not told Billie any of it. She didn't need to know about dirty bombs that gave you cancer, and the horrors of a war fought via computer screens, more precise and more deadly than any war before. No, Billie didn't need to know that. She was happy being pregnant and bringing up their family.
There's not much Joe can do for Diego, and that hurts more than he'd admit to anyone. But at least his big brother has had a bit of family life with him, Billie and the kids. This dusty speck of nothing might not be what they dreamt of when they were kids, but it's a peaceful life. And that's pretty much the best they can hope for now.
-.-
Diego is great with the kids. With her hands full of soapy dishes Billie watches Diego out of the little kitchen window. He's chasing Austin around the yard, and the little boy is laughing and giggling so much he looks like he's about to pee himself. Diego catches up with him, scoops him up in his arms and whirls him around, faster and faster like a spinning top. Austin is shrieking with delight.
But then it happens again, like it does all the time now. Diego puts the boy down quickly, wheezing already. He turns away, and one hand grabs the back of the ratty garden chair. Then he's coughing, hard, nearly bending double. Billie frowns.
Austin looks on for a moment, then he hurries away to where his toy trucks are scattered in the dust. The little boy is used to Uncle Diego's coughing, from when Diego had slept on their couch for a month when he'd first come back from Iraq, and he knows to just leave him be for a bit. But he keeps shooting Diego glances. The boy is noticing more and more, Billie knows.
She frowns again. Is Diego's coughing getting worse? Should she tell Joe? But Diego wouldn't like that, no. He doesn't like them making a big deal over him.
She didn't tell Joe about the other thing, either. She doesn't even know why, but it scared her, a little.
One day the week before Diego had come round in the afternoon to drop off some of Joe's tools. Joe had been at work still, so Billie had offered Diego a beer.
"Wanna wait? He won't be long."
"Sure, thanks. Just gonna take a leak…"
When the coughing had started in the little bathroom at the back it had sounded worse than anything Billie had ever heard. Austin, looking frightened, had come over to her.
"Why is Uncle Diego always coughing like this?"
"It's nothing, baby. He just gets a tickle in his throat sometimes, is all."
"Maybe he wants some cough syrup? Mommy, give Uncle Diego my cough syrup when he comes out!"
"Will do, honey. Now run along and go play with your trucks."
Billie had tidied up the kitchen then, trying not to listen to the hacking, painful sounds coming from the back of the trailer.
When Diego had finally come out of the bathroom Billie had put on the biggest smile she could manage, but he hadn't really looked at her. His eyes had been on Cara in her high chair.
"Shall I take her outside?"
"Sure. Thanks, Diego."
He'd gathered up the little girl and gone outside, not looking back. Billie had gone into the bathroom then. She didn't even know why. There was nothing to see. As she turned to go, though, Billie's eyes fell onto a red smudge on the sink, near the hot tap. She knew right away it was blood, and had quickly washed it away.
She'd gone back into the kitchen and gathered up the kids' lunch dishes. Maybe she could clean up properly while Diego was watching the kids. Joe liked a clean house, and he didn't get it very often, what with the trailer being such a pit.
While the hot water ran into the sink Billie had looked out of the window. Austin was running around at the far end of the yard, hollering and being a pest. But Billie's eyes got stuck on Diego. He was lying on the tatty old sun bed, Cara on his chest. His hand was stroking the baby's back, and she had looked so peaceful. She wasn't asleep - Billie could see her eyes were open - but she clearly enjoyed being held like this.
Diego's back was to the house, and Billie couldn't see anything at all of his face under his wide hat. But she saw that his shoulders were shaking. He didn't make a sound.
With a pang Billie had realized that he was crying.
Turning off the kitchen tap she had quietly retreated to the living room. She didn't return to the kitchen until she'd heard Joe's truck pull up outside.
Now she remembers all of this as she watches Diego out of the kitchen window again. He straightens up, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. For now the coughing has stopped.
Billie goes over to the fridge, takes out a beer and pops the cap off. A cold drink will help him. Damn dust, she thinks as she carries the beer outside and down the steps, and knows very well that the dust has little to do with his cough.
"Here." She holds the beer out to him.
Diego clears his throat and takes the bottle from her. "Thanks… hey, I almost forgot."
He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a wad of cash. Billie squints at him uncertainly as he holds it out to her.
"What's that?"
"It's for your tooth. Take it. Should be enough to buy the kids some new clothes, too."
Billie hesitates.
"Take it, go on." He looks at her almost anxiously. "Just make sure you spend it on yourself, and them."
He waves at the children who for once are sitting together quietly, playing with Austin's trucks. Billie takes the money.
"Thanks. You shouldn't, y'know…"
"Why not? You're all the family I got."
He looks at her and Billie doesn't know whether it's just the light fading or what, but there's something odd in his eyes. Like he's seen something that's given him the heebees just now. Then it's gone and he looks away again, out over the dusty yard, the shabby trailer house.
"Sometimes I wish we could just pack up and get out of here, Billie."
She follows his gaze, then looks down at the money in her hand. She thinks it must be at least a thousand bucks.
"Joe used to say the same thing. He hasn't though, not in an age…"
Diego clears his throat, and for a moment Billie thinks he'll start coughing again. But then he just leans over and gives her a peck on the cheek.
"Gotta run. Better finish my round, make sure there's no dead Mexicans lying in a ditch somewhere."
Billie shudders. "Don't say them things in front of the kids."
"All right, I won't." Diego is bending down now, placing a kiss first on Austin's, then on Cara's head. "Be good, you two."
He straightens up and walks over to the gate, then turns back. "Tell Joe I'll see him tomorrow night at the bar."
"Only if you promise not to let him drink away the whole week's paycheck."
"I'm buying, don't worry," Diego says and gives a bitter little laugh as he opens his truck's door. "I'm always buying the whole fucking town a drink. It's party time, Billie, you should come, too."
And then he's starting the engine and driving away, and Billie stares into the dust after the truck. She can't even say why, but that last thing he said has given her goosebumps all up and down her arms.
-.-
Mickey started to work for Romy and Diego about two months ago. Romy had come into the bar one day, and Gloria had called for him. He'd been busy restacking the crates with empty bottles in the back room. He put the last crate down and went out front.
"You wanna earn a little bit of extra cash?" Gloria had tousled his hair. "Romy could do with some help round the house."
The pretty French woman had smiled at him, and Mickey had blushed. "It's just some yard work, and making sure the house doesn't fall down around us, now that I can't climb on any ladders and Diego… well… Three afternoons a week, one hundred dollars sound ok?"
Mickey had said yes right away. Work in the bar didn't really pick up until early evening, and the extra cash would be great. He was saving up for his first scooter. Gloria had been happy for him, which Mickey thought was nice of her. She didn't like the idea of him riding anything that only had two wheels, but mostly she kept quiet about it. He appreciated that. Gloria wasn't really his mum, even though he called her that sometimes. Not many people knew that she'd just sort of adopted him when he'd run away from his constantly drunk parents on the reservation. Gloria had been passing through at the time, and one day they'd just gotten into her car and driven away. It had been the best day of Mickey's life.
He was excited to be spending time with Diego and Romy. Mickey had been fascinated by the ranger ever since he'd come home from the war. The idea of going to that far-away country to fight for freedom had seemed very exciting to Mickey when he'd been younger.
But hanging out at Diego's house taught Mickey quickly that war wasn't cool at all. He'd known Diego had gotten sick in Iraq, and he'd overheard Jesse and Diego talking about compensation and hospitals once. He hadn't given it much thought at the time.
After his first week at the ranger's house Mickey couldn't stop thinking about it. He had known Diego was getting sicker, but now he could see with his own eyes just how quickly that was happening.
On the first afternoon when Mickey had gone over to the ranger's house he and Diego had driven the patrol route. The ranger had shown Mickey where he put the water gallons, and how to make sure they could be found without being too obvious.
"It's so people don't die of thirst out here," he'd said and given Mickey a searching look, as if to see what Mickey would make of that.
"Like people coming across the border illegally?"
"Them, too, yeah. But anyone who's out here, really."
Mickey had no problem with that whatsoever. "That's real cool of you, y'know. But won't you get in trouble?"
Diego had shrugged. "Don't matter much now, I'm done with being ranger. 'sides, there's more important things than keeping a job."
Mickey had wanted to ask why Diego thought he was done being a ranger, but he hadn't dared. He had a feeling he knew, anyway.
On their drive back to the house Diego had started to cough, and it quickly got so bad he'd had to stop the truck. He'd gotten out with a curse and slammed the door behind himself, and Mickey had sat in the cabin, worried. When Diego came back neither of them had said a word. Diego's eyes had been bloodshot and streaming, and Mickey had worried for the rest of the drive that the cough would start again. It had sounded worse than anything he'd ever heard.
Diego hadn't coughed again, but when they got to the house he'd gone straight into the bedroom and not come out again until Romy had returned home. Mickey had been in a very thoughtful mood that night.
They hadn't gone driving again. Diego mostly sat on the veranda, and as the weeks went on he spent more and more time lying on the sofa. Then, one day he'd not emerged from the bedroom at all, and after that Mickey hardly saw him.
Romy always left a list of chores tagged to the fridge door, and Mickey would work through the list. When Romy came back, they'd often sit in the kitchen over a cup of coffee and talk. Mickey preferred talking to grown-ups, and he liked that Romy talked to him like he was an adult himself.
Mickey suspected Romy really paid him to come over so that Diego wouldn't be alone. She still worked at the diner on the afternoons when Mickey came over. He got it, why she had to get away at least for a little bit now and then.
Diego never was any trouble at all. Mostly, he just slept. The bedroom door was always open a crack and Mickey would tiptoe past it often, listening. He hardly ever heard anything other than the occasional coughing fit. Once or twice, after the coughing had sounded especially bad, he thought he could hear Diego crying. Mickey didn't think badly of Diego for that. If it had been him with a cough like that he'd be bawling his eyes out daily. But he didn't dare go into the bedroom. He wouldn't have known what to say.
Today Mickey hasn't seen Diego at all. Very occasionally in the last two weeks Diego had come into the kitchen when he'd heard Mickey open the door, and they would have a cup of tea together. Today he hadn't stirred at all when Mickey had peered through the crack in the bedroom door.
Mickey has been outside these last few hours, clearing out the drainpipe on the back roof. It's dusty work, and he has just come into the kitchen for a drink of water, and to see if Diego needs anything. He never does, but Mickey likes to make sure.
He can hear him coughing in the bathroom. It sounds bad, and it goes on for a long time. Mickey stands by the sink with his glass of water, listening to the wheezy, gasping breaths with worry. He has a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.
Suddenly there is a thump, and a crash. Mickey puts the glass down and hurries towards the back of the house. He stops at the bathroom door and knocks.
"Diego? You ok?"
There's no answer. Mickey tries the door, and it opens just wide enough for him to peer inside. Then it's blocked by Diego lying on the floor on his side, not moving.
Mickey runs for the phone.
Jesse arrives twenty minutes later. Mickey had returned to Diego's side as soon as he'd put the phone down. He'd squeezed round the door into the bathroom carefully. It's scary being in there with the unconscious man. Diego's hands and shirt are covered in blood, and there are more blood droplets all over the sink.
Mickey had sat down on the floor and put Diego's head in his lap. Diego's breathing sounds terrible, and Mickey isn't sure he'll ever wake up again.
But just when Jesse's truck pulls up outside Diego starts to stir. Mickey talks to him then, even though his own throat feels closed off with fear.
"That's Jesse, Diego. I called him to help, I didn't know what else to do."
Diego tries to push himself to sitting. His eyes on Mickey aren't really focusing, and Mickey doesn't think he really knows where he is. They don't make much progress and Diego is barely sitting up by the time Jesse pokes his head round the door.
"Hey, man," Jesse says, face creased with worry. "What happened?"
"Dunno…" Diego's voice is raspy and slurred.
"Let's get you back to bed, eh?"
Diego lets Jesse and Mickey help him up, and they slowly make their way into the bedroom. Diego leans on them heavily, and he feels very warm against Mickey. His breaths sound uneven and painful, and Mickey is getting more and more scared.
When they come to the bed Jesse helps Diego climb onto the mattress, then looks round.
"Run into town and get Romy, boy."
Mickey nods. He's ashamed of it, but he's glad to have a reason to get away. Diego's pale face is smeared with blood, and looking at him makes Mickey want to burst into tears. As he turns to leave the bedroom he can hear Diego starting to sob.
He runs as fast as he can, and soon he's flying down Main Street, heart hammering wildly in his chest. In the distance he can see Romy and Missy sitting outside the diner's back door. Mickey feels real fear bubbling up now. This is not a story with a happy ending.
Before the day is over they will all be sad.
16