Within a few days, Jack left for Lightning Flat to see his folks. Another couple days and a fight with his boss later, Ennis followed.
The run down little farm with its whitewashed buildings and dirt drive would have been completely unremarkable to Ennis if it weren't for the name on the mailbox and Jack's truck parked out front of the house. The kitchen door was propped open so Ennis went in, knocking on the door frame as he did. A fairly petite woman with short, wavy hair and hands shaped by a long life of hard work turned to smile at him from where she stood at the sink, washing dishes. "Oh, hello, you must be Ennis." She stepped away from the counter and dried her hands on a tartan towel. "Jack said you'd be comin'." She laughed softly. "I've heard an awful lot about from him. I'm his mother, Sue." She held out a hand.
With the hand that wasn't holding his hat, Ennis shook her hand. "Nice to meet you ma'am. Uh..."
"Jack's upstairs. Been tryin' to fix an old radio all day." She jerked a thumb toward where Ennis could see the foot of a flight of stairs in the hallway. "Go on, first door on the right at the top of the stairs."
Ennis nodded to Jack's mother and went up to the second floor. The first door on the right stood open, and there was Jack, sitting on the floor, a radio that couldn't have been much younger than himself opened up in front of him. He looked up and smiled. "Hey, En."
Ennis smiled, "Hey," and sat on the floor next to Jack. "Why are you tryin' to fix this old thing?"
"Mama was complaining yesterday that it don't work. My dad's out playing poker with some a the other old men, by the way."
"Should I be glad a that?"
Jack snorted. "Probably."
After a bit, Jack closed up the radio and took it down stairs, Ennis a step behind. Jack set the radio on the kitchen table. "It oughta work now, Mama."
"Oh, thank you, Jack, that's terrific." Sue put the lid on a pot of roast on the stove. "Could you boys help me with something out in the shed? I promised Carol down the road with some things for her daughter's gettin' married."
"Oh, yeah, I can help an' I'm sure Ennis don't mind."
Ennis nodded. "Not at all."
Sue lead the two of them out to the shed and put them to work loading furniture and boxes of things like plates into the old, dark pickup Ennis recognized as having once been Jack's. After a while, Sue frowned and said, "Jack, you're startin' to look tired. You wanna go in and lay down?"
Jack shook his head. "Naw, Mama, I'm fine."
She crossed her arms. "You're still healing up an' you been under an awful lot of stress. I think you should go take a rest."
"I'm fine, Mama."
"Jack."
"I'm telling you, I'm okay."
Sue looked unimpressed. "Johnathan."
Jack visibly winced. "Alright, alright, I'll go." Grumbling to himself, he went inside.
"I have never," Ennis said, "heard anyone call him anything other than Jack."
"Oh, he hates bein' called by his full name. When he was about seven he threw a fit 'cause his teacher called him John." She shrugged. "He's just Jack; 'cept, of course, when I'm cross with 'im."
Ennis snorted, not quite laughing. He liked Sue.
"Can you get that box there, the one with a picture of an owl on it? Then I think that's all that'll fit in the truck."
As Ennis dug the indicated box out of the pile of more or less random stuff that surrounded it, Sue asked, "You an' Jack known each other a long time, yeah?"
"Almost twenty years." Ennis set aside a ceramic figurine of a cat, then, as it gave him the uneasy feeling it was watching him, put an empty feed bag over.
"Mhm, that's what I thought. That's longer than he's ever had any one friend other than you."
"Mm."
"He talks about you 'bout as much as he talks about Bobby, more than he ever really did 'bout Lureen." She nodded, agreeing with herself. "Two a you seem real close, I'm gad a it, too."
Ennis made a sound of acknowledgment.
"Figure you know 'im better than anybody else does these days."
"Might."
There was a silence long enough for Ennis to finish unburying the box but just too short for him to pick it up.
"Jack wears a green carnation sometimes, don't he?"
Ennis half choked on air and turned to face Sue, no clue what to say.
"I mean," she amended, "he's a grown man, it's long past bein' any a my business what he does behind closed doors, but I'd like to know if he's doin' anything that's like to get him hurt, and he's my son, so one way or another I'm obligated to love 'im. I just figured you'd probably know if anybody does."
Ennis stared at er a while then looked away to watch a raptor circling in the sky some way off. "Yeah, yeah, he does."
Sue sighed. "I can't say I'm surprised."
Unable to think of a response, Ennis picked up the box, walked across the dusty yard, and put it in the truck. Trailing after him, Sue asked softly, "He didn't get thrown by no horse, did he?"
"No, ma'am."
"I'm glad you were there."
Ennis nodded. Sue was quiet a while. "I sure don't mean to offend but I hope you can understand my askin' if you you ever wear a green carnation, too."
It took a while for Ennis to decide whether and how to answer, then, very softly and without looking at her, he said, "Only for him."
She put a hand on his shoulder. "I don't think you can know how glad I am a that." She rubbed his shoulder then took her hand away. "And if I'm bein' honest—which I can be now they're not married—I never liked Lureen. Shallow little viper. C'mon, help me finish makin' supper."
"I really can't cook."
"I doubt you can be any worse than Jack and I make him help."
A/N: School year is finally over for me so, hopefully, I'll be able to post more regularly for a while.
Anyway "to wear a green carnation" is a slang term from the Victorian era meaning (in reference to men) "to have or exhibit homosexual tenancies." Sue would have been born in the early 20's, and the phrase was still fairly widely used until WWII in some parts of the world so I decided it was reasonable for Sue to use it and for Ennis to understand it.
