The following Sunday found Nolan driving to the Cropping with the Pastor’s grandson in the passenger seat and Callan at the back.

The whole town had been buzzing on end. The Pastor's grandson returned. Lorelei Marzyciel’s son. Remember her? The girl that ran away. The girl who vanished into the night. People began finding obscure excuses to knock on the Marzyciels' door and behold the wonderboy up close. For their part, Nolan’s Mom and brother had stopped by and given them a Shepherd’s pie. Nolan couldn’t tag along due to a backlog at the sawmill. Technically wasn’t a lie. Nonetheless, a rather convenient truth.

Nolan didn't hate Jacob. ‘Course not. If people didn’t find Jacob attractive, they at least find him compelling. If allowed, they would lock him in a glass cage and put him in the shabby shack they called Hirsch’s Museum of Woods and Lumber. But amidst the shiny, new excitement, a small part of Nolan shirked away from Jacob’s presence, hating the ugliness which reared its head and scraped at his conscience every time he spotted Ryan and Jacob side-by-side. 

As the local friendly assistant pastor, obviously Ryan volunteered to help Jacob around. Overnight, they became joined at the hip — running errands, eating out, carrying stuff. The old folks laughed and giggled. Meanwhile, Nolan fumed, aware he was being possessive of what was never his, acting nothing short of a silly, petulant kid discovering his favourite action figure was taken away. 

Whenever Jacob caught his stealthy peeks, Ryan would flushed, snapping his gaze away as though he was busted stealing. Sure, Nolan might react the same. Yet, seeing Ryan blushing and flustering made a bizarre sensation bloomed in Nolan’s gut. He pressed it down, but it made him uncomfortable in a way he couldn’t shake off. 

Still, eventually, everybody took their turn introducing themselves, except for Nolan. Then Sunday inched around. And after Ryan texted him a singular question mark without further elaboration, Nolan grinded his teeth and pulled his bootstraps. He didn’t need Ryan on his back or taken on the town’s asshole title. 

So, at dawn, he crawled out of bed and pulled some vegetables home-grown in their yard. He was going to gobble his breakfast, jet over to the Pastor’s home, shove the vegetables into Jacob’s arms, then skedaddled back in time for Ryan’s Bible study session.

That plan went down the drain. Nolan stumbled back to a house full of smoke. Callan was waving a towel, fanning the dense, grey air out the windows. His Mom raised a brow at him, the eggs and bacon he left on the frying pan were burnt to a crisp. Nolan made a face.

“Was on low heat.”

“Get a gasoline can so you can burn down our house faster, love.”

Callan peeked at the vegetables in Nolan’s hands. “What are those for?” 

“Shoving up your ass,” Nolan sneered, pushing his brother aside while apologizing to Mom. 

However, his brother was a persistent little fuck when he wanted to. Callan stalked Nolan’s heels, and the moment he deduced Nolan was heading to the Pastor’s, he stuck to Nolan’s legs, kicking and crying until Nolan tossed him in the truck’s backseat and hauled him along. He wasn’t even surprised when Callan convinced Jacob to come with them to Cat Skinner. 

Sighing, Nolan made a note to bill Ryan later. After all, Ryan promised the kids milkshakes.

/

“Thank you for the carrots and potatoes. My grandparents and I appreciate it,” Jacob said. 

“Yeah. Figured you guys want something besides casseroles and lasagnas.” 

Jacob snorted — a soft huff of an exhale under his breath, picking at his cuticles, staring out the dispersing woods and houses skimming outside the window. Pale apricot light washed across his mask of a blank, pleasant expression, tinting his nose bridge and cheekbones a golden hue. His hair was finger-swept back. Nolan glanced at him out the corner of his eyes, fingertips tapping against the steering wheel. Nolan didn’t know what he was waiting for — a witty remark, a snide reply, a mild answer — despite knowing none would come. Yet, he watched the Pastor’s grandson, a knot forming in his stomach and a coal lumping in his throat.

“How are they?” Nolan said after a moment, his voice quiet as if he was speaking to a spooked deer, studying the straight, skinny road. The radio fuzzed between them, playing a string of static-filled guitar notes, the calm bass singing faded and fizzled while they coasted along the empty freeway, darkened from condensing moisture overnight. 

Jacob’s eyes remained on the viridescent and auburn tree line with a glazed, distance focus. Shining across the front windshield, the sun wavered above the horizon, reminding Nolan of a fresh, white yolk. Sun rays blinked through millions pointed gaps between the gabled roofs and tall, interlaying trees. The blocky buildings and storefronts’ shadows on either side of Devland Avenue thinned. The roadway bent further east past the intersection with Aridam Lane. “My grandparents would be glad to not see me when they wake up today.”

Nolan’s grip tightened on the wheel.

He heard Lorelei Marzyciel’s death in passing, somewhere along the miniscule trivials about Jacob Nolan’s Mom had been prattling on. She died last month. Elskede Disease, similar to Nolan’s Dad. However, whereas the zinnia, acacia, ivy bundles that sprouted and overtook lungs and heart had killed Nolan’s Dad within fourteen days, Jacob’s Mom’s progress was prolonged for over twenty years. The disease’s complicated, unexpected flare-ups rendered Lorelei incapacitated till she succumbed to the internal clotting and bleeding. The tendril roots of blooming rhododendron, red camellia, jonquils and geraniums suffocated her bronchioles, weaving into her blood vessels, branching out from every internal organ. She died with the tip of a carnation budding out of her eyeballs.

For the past week, Mrs. Marzyciel sat on the front porch of her house, leaning back in the rocking chair, dazed from the sun and the thick cigarette smoke. Nolan didn’t know she smoked. She wasn’t crying, according to Mrs. MacOlen when she dropped off some cauliflower soup and a delicate daisy wreath for the Marzyciels. Probably because the old woman was less occupied by the fact that her daughter left home without a note and came back in an urn full of ash, and more overwhelmed by the stream of townspeople coming to share condolences, pastas and gawk at this youth she never met once in her seventy years of life, yet, was the one she had to start thinking as her grandson. 

However, while Mrs. Marzyciel maintained an unruffled appearance — or at least, she tried to — the Pastor was a different story. It was like he was reliving the days following Old Man Mason’s death all over again, trapped in a perpetual fretful and forgetful mood swing. Besides Ryan and Church’s staffers, not many others could get a hold of him — though even their interactions with the Pastor were reduced to simple phrases, Goodbye and How are you doing? Pastor Marzyciel burrowed himself away at the Church, forfeiting his usual morning run routine to pray with a half-crazed fervent and starving himself out until the physical pain numbed the mental pain inside his head and his heart. The town flinched, for no matter how much they tried to grasp his hands, the Pastor shoved them away, descending further and further into his own personal hell where none could reach. 

It felt as though they were holding another funeral — not for the dead Lorelei Marzyciel, but for the remaining living Marzyciels.

From the back, Callan leaned over the console. “Don’t think badly of Iris and Cohen. They love you, even if they don’t say it.” He brushed a skittish finger over Jacob’s shoulder, front buck teeth gnawing at his bottom lip, reminiscent of how he peered down his first hunt last year — unsure, cautious. The Pastor’s grandson twisted in his seat to flutter his lashes at Callan, and the uncertainty on Callan’s face lifted into something more hopeful and emboldened.

“That means a lot,” Jacob said.

Callan nodded, a pink dust sprinkled across his cheekbones. “We’re here for you, buddy.”

Jacob reached around, bumping his knuckles with Callan. “I’m counting on you, bossman.”

Callan grinned. “Anyway, Jacob. Has Ryan taken you to Cat Skinner yet?” Callan asked with all the stealth of a thirteen-year-old. Still, the three of them giggled a little at that. Nolan raised his brows in the rearview mirror. He could hear the fucking sparkles in his brother’s voice. Beside him, he could spy Jacob’s mouth twitching into a small, closed-lipped smile, And for the first time since they hit the road, his eyes focused on Nolan. Their gaze met and Nolan dry-swallowed the nauseous excitement bubbling from his diaphragm.

The greying asphalt petered out into an uneven path. Weathered red brick structures winged by sturdy oaks were replaced with scattering bare-bone log cabins perched on spindly legs amongst bald tree stumps. Nolan's truck gunned down the cracked, paved backroad, snapping twigs, knocking over pebbles, bursting through clusters of gathering flies and mosquitoes in its wake. The barren, pockmarked forest ground soon collapsed and flattened, dissolving into a rolling ocean of soft green shuddering in unison under the wind’s harmony. 

Soon, they saw the Cropping, a large clearing along Gedeon County 69. The Cat Skinner emerged into view — a battered converted RV, chipped from constant winds and rain. Beyond the Cat Skinner’s modest frame and slanted extended awnings were the CATs. The metal’s brown-yellow dulled in comparison with the dandelions patches carpeting the field. Half-hidden behind the knee-high grass fields slumped four bulldozers, forever frozen in action.

The wild red and blue vines overtaken the dozers’ stiff gears had also succeeded in scaling the Cat Skinner’s back-half, intertwined rootlets formed a matrix matted across the cheap laminated wooden panels and ledges. The make-shift parking lot was marked by two thin wooden sticks driven onto the mushy, lush soil and a strip of white ribbon stretching in between. Cole’s wife, Maireen, was reading on a camping chair near the entrance. As Nolan pulled up, Maireen rose on her feet and pulled her thin sweater tighter around herself, wrinkled face brightened. 

Before Nolan parked the truck, Callan was already unbuckling and flinging his door side open. Maireen chuckled, folding the kid into a hug and pressing a kiss at his temple. His brother preened under her doting, a facade full of innocence. The old woman watched Nolan and Jacob step out of the car with a gentle squint. 

“Hey, Mai.” Nolan tipped his chin, peering into the Cat Skinner’s dim-lit interior. “We’ll take our usual five.”

“What about Jacob’s?” Callan asked.

“He’ll get mine.” Nolan reached out to put Callan in a headlock, ruffling his brother’s hair. The kid bucked and wiggled against his hold. “And I’ll steal yours.”

“I can pay—” Jacob said from behind, drifting closer.

Nolan shook his head. He released his brother, who immediately tackled him, screaming like he would during a football practice. Nolan grunted, catching Callan and swinging his brother in a half arc, both of them stumbling backward and clawing at each other for balance. Callan hid his maniacal cackle at Nolan’s shirt front, stepping on Nolan’s toes. 

“Dickhead. Go help Maireen,” Nolan snarled, peeling his brother off. 

Callan made a triumphant roar, then obediently scampered after Maireen. They disappeared behind the cracked, taped front door. A few moments later, the kitchen's light lit up. 

“You two are close,” The Pastor’s grandson hummed.

Nolan jolted, surprised. He shifted, putting a few feet of distance between them. “Came a long way,” He ran a hand through his hair. “I used to despise him.”

“So how did you learn to love him?” Jacob asked, coming next to Nolan — the diner's awning shadow sliced across the upper half of Jacob’s face, shrouding his gaze. Behind them, the sun clambered higher up. The sunlight pooled over the yielding field, painting Jacob honey and ruddy. 

“He’s my brother.” Nolan traced Jacob’s sight line, focusing on the dark top of Callan’s head dipping over and under Cat Skinner’s windowsill. From the RV, the blender’s barks punctured the idyllic ebbing and waning lukewarm atmosphere. Nolan could map out Callan’s quick movement as he unlocked the pitcher and slid over, pouring the milkshake batch into plastic cups and knocking the sugar Maireen set on the counter for him. A yelp squeaked out, followed by Maireen’s frets to catch the mason jar before it smashed onto the floor. The predictability brought a smile to Nolan’s face. “I can hate him, but he’s the only other person I have. If something happens to him—” Nolan blinked, shaking his head. “It’s terrifying to be alone.”

A hint of nonchalance rippled across Jacob’s expression. “Yeah,” He said, voice uncorked to the tender, warm wind. “You think you don’t love them enough until they’re dying in your arms and all you want is them being alive for another day.”

Nolan nodded. A breeze blew over them, rustling their hair and clothes. He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry about your Mom,” He said, sincere. Except it came out all wrong and twisted. Spoken too quick to be genuine, tinted with a cold sense of mild morbid curiosity.

The Pastor’s grandson twisted his neck. A swift, almost-primitive motion. Like an elk about to leap. Nolan was frozen stiff, his lungs held an inhale — the world narrowed to the singular heartbeat standing less than six feet away from him. 

If Nolan’s Mom was standing next to him, she would have given him a hard slap at his neck. Hell, he wanted to slap himself, too.

“You sounded disappointed.” When the Pastor’s grandson smiled at Nolan, it was like a dark, dark dirty secret.

“Uh,” Nolan didn’t know a good answer. He stumbled, panic rose from the recesses of his brain. 

“It’s fine. Most people here assumed she was kidnapped or murdered after she ran away, anyway,” Jacob shrugged, a cruel hint flashed across the bottom of his eyes. They were close enough for him to feel the coldness radiating from Jacob’s skin, his cool body heat was salve soothed over Nolan’s forearm. An unconscious shudder ran through Nolan’s body. He braced his heels into the ground, dared not to move an inch under Jacob’s stare. 

“I don’t mean—” Nolan started. However, before he could finish his excuse, his phone buzzed. He jumped. His fingertips twitched, and Nolan curled them tight into fists, eyes trained on Jacob.

“You should answer it.”

Nolan squared his jaws, but the Pastor’s grandson turned his head. The implicit dismissal sent a rush of heat down the sides of Nolan’s nape. Without another word, he backed away, abruptly agitated at the inconvenient timing of everything. However, his scowl evaporated the moment he registered the frantic chatter from the other side of the phone. 

“The Pastor,” Ryan said. “He’s dead.”