Homespun by Layla M. Wier Page A

can learn new tricks.
    “I wish I could say I understand,” he said slowly. “But I wasn’t there. And I probably will never understand what you went through. And yet,”— Sometimes you have to lead, not follow.—“ I lost someone too, you know. It wasn’t the same. I know that. But that didn’t make it hurt less. She was my world. I can’t understand all of it, but I really can understand some parts of it, Ker.”
    Anger—an incoherent, wordless rage—flickered over
    Kerry’s pale face. Then he looked back down. Compass needle, north. Neither of them spoke for a time.
    “How long?” Owen asked softly.
    Homespun | Layla M. Wier
    72

    “They said he could go anytime. Maybe a day or two.”
    Kerry’s breathing was as harsh as his father’s. “I never thought I’d make it this long,” he said, and he was open and bleeding, and Owen didn’t know what to do. “I lived hard and expected to die young.” Helplessly, he stared at the pale ghost of his father, immobile against the hospital sheets.
    “What happens when you know you’re going to die, and then you don’t?”
    “You go on living,” Owen said. His voice was thick.
    Kerry turned his face away. Owen saw him fighting to keep his composure, and thought, God damn this. He circled the bed in a few long strides, caught Kerry in his arms. Kerry didn’t fight or try to pull away, just sank against him, shaking.
    “Ker, did I ever tell you why Nance and I named the farm Blue Thistle?”
    Kerry shook his head wordlessly against Owen’s chest.
    “Because we both respected the hell out of that
    frustrating little plant. It’s a weed, technically, but damn are they tenacious little buggers. And,” Owen added, burying his face in Kerry’s hair, “they’re a beautiful weed.”

    KERRY’S father died at 8:03 that evening. Kerry wasn’t there.
    He’d stepped out of that too-close room to get a cup of coffee and took a walk around the hospice grounds, shedding Owen’s company and his well-meant but oppressive
    sympathy. Darkness was lapping at the buildings, and the undertow of the past tugged at Kerry’s steps, trying to drag him under. Kerry kept his mind very carefully blank. He Homespun | Layla M. Wier
    73
    could taste the hospital smell on the back of his tongue—too familiar, too goddamn familiar, making him gag.
    Owen, he thought, didn’t know a damn thing about
    hospitals and lost loved ones.
    Kerry hadn’t smoked in a very long time, but for the first time in years, he felt the dry craving on the back of his tongue. It would be something to do with his hands, a reason to stand outside for a little longer, a balm for his shattered nerves… and it would get the taste of hospital out of his mouth. He walked down the street aimlessly before realizing he had no idea where to find the nearest convenience store.
    In the gathering darkness, cold hands buried deep in his pockets, he walked back.
    The hospice building felt too warm after the sharp chill in the air outside. And he knew. He couldn’t say how, but he knew before he entered his father’s room. There was a certain change in the quality of the air, a silence that pressed on the eardrums like the waiting hush as a thunderstorm gathered over the fields of Owen’s farm.
    His sister had her hands over her mouth and was
    leaning on her teenage son, whom Kerry had met for the first time only that day. They clung to each other in their own private circle of grief. The nurse looked up. Saw him. Said something sympathetic.
    The only thing that felt real was Owen’s hand on his, Owen’s big, blunt fingers laced through his own.
    “Do you—?” Owen began quietly, and Kerry shook his head.
    “I want to go outside.”
    So they went outside. It was fully dark now, only a thin sliver of light left in the sky to the west.
    Homespun | Layla M. Wier
    74

    “Do you have a hotel?” Kerry asked. His voice sounded small. Maybe it was his ears, a threadiness, as if the air had become too