Carter shook his head. “He wanted to pay.”
They lapsed into silence, sorting—Goodwill, scrapbook, or sale—with the records to be maybe divided among family and interesting tchotchkes set aside to display for this afternoon. Carter put the tickets in that pile. Jeff didn’t argue.
Under the Ginsberg was a Moleskine notebook with yellowed pages. Jeff lifted it out and opened the cover, half expecting another ledger of home improvement expenses—being sentimental did not preclude Fred from being a packrat—only to find, cryptically, a date range from Jeff’s teenage years. When he set the book on the table, it fell open further, and the pages flipped as something in the book pushed them back. Jeff put his thumb in to keep the page as the item fell out.
It was an envelope with a few pictures in it, apparently depicting the day he and Ella moved eighteen-year-old Carter into his dorm in Toronto. Jeff smiled at it. Ella and Fred looked just as he remembered them, while Carter was skinnier, a little gawky. Of course Jeff remembered him being handsomer than he was. The three of them had their arms around each other and were grinning widely at the camera.
Jeff set the envelope aside and pulled the book closer. The page was dated a few years later than the photographs, so they likely weren’t related. Under the date, he read—
Little fish has a big mouth
and bigger plans.
Hook line and sinker:
foolish fishers fling him back.
A gamble, a sting, a breath held,
a barb removed, another scar.
Little fish’s belly fats with wasted bait—
he won’t be little forever.
“Jeff?” Carter asked. “Are you okay?”
Jeff slammed the book closed, his heart in his throat. “I’m—I need some air.”
Running away twice in three days. He was going to beat his old record at this rate.
Carter eventually caught up to him on the back deck, clomping outside with a grimace. “Kind of rude to make me chase after you with a broken foot,” he teased gently.
Pacing frantically, Jeff ran both hands through his hair. “Kind of rude of me to be more needy than a dead father’s sons at his memorial service, so I’m just hitting it out of the park all over.”
Carter frowned and stepped closer, and Jeff instinctively stopped walking. He didn’t want to step on Carter’s foot. “Hey.” He put a hand on Jeff’s elbow and coaxed his arm down. Jeff didn’t relax. “We’ve had six months to process. And Dad… he was your family too. You’re allowed to grieve him.”
“Am I?” It didn’t feel like it. “I left, Carter. I didn’t—for fifteen years I didn’t call him, I didn’t email. I acted like he was dead to me. Do I really have a right to be here? After everything?”
“Did you stop loving him?” Carter asked. He wasn’t holding Jeff’s elbow anymore, he was holding his wrist. When had that happened? “Because he didn’t stop loving you.”
Fuck.“Maybe he should’ve.” Jeff bit the inside of his cheek hard as he scrambled for composure. When he could speak without his voice breaking, he said, “I know he didn’t.”
“He was proud of you.”
“I didn’t do anything to be proud of.”
“No?” Carter brushed his thumb over the thin skin on the inside of Jeff’s wrist. “You made a career doing what you love. You’ve been successful. Your music is good. A couple Grammy nominations. That’s nothing to be proud of?”
Jeff shivered. He wanted to tug his hand away but couldn’t muster the strength. He felt frozen. “I’m a coward.”
“Are you?” Had Carter moved closer? He was all Jeff could look at now, and he could scarcely breathe. “Your music is brutally honest. You sing something and people feel like they know all your secrets. That takes bravery.”
Did Carter feel like he knew all Jeff’s secrets? “Maybe,” Jeff said. “But when it’s time to act, I run away.” He’d run away fifteen years ago, afraid of what loving Carter might do to him, and he’d run away earlier this month, afraid of what would happen if he let himself continue loving his band.
Finally Carter let go of him, and the rest of the world rushed back in.
“Actually, can we talk about that?” Carter’s eyes went shadowed, and his voice seemed heavy. “About the day you left, I mean.”
