Page 76 of Rootbound

“RiiRuhRooRoo,” I say around the cake, and then I laugh and cough cake into his face, but say with clarity, “I love you, too.”

Then we are kissing again, wiping cake from eyelashes and eyebrows, and I’m untucking his shirt as he peels down my dress and then he’s inside me and it feels like too much, like every time will feel like too much, too heartbreakingly good.

He tells me he loves me, even as I claw at him later that night, crying out his name, keening out nonsense. He just says, “I love you,” shaking his head occasionally, like he can’t believe how much.

I wake up to a silent house, to the smell of coffee the following morning. The tears spring faster to my eyes than I’d have thought possible, because I know that it’s over. Last night was our goodbye to us.

When I manage to haul my weary body down the stairs and to the coffee pot, I see the envelope with my name on it. I open it, finding a simple green card that says “Happy Birthday” on the front. The inside would be empty if not for his handwriting. Two slips of paper fall out onto the counter, but my eyes pore over the note,first.

Tait, you should know that if you choose to use this gift, I won’t be able to go with you. They found it “exceedingly strange” that I would want to buy a gift card. Apparently, that’s not something they typically sell there. They also didn’t like that I wouldn’t take any of the “merchandise”… I think you should nab, like, six of them, though. Don’t be afraid to commit to something, give this kind of love a home. (Even if it’s a little scary/aggressive/creepy when you refer to it as “not porn.”) (See photo.)

I pick up the picture. It’s the one he took of me with the llama. My smile is stretched to the limit, my eyes crinkled to the point of disappearance. I smile looking at the creature’s furry, ridiculous face, even still.

The gift certificate is for an animal shelter, local to here, in Idaho. He’s drawn an arrow indicating that I should look at the back, where he’s written,

I called the animal shelter that I think is closest to you back home, too, but I couldn’t get a physical gift certificate from them in time. Adopt as many animals as you want, wherever you want, Tait. In California, in Idaho, just grab any and every bit of happiness you deserve. Any living thing that has your love is the luckiest thing on the planet.

I want you to know that no matter where this goes with you and I, I am just happy to know you, and want you to do whatever it is that will make you as happy as you’ve made me, regardless of whether or not that includes us. I want you to know that you’ve made me want to be a better, happierman for ME. Thank you for having that kind of faith in me, for challenging me and pushing me as you have.

I meant what I said. I will be here, waiting, and ready whenever you are, however long you need. And here’s the thing… As much as you make me want to be a better man for myself, you’d be the main character in my life, Tait, whether you like it or not. I don’t think those things are mutually exclusive. I’d make sure you’d never forget how fascinating you are, always. If you’d let me, I’d cherish you. I love you.

-Henry

Tears splatter the paper before I have the chance to move it.

It takes Jessa and I four days to get enough material for the article spread. With Henry gone on the hunting trip that Emmaline insisted they still go on, I throw myself into work with something bordering violence. I retrieve my replacement camera, go back to filling my spare minutes with exercise and distraction, editing photos, and plotting the following shoots. I receive a checklist for the travel magazine’s article and send those photos off almost immediately, having already covered each item in the time that I’ve been here.

I get the autograph of the actress who plays Sadie Dollar for Fletcher. She tries to corner me into talking about Henry, nodoubt having heard about us at the party, but I don’t even bother answering; I just smile and walk away.

I learn that Jake Lockhart might be a little cheesy on the surface, but it’s easy to see that his vision for the show is anything but a sellout. He highlights difficult, uncomfortable, relevant social issues, finding a way to tie those in with the plotline surrounding the Dollar family.

Ava spends the nights this week in her old room, but she spends the days getting to know Duane.

Charlie sends photos and texts from different spots on their trip, so I know they have at least intermittent service, despite not hearing from Henry. I know it’s for the best.

Emmaline remains stable, so when I finish up the majority of editing, I call Deacon and make arrangements to go home early. Dragging out another goodbye sounds like the last thing any of us need right now, and since Ava and I plan to come back in a few weeks for Thanksgiving, I decide to rip the Band-Aid off and head home.

Unlike traveling to Idaho, the flight home seems impossibly fast. Before I know it, I’m riding past Lake Tahoe, the blue somehow a little more dull, the terrain a little more tame. Then I’m walking through the door of my A-frame, greeted by my tastefully decorated, but pictureless walls, my too large, too cold bed, and the rootless life I built back here… a life that seems so unnervingly quiet and empty now.

I was brave for a moment there, though.

I was brave enough to love, to reach out to a family that could have easily only hurt me more. I was brave enough to be vulnerable again, and it paid off, even if it did invite in so much more heartbreak… After all, I havegrown to love more people that I will absolutely lose at one point or another—one in particular much sooner than the others, and her loss will be permanent.

All love, at some point, is going to be devastating, isn’t it? We all just choose to be brave, to go after what we want, who we want… even if it means potentially losing a piece of ourselves. Even when it means being intensely vulnerable. I chose to let in my family, to let in friends again, to let in Henry.

Instead of losing a piece of myself, even with the pain… I found it there.

It only takes me that hour, in that house that used to hold the smallest pieces of me, to realize what a complete, utter, total fucking idiot I am.

Thirty-Eight

Henry

The weather could not have been better this trip. Most years we end up with snow at some point, the painful, sleeting, knives-stabbing-your-face kind.

I had been looking forward to it. To hiking the brutal terrain, to being completely exhausted physically, to collapsing on my cot each night and sleeping like the dead—no matter how loud Charlie and James snore.

Instead, the days are crisp, clear, and colorful. God, they’re so fucking colorful. Each morning feels like an insult. We get absolutely skunked on even seeing an animal, which, on any other year would be made up for with the beautiful weather. Not this one, of course.