to take them in. “You look like hell,” she said to Evan.
His swollen cheek had taken on an eggplant hue, and he’d left the stapled wound on his forearm exposed to air it out. “You should talk.”
She gave a dry laugh. “Look at this. My long-lost sons beckoned to my deathbed. All that’s missing is a soap-opera score. And a gin and tonic.”
“I hear that,” Andre said.
She blinked a few times, and each time Evan was unsure if her eyes would open again.
Finally she spoke. “My whole life I told myself that ducking responsibility meant I was taking care of myself.” She lifted an arm trailing wires and took Andre’s hand. “But it’s precisely the opposite.”
He dipped his head, gave a nod. They stood over her awkwardly.
“Sit down,” she said. “You’re making me feel like I’m already in the coffin.”
Evan retrieved chairs from a bistro set on the terrace and brought them over. They sat bedside dutifully. There was so much to take in that didn’t require words.
Veronica’s blinks grew longer and longer. At last she said, “You spend your whole damn life proving that you’re different from everyone else. What a great relief at the end to find out that you aren’t.”
She closed her eyes, her breath taking on a rasp.
Evan and Andre stayed with her another half hour, and then Andre rose and walked out. As Evan returned the chairs to the terrace, he accidentally knocked Veronica’s purse off its perch.
He crouched to pick up the spilled contents. Her trifold leather wallet had fallen open, an edge of yellowed newsprint showing in the ID window, peeking out from behind her driver’s license. He fished it out.
LOCAL RIDER CLAIMS TITLE
Freedom, OK—November 18, 1978
Jacob Baridon snared his first bull-riding title on the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association circuit this Saturday. His 94-point effort astride El Diablo, the three-time PRCA Saddle Bronc of the Year, was sufficient for victory.
A grainy photograph showed a handsome man smiling from beneath a Stetson, the front dip of the brim shading his eyes. Jacob. His own middle name, taken from this man.
Heat found Evan’s cheek, the gash in his arm, pushing its way through him, searching for exits.
So she hadn’t been joking. A rodeo cowboy.
His father.
He couldn’t decide whether it was an amusing cliché or just fucking absurd.
He decided on both.
Pocketing the article, he slipped out.
* * *
He was pumping gas into the pickup when he got the call. Through the cracked screen of the RoamZone, he saw the hospice nurse’s number.
He answered, listened, thanked her, and hung up.
He stood beneath the overhang by the pumps, his mouth suddenly dry. He leaned against the truck, the metal warm and grounding to the touch.
The door chimed as he entered the mart and headed to the refrigerated beverages in the back. When he tugged open the glass door, a cool waft slid up his front side, and he realized he was sweating. Light-headedness came on, a reminder of his injuries, but then he sensed the twist in his chest and realized it might be something else.
Grief.
Resting a hand on the shelf, he leaned in and breathed the cool, sweet air.
A well-put-together woman in her sixties came up beside him. “You okay, hon?”
He half turned. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”
But she was already talking over him, and he realized she was on her Bluetooth, carrying on a conversation. She smiled kindly, embarrassed, and mouthed, My daughter, pointing to the phone.
Evan stepped aside. She reached past him for a Fiji water and withdrew.
* * *
Back in the penthouse, Evan paced circles around the island in the kitchen. The poured-concrete countertops looked smudged, and he wiped them down with wet paper towels. Soil had dribbled beneath the living wall, and he got a mop and worked the floor over, but when he was done, the water had dried unevenly on the island, leaving streaks, so he got more paper towels and wiped it again and again, tight circular motions that strained the staples in his forearm. He switched arms and finished and then noticed that the salt and pepper shakers were uneven, so he pushed them to the wall, but then he saw a crumb in the grouting beneath the cabinet and dug at it with his fingernail but couldn’t get it, he couldn’t get it perfect, and he stopped and sat down right on the floor, because nothing was working, everything was out of order, out of control, and he sensed something on his face and touched his fingertips to his