The Bond

Chapter 5: Oil and Dirt

Chapter 5: Oil and DirtSo here I was, Declan Makavoy, widower, thirties, father, son, no holy ghost.

But there were other ghosts—my father, Clara, and the scariest ghost of all, the life I had before she died. That ghost loomed monstrous until my heart nearly broke beneath its weight. My devotion to Antonia was the only thing sparing me from desolation. There would never be another love like the one I shared with Clara, never.

Five years later I met Adam.

Self-loathing, sexy, rude…Adam was a piece of broken work. Prime real estate for a grieving heart looking for an obsessive distraction.

In a city, my sexuality wouldn’t have mattered any more than the difference between one or two shots of espresso in a morning latte. In a small town, a widowed father living with a man after having been married to a much beloved woman as all but a headline in the local paper: Bereft and apparently bisexual farmer loses hope in love, shacks up with local gay mechanic…do you really know your neighbors?

Even without the headlines, whispers, stares, and not a few raised eyebrows trailed behind us, and I understood. It is shocking when something or someone you thought you knew dissolves. There is a gap to fill, so whispers, eyebrows, remarks, comments are a quick way to fill that space, because if I truly know anything, it is this, the world hates a gap. Nature, as my friend Chester once quoted, abhors a vacuum.

The town now knew who I was.

I knew.

At least I thought I knew.

When things got serious with Adam, I told Antonia.

“I like Adam,” she’d said.

“So do I,” I agreed. “What do you think about him moving in with us?”

“Cool.” She offered me a teacup full of imaginary tea.

“Cool,” I said, taking and drinking it.

I knew this innocent ignorance would be short lived and decided the best thing was to let her ask questions and be as open and honest as her maturity dictated.

If Antonia liked Adam, he doted on her. It was when he was at his most loving, and protective. When she came home telling of a playground bully, I nearly had to chain him to the bed to avoid him going after the kid.

Unfortunately, his love for Antonia, me, our life, wasn’t enough to overcome the ravenous demons gnawing Adam’s insides.

He hated the town. He hated himself.

Our love—or what I’d thought was love—couldn’t withstand the hate.

Miserable, and unaccommodating, he stood in direct opposition of my professional reputation. Sure, I was antisocial, but my work, the farm and our livelihood depended upon my ability to crack a smile and show genuine interest in people, no matter how painful this could be at times.

Adam, a skilled mechanic, had a take it or f**k off attitude, supported by his unparalleled quality of work.

“Don’t like it? Go somewhere else,” he’d say without flinching.

Countless were the times I wished to tell any number of customers to get the hell off my land or a landscaping contractor to go f**k themselves, but a legacy of accommodation, paired with pride of work, wouldn’t allow it. Neither would small-town gossips, who all had a direct line to my mother. Barely a branch could be left to linger in the driveway and I would get a call accusing me of letting the place go to s**t.

Adam didn’t have pride in his skill. It was a trade to him, nothing more. His mechanic’s mind worked a certain way and led to certain work, nothing more. He liked cars, motorcycles, trucks—any vehicle he could get under or over—but it didn’t excite him the way farming excited me. Unmatched was my thrill in autumn harvest, spring bounty, winter silence and summer warmth.

His lack of pride amused me. To him, nothing seemed to matter. Everything weighed the same—a feather or a rock, sun or rain, winter or summer. It left him unfazed and closed off to influence, where I was susceptible to seasons, timing, history, family and sense of place. Adam gave me a glimpse of freedom and I f*****g loved it.

His detached coolness made him sexually mysterious. He seemed to enjoy giving me pleasure, though I sensed I could have been anyone—or another engine needing his expert handling.

Kissing was where he got me—intense, against fences in the fields, in the hallway, outside the bathroom, bursts of tongue, lip and mouth, a collision of spit, heat and his smell.

He’d mumble, “I love you,” into my neck or ear, breathless, like kissing gave him a break from the misery he carried. These moments were enough to make his s**t attitude bearable.

After he’d moved in, there had been periods of contentment spiked with Adam’s inability to accept his sexuality. Introduced as my boyfriend, he’d slink away as though scrutinized by unseen condemners. What followed would be a rehashed conversation revolving around my ability to find both sexes erotically appealing.

“You live in la-la land,” he’d snapped. “You think I’d be with men if I could live an easier life?”

“An easier life?”

“With a woman,” he’d said.

“But I’m in love with you,” I’d replied.

“f**k love! You don’t think every time one of your customers buys something then drives off, they ain’t thinking of us as—” he jabbed his finger into the side of my head “—that faggot farmer and his c**k-sucking boyfriend.”

I grabbed his finger. “Get your finger out of my face.”

He jerked his hand. “Let go.”

I did, but not before bending it, making him squirm. “They talk regardless, it’s a small town. You caring about what they say, that’s your shit.”

He got out of bed and yanked a T-shirt over his head. “Listening to them clicking their tongues, seeing the way they stare…” He put on his pants. “I don’t get why you’d choose—”

“It’s not a choice!”

“Bullshit!”

We weren’t romantics. Our minds worked in practicality laced with occasional affection. I clipped his nails one night, sitting at the dining room table. He drank beer, smiled, mocking my meticulous manner while tending his engine oil-stained hands.

“I’m f*****g empty,” he said and belched.

I clipped one of his nails too short.

He jerked his hand.

“You’re not empty,” I said.

“What the f**k do you know?” Adam examined his finger. “You wouldn’t know emptiness if it f****d you.”

His admittance struck at my core belief that a steady home and reliable love would make him—or anyone—whole.

I’d misread emptiness as detachment.

It amused him, my stupid attempts at making him feel content. Sledding the hills behind the high school with Antonia, raking leaves into massive piles in which we’d wrestle, making out until it got too cold, and sitting at an overflowing dinner table surrounded by happy faces was pure ecstasy. Giving me just enough pleasured reassurance he would one day be fulfilled, if I just gave more.

Adam’s emptiness turned me masochistic. I got off on trying to fill his void. Of course, nothing I did, or could do, would make him full. His void needed his effort and he sure as s**t wasn’t going to put forth the energy.

Our tiny romance was a mess of moments laced together, forming something resembling a relationship devoid of tact and grace and me struggling to fill an empty man.

Then there was that summer. The last one before things…everything…changed.

Glowing, nearly perfect, those days are seared into some part of my brain, labeled Before.

Filled with multitudinous BBQ’s, beach weekends, and lazy, sunlit Sundays, I thought, foolishly, we’d go on like that forever. Maybe I was romantic.

Then autumn came. My heart, newly warmed by that near-perfect summer, looked forward to a homey autumn and busy holiday season. While I’d always made the most of holidays for Antonia, this felt like the first season since Clara died, that I might truly, whole-heartedly enjoy celebrating.

That hope, so long gone, is enough to make me laugh.

September proved bountiful and profitable. We harvested apples, pressed cider, jarred our signature honey applesauce and held classes on how to make hard cider and apple vinegar. My daughter grew taller, started third grade. She was nine and a big girl now, and Daddy had to deal with it. My mother and I hosted apple dinners, where she baked everything from apple pie to apple chips. We chopped apple trees and sold the wood. I saved some for whittling.

The weather changed like a moody adolescent, one day dry and cold, the next warm and brilliant. Leaves awash with reds, oranges, vermilion and yellows, turned the world kaleidoscopic, while the tree’s bark deepened into a patchwork of blacks, grays and browns. Once the trees shed their jewel-toned leaves, we raked them into big piles, dove into them, laughing. The air smelled of smoke and fermented fruit. In the silence, amidst falling leaves and cold shadows, something shifted. A chill touched the warmth I’d stored in my heart over the summer. The ghosts hadn’t left, they were there at the edges, where the leaves hadn’t fallen yet, and the sun hadn’t touched. But then the sun warmed my skin, Antonia squeezed my waist, geese flew overhead, and something close to sadness passed across Adam’s face. We were all haunted, nervous of the knowledge summer was over.

September also proved tumultuous.

By the end of the month, Adam decided he’d had enough.

Adam’s enough occurred at the very small, very local grocery store.

The butcher—a veteran who suffered from crippling bouts of PTSD—made a back-handed comment about men like us, waving a raw tomahawk steak in our direction, rogue drops of blood hitting Adam in the face and drawing the attention of half a dozen customers, many who frequented my farm.

Between the people coming to our defense, my trying to restrain Adam and the store manager racing around unable to seize the steak or figure out how to quiet the now manic butcher, it rivaled a scene from a binge-worthy drama.

By the time we got to the truck, sans groceries, Adam was seething.

“I gotta get the f**k outta here,” he spat as he peeled out of the parking lot.

Then came October.

Then came the goblin.