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Jack stumbled to a stop, the fringed ends of his scarf whipping around his face, even though his momma had insisted on wrapping it tight as possible against the November prairie wind.
He’d tipped his face up for a second, been struck by the glory of the night sky in the frigid Wyoming winter – a sight he hadn’t seen for a long, long time, it always being summer, or fall, or spring when he drove the long road north, never winter.
“You alright?” Ennis’s voice, pitched soft, came warm into his heart.
Seemed like it’d been cold for a long, long time.
“Yeah.” He couldn’t pull his gaze away from the Milky Way, didn’t want to look at Ennis right now, though he wasn’t sure why.
Ennis came closer, stood quietly next to him, his heavy coat just barely touching Jack’s shoulders. Amazing, to feel his long strength there - right there - next to him. It was going to take some getting used to, that was for sure.
Today had been – Jack couldn’t come up with a word to describe it.
His momma, face flushed with a gentle, welling happiness. His father, glowering, looking like a heart attack about to happen, slicing the turkey like it was Jack himself, speechless for the moment on the news that Jack was moving back home, but living at the house Ennis built. Watching his father stab at the bird, Jack remembered the Thanksgiving he’d finally stood up to his asshole father-in-law. Now there was a Thanksgiving he’d just as soon forget.
But maybe Newsome had done Jack a favor, back then, after all. When it’d come right down to it, it hadn’t been as hard as he’d thought telling his parents where he’d be resting his head. If there was one thing life’d taught him, it was how to say fuck-you to other people’s opinions. Even his parents’. Or rather, his daddy’s, ‘cause his momma – his momma took the news like an empty desert soaking up a rain. After a short gasp of joy and a quick squeeze of her arms round Jack’s back, she grew progressively quieter, like the happiness was taking up more and more space inside her, her smile seeming to take over more and more of her face as the night went on.
And Ennis. Ennis, at the table with his momma and daddy, in the house he grew up in, eating his momma’s cornbread dressing. So close, their knees could touch under the table if they’d let them. Jack couldn’t even look at him during dinner, for fear of what would show on his own face, there in front of his parents.
Despite himself, Jack chuckled, thinking of his father’s face at dinner.
Ennis rumbled, “What’s funny?”
Jack smiled. “Thinkin’ on my daddy at dinner. Looked like he had a turkey bone stuffed in his throat the whole time.”
“Now, Jack,” Ennis said, but Jack could hear the amusement in his voice.
“Or up his ass, more like,” Jack added.
Ennis laughed then, solid and strong next to him. “He did look kinda – .” Ennis seemed to search for a word.
“Mmm,” Jack agreed, letting the silence of the night settle into his bones. The Milky Way seemed brighter every minute, its whorls and eddies of distant stars clearly visible to the naked eye.
After a time of silence, Ennis cleared his throat. “Whatcha - ?” He stopped, started again. “You gazin’ on something’ up there in heaven?” Ennis sounded tentative, like he wasn’t sure Jack would stick around, wouldn’t just fly off at a moment’s notice.
Maybe Jack wasn’t sure either, this whole thing being so new, him being so bruised and battered in his heart. The world was a fucked-up place, and he’d seen more’n his share of proof of that in the past few years. Ennis had changed, too, and though most of it was to the good, it was strange to be movin’ in with a guy he hardly knew.
And Ennis – what real odds were there that he’d stick around? Once word got out, he’d be having to deal with people’s knowing looks and murmured insults. Not to mention Jack’s daddy, once he got over the shock enough to find his voice again. Was there any real way he’d be able to hang in for the long haul?
But what had Ennis just asked? It reminded him of something, something from a long time ago, when he’d been so young and full of dreams. Ennis’d been smiling at the Brokeback sky like it held all the treasure in the world, back when they’d first got together after not seeing each other for four years. The warmth in his eyes, in his smile, had loosened Jack’s tongue, made him ask Ennis the question -
The Milky Way blurred as Jack remembered that conversation, thought on all the years in between, all the lost moments for them.
Still, Ennis was here, next to him, standin’ in the godforsaken prairie next to Jack, gazin’ on stars that musta shed their last light millions of years ago. Askin’ a question. A question no one else on earth ever cared enough to ask him: what was in his mind.
“Just wishin’, I guess,” Jack managed.
Ennis breathed out a sudden huff of air, laid a gloved hand on Jack’s shoulder. Its weight suffused Jack with warmth, broke a little more of the ice off his heart. Jack leaned a little into the hand, and back into Ennis, who’d taken a step behind him.
“Sorry,” Ennis murmured, letting his hand come round Jack’s chest and pulling Jack gently back against his body, nuzzling with his stubbled cheek against Jack’s face. Then Ennis said, “Lots of wishin’ behind us. I used to - .” He cleared his throat, and Jack felt the vibration through all their layers of clothes.
Ennis had wished and longed, too, Jack knew that, but it was hard to remember sometimes, hard not to feel only anger at Ennis, who’d kept them apart for so long. Except it hadn’t really been Ennis, but his daddy, or really, the world.
Both of them had been left with wishing, and not much else, for a long span of years.
Ennis’s hands curled into Jack’s coat, pulling him tighter back against him, and he rubbed his whole face against the side of Jack’s. The wind blew Jack’s scarf into Ennis’s mouth, and he spat it out. Despite everything, Jack felt a smile crook up the corner of his lips. “Eatin’ my scarf there, del Mar?”
Ennis chuckled. “Ain’t all of yours I’m gonna be eatin’.”
Jack’s smile grew to a grin. “That a promise?”
He felt Ennis’s lips press soft onto his frozen cheek, then heard Ennis, suddenly a little solemn, whisper, “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”
The world seemed to take a breath, the silent splendor of the heavens bearing witness to their embrace.
Time was, Jack, reckless and carefree, had ridden in the rodeo, gotten up every single time he was thrown and started all over again, never letting it daunt him. Time was, he’d let the road out of Lightning Flat lead him wherever it traveled, never looking ahead to see what bad might be waiting around the bend. Time was – time was, he’d followed his heart, the yearning toward Ennis that hit him like the pull of a rushing river – let it bash him on the rocks, whirl him in the eddies, carry him over the falls. But he’d let it take him, because – because there was no one else for him in the world like Ennis. And never would be – he knew that like he didn’t know anything else.
Jack took a breath, let the tide take him, turned his face into Ennis’s, rubbed his cheek up against his like a cat. “Also, I was sending up thanks,” he murmured, heart beating hard, this new thing between them – talking about stuff – still so new.
Ennis’s arms tightened even more around Jack, and he leaned his forehead down on Jack’s shoulder, murmured into his coat, “What for?”
Jack’s heart beat harder, faster, and he swallowed. Take the leap? Get onto the bull?
Hell, this was Ennis. Hell, yeah. Feeling like that nineteen year old all over again, Jack said, clear as a bell into the starlight-drenched night. “For you.”
Ennis didn’t say anything, but that was okay, because Jack knew him, and his startled breath on his cheek, the tightening of the grip on his coat, said all there was to say.
But it turned out, Thanksgiving miracles weren’t done yet, because then Ennis took a breath, a deep one, and blurted out into Jack’s scarf, “All them years ago, that’s what it was for me, bein’ so thankful, seein’ you after all that time – I just was too damn stupid to say it.” And then he stopped talking, breathing hard like he’d run a race, his exhales showing in white puffs in front of the two of them.
So Ennis hadn’t forgotten, he’d remembered that time, just like Jack remembered it, remembered every single time they’d had together, laid out like a trail of lights on a dark path to the present.
Jack reached a gloved hand up behind him, laid it gentle on Ennis’s face, pulled it sideways towards his own, brushed a soft kiss against his frozen lips. “We both been stupid sometimes,” Jack said, giving it like a gift to Ennis. The stars seemed to blaze even brighter, and he smiled. “And I knew that’s what you meant, you didn’t have to say nothing.”
A particularly strong blast of wind hit them, and they swayed a little. “God, it’s fuckin’ cold,” Ennis said.
Jack smiled. “Not where I’m standin’, Friend.”
“Hmmph. Change places with me, then?” Ennis had that tone he got when he was trying to make his voice gruff.
Joy grabbed Jack sudden, wrenching a laugh out of his throat. “Not for all the tea in China. No where else I’d rather be.”
“Easy for you to say,” Ennis grumped.
Jack laughed full-out now. “Friend, nothing’s ever come easy to me, and you know it.” He gently disentangled himself from Ennis, reached for his hand. “Come on, let’s go home.”
Ennis stared at his outstretched hand for a second, and Jack remembered it wasn’t something Ennis would likely do much, take his hand even in private, let alone out where the world could see. It reminded Jack that there was a long road in front of them - a long road indeed - of working things out, if they were going to make it. Each of them had demons from the past, each of them had things as would likely make the other crazy. And the world – well, the world probably had some fucked-up shit ready to throw at them, ‘cause in Jack’s experience, that was pretty much what the world did.
It didn’t matter, though, if Ennis didn’t take his hand – Jack really couldn’t care less - and he’d started to pull it back when Ennis suddenly reached out and grabbed it tight. Ennis stared at their hands, then raised his face to Jack’s. Even in the faint starlight, Jack could see Ennis’s expression, soft and full of wonder. Jack thought he might know what Ennis was feeling. Every moment since – what, two weeks ago? – yeah, something like that, when he’d pulled a stained and wrinkled paper out of a crappy envelope in the Childress Post Office, everything had seemed like it must be a dream, something he’d imagined in a wild fantasy.
He could barely think about that moment, even now, because it had seemed impossible, simply impossible that Ennis could have such a thing as that Bible verse, let alone send Jack such a thing. He’d felt like he could be struck down dead, fall right down onto the tobacco-stained linoleum in the P.O. and die happy, and for a minute, he’d thought he really was going to have a heart attack. It’d been hard to breathe, harder to walk, and he’d stumbled out to his car, locked the doors, smoothed the paper with shaking fingers and read it again, slow. It’d been a solid hour before he felt like he could drive, and even then, he’d felt like someone had reached into his chest and punched his heart.
Yesterday afternoon, seeing Ennis on the steps of that beautiful house he’d built, and even their night last night – it all seemed like something his imagination had conjured up, because it was too good, too amazing. Too good to last, that was for sure.
But just now, in the miraculous now, Ennis had his hand grasped tight, and the stars were shining brighter than he’d ever seen. And then Ennis said, “Home,” echoing Jack’s own wonder with his voice, and pulled him by the hand, and Jack followed him up the hill towards their house, heart overflowing, feeling like it might burst from thanksgiving.