Page 27 (2/2)

I clier seat, cuff the sleeves of my coveralls at my elbows, and crack theopen as he drives us out of the ainst the perimeter of their property

Gravel plinks beneath the truck, and frorow thicker behind us A decade of hurt and anger ether It feels right, being here with him If I quiet nawing hurt I’ve held onto all this tiround

Maybe he needs to warm up to me before he opens up? He was like that e firstanything out of hi teeth But as the days turned into weeks andhe wouldn’t say around me

Leaning leyou said to me before I left for the airport?”

He checks the rearview, one hand gripping the skinny steering wheel “I do”

“You said don’t be a stranger,” I repeat his old line anyway He was teasing at the tioodbye as he wiped away ers one day”

“I wouldn’t call us strangers”

And fine,a tad dra next to me any better than I know the Turkish man who lives across the hall from me at my apartment

“Then ould you call us?” I ask

“Never been a fan of labels,” he says “You know that”

“True God forbid you ever referred to asp “The horror of labels, a”

He sniffs a slight laugh but doesn’t give me any more than that

“I’ears “Must’ve been hard for you, losing hi”

A coithpersonality He wasn’t afraid to get dirty and he lived for working from sunup to sundown He was proud And opinionated And he took no shit from anyone, but that was sort of the nature of his existence He had to keep the far and keep those four boys in line I’d accidentally caught him and Renata inand working together while raising a fa a business surely took a toll on their e