Page 18 of Let Leaves Lay Where They Fall

The big sleeping lump of bulldog “berfs.” Her rear legs jolt into an air sprint. Nathan imagines she might be running through fields in a dream. Long grass and wildflowers shoved out of the way as she barrels by. Smiling ear to ear with that big sloppy tongue flapping drool about.

The sun is setting in a pink blaze behind rows of rooftops outside the window. He double taps a small silver lamp next to the bed igniting a medium warm glow that cozies the apartment.

He’d finally unpacked an electronic tablet from the few boxes holding all their belongings for travel. Propped it up on the bed, playing he and Bertie’s favorite movie “The Neverending Story.”

They’d watch it together anytime they needed an escape from life. A fantasy world built on imagination was the best place to heal a wounded heart. It had been a while since the last time he needed it.

A grumbling in his belly reminds him it’s dinner time. Sliding carefully from under Mabel’s head, he rolls to the side and reaches for the discarded phone. Not in the mood to cook and desperate for some comfort calories, he searches up local pizza joints. Third on the list, Antonia’s has delicious looking photos and delivers. Perfect!

He orders an extra-large pepperoni and mushroom, plus chicken strips for Mabel. She deserves a special treat for being his bedside nurse all day. The estimated 20-minute window is just right for a quick stroll outside with the pup.

“Come on Mabes, time to go pee.” he speaks softly, lifting her ear.

Her eyes blink open. Her doughy body stretches and slides off the bed.

Nathan pulls on jeans and a fleece sweater. The pair trot down the stairwell. He hitches her leash to the collar before they pass through the entry and ducks around to the back of the building. He doesn’t feel like dealing with her barking at all the people returning to their homes at the end of their workday.

Mabel leads them around the small backyard. Sniffing the grass and shrubs gone dry and pale in the crisp autumn air. Her ears perk at the voices from the street of people she can’t see. She lets loose a low “berf.”

“Don’t start that, or we’re going back inside.” He warns, pointing a finger at her grumpy face.

She hears him and returns to sniffing.

He doesn’t answer the knocks at the door and listens for descending footsteps of the delivery person dropping the order off. He gathers the boxes from the landing, and they dig in, cuddled together on the sofa. Listening to sappy soft rock from the 1980’s. The music Bertie would play while dancing around and cleaning the house. Phil Collins “can feel it coming in the air tonight. Oh lord.”

Nathan was nineteen when he’d met his first, and last, boyfriend. Aaron was slightly younger. They worked together at a movie theater off the Vegas strip.

The two boys were instant friends that quickly turned into more. He was tall, over six feet. Had thick wavy chocolate brown hair and eyes, a gap between his front teeth and the body of a linebacker. Aaron was the child of Mexican immigrants who held fast to their catholic religion. The two boys were discreetly together for a full year.

After Bertie had passed, she left Nathan her house in a note that had never been legally verified, and Bertie had a sister who wanted the house. There was a long legal battle that left him living in a seedy motel for some time.

One night, the boys were kissing in the parking lot and a trio of homophobic thugs didn’t like what they were seeing. They jumped the pair and Aaron took the worst of the blows. He may have had the size and strength of a footballer, but there wasn’t a violent bone in his body. He was a gentle giant and Nathan adored him.

At the hospital, Aaron’s parents knew who and what Nathan was to their son, the moment they saw his teary face sitting in the hall outside of the room. They forbid him from seeing their son. Had security remove him and that night was the last time they spoke.

The sweet boy simply disappeared, and Nathan never heard from him again. There was one time he was sure he saw him. Now a family man, holding the hand of a wife and carrying a toddler in his arms while entering an Olive Garden, just a few years ago. A baseball cap shaded his face, but the pout of his scarred lip and large stance were unmistakable. Nathan kept driving by.

He took to random hookups with strangers and avoided emotional connections.

He did end up getting Bertie’s house at the end of the legal proceedings. He rents it out, employing an agency to manage all the middleman details. It’s extra income he’s able to stash away. He can never sell it. That little house was everything to Bertie and is the home of his childhood.

Mabel gobbles down her chicken fingers with joyful grunts and Nathan polishes three fourths of his pizza and a twenty-ounce soda. Beyond stuffed. He tucks leftovers into the fridge.

They watch Golden Girls reruns on the tablet until they both fall asleep on the bed.

***

Strolling along a familiar path, in a lush forest. Birds chirping melodies that sync in instrumental harmonies with wind rustling leaves and brooks babble. A distant woodpecker setting the rhythmic beat.

The further he walks along the dirt path, the music morphs into the theme from his favorite movie. “Turn around, look at what you seeeee,” he’s suddenly singing along. “In her face, the mirror of your dreeeams.”

Nathan climbs over a stone wall, oddly cutting across the path. That shouldn’t be there.

Ahead there are two figures standing at the center of a familiar footbridge. Backlit by rays of rainbow sunlight breaking past the thick leaf canopy overhead and refracting off misty spray rising from a small waterfall.

One of the figures raises an arm and waves high above their head. They’re glowing in a voluminous and flowing white dress.

“Make believe I’m everywhere, given in the light… Written on the pages, is the answer to a never ending storyyyy.” Humming the rest of the verse. Stepping closer and closer to the pair. The glimmering figure motioning with their arm for him to hurry. Coming into focus, it’s Bertie.

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