Page 76 of Doing Life

“Yeah.”

He called her to the back door, and while she wasn’t in her harness, she helped guide him out to the front room.

Brick hailed him. “So, how’s it going in there?”

“Oh, trust me, with enchiladas, he’s a professional. I hope y’all like Christmas.”

“My favorite holiday,” Stan teased. “But what’s that got to do with enchiladas?”

“Sloan is using red and green chile both.” He knew this without asking, because Sloan pulled that out when he was trying to impress.

And these guys were first-timers.

“Green chile. Red chile. Both.” He grinned and shook his head. “It’s the New Mexico state question, you know? Green chile is fruity, and red chile is smoky. Together they’re magic.”

Dan shook his head. “You sure know a lot about this, man. Have you been to New Mexico?”

Lance nodded. “Yeah, couple times.”

They had touristed together a little bit, back at the beginning. Nothing serious. The food, though? Sloan had made friends with a couple of New Mexicans who worked in thekitchens, and they’d had some amazing, spicy meals out there in the desert.

“Where are your people, Lance?” Stan asked. “You never talk about them.”

He didn’t feel like there was a lot to say. “No. They’re here in Texas, man.”

He’d come out of the closet. He’d left home. He’d joined the service.

He’d called them twice since he’d left home. When he’d called to say he was being deployed, they’d hung up on him. The time he’d called from the hospital, she’d told him it was God’s will.

Maybe it was, but it was his will to walk away from that poison and never look back. He didn’t regret it at all.

“We’re not close.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Stan sounded so upset, so embarrassed, so he shook his head.

“Thank you. It’s…It’s been long enough that I… I don’t really think about them. When I do, it’s like with that distant fondness of when you were a kid. Fuzzy and pointless.”

“What about Sloan? Does he have people?”

“He does. He’s got a sister, a niece and nephews, a thousand and eight cousins, and he’s got parents. They’re all up there in Santa Fe.” They were just a normal, goofy, happy, big family.

“They all know about Lance, and they’re all looking forward to him coming home when he’s ready.” There wasn’t an ounce of doubt in Sloan’s voice. “Lance has a niece and two nephews, Mama and Dad, and a sister, and about twenty-seven-thousand cousins. They are all desperate to get to know him and fold him in to our specific brand of crazy.”

“My mom cries every time she sees me.” Stan’s voice seemed to come from out of nowhere. “I don’t know what to do, so I asked her not to come. I mean, she’s not from here.She’s up in Minnesota. But she cries. A lot. This whole thing is hard enough without her doing that.”

Lance could tell that had to hurt like a bitch, right? At least his people didn’t care. He didn’t have to worry about hurting them or not hurting them or being hurt by them anymore. He’d made his peace with that as well as anybody could.

Stan had this person who wanted to see him, who wanted to be involved, but the person they once knew was gone.

He knew that was a terrible thing to think, but it was true.

That person he’d been? He was gone. But it was true all the way, because it wasn’t the outside.

That kind of pain changed a person. Altered them on a soul-deep level. There was absolutely no way he could go through this and end up the same person on the other side.

Lance was different now. He didn’t know if that was good or bad. He thought it was just…he guessed it was what it was.

That was something they all had in common.

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