ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
In the conclusion of the Lake Cycle, two years have passed since the death of Donovan’s mother and the time of the Plague. Don, writing more than ever, but more than ever in search of gainful employment and re entry into the real world, wonders what’s next, as does is goddaughter, May, who’s fled her house and come to live at 812 Pine Street. Donovan Shorter, Cade Richards and Simon Barrow are getting married, and the simplest process in the world, when turned into a union of three, necessitates reinvention and calls into question commonly held thoughts. Living together, Javon and Pat Thomas’s love deepens the present as they look into their pasts, and in Ely, Cade confronts the recent death of his father as well as a choice he made long ago. Simon is entangled in politics when he joins the campaign to put his friend and mentor Brendan Miller in City Hall as the first openly bare-chested and shade wearing mayor of Rossford, Indiana.
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness
was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters...
Genesis 1. 1,2
CREATION
BOOK
ONE
Vows
O N E
As I
Am Known
For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; but then shall I know, even as also I am known.
- 1 Corinthians 13.1
Headlights making two long antennae of light into the flurrying snow, the car rolled on through the night. Donovan Shorter was glad that Simon had been able to join them because he didn’t want Cade driving alone, and driving with Donovan was driving alone. It seemed like it was always winter, and Donovan didn’t really mind it. They had been spoiled by being down in Savannah, spoiled rotten, spoiled like fabric in two much heat and moisture, and now they were back in the Midwest, and back in time for the storm. January was the longest month.
In the back of the car, Donovan was asleep with the goddaughter. She was white like everyone else in the car. At least his cousin Frey had managed to have a nephew who looked somewhat like him. The offspring granted to Donovan was May a little white girl descended from disreputable parents whom he had adopted. She was finally eighteen and out of that crazy house, more than half asleep.
“I’m sorry for bringing us into this snow guys,” Cade said, his voice sounding tinny and distant.
“Yeah,” May snorted, “cause you had something to do with it.”
“We could have stayed in Savannah forever,” Cade said.
“I don’t think I wanted to stay in Savannah forever,” May said. “Aside from the fact that it was too hot, too moist, and built by slaves, those people weren’t real.”
“People at conferences never are,” Donovan said.
“Conferences make the academic world go around,” Cade said.
Cade Richard’s hair was shorter than usual. It was short like it had been when he and Donovan first met, just a little longish, to his collar. It seemed to Don that the longer they were together, the hairier Cade had gotten, and then he’d started graduate school, and cut off his strength with a Delilah of a razor, aiming to be Dr. Cade, aiming to be respectable. Don had resented it at the same time he understood it completely.
Simon leaned forward and plugged his phone into the car speaker.
Suddenly, in the dark, traveling through the snow that had waylaid them somewhere around Lafayette, the darkness was pierced by a coronet voice singing an English ballad:
A north country maid up to London has strayed
All though with her nature it did not agree
And she's wept and she's sighed
And she's wrung her hands and cried,
Oh I wish once again in the north I could be.
For the oak and the ash,
And the bonny ivy tree
All flourish and bloom
In my north country.
The song died down as the reporter declared:
“With earthy and arresting harmonies, the Watersons from Hull –originally Norma Waterson and her siblings, Lal and Mike Waterson and their cousin John — revived old English folk songs beginning in the 1960s. "The Good Old Way," "Hal-An-Tow," "Here We Come A-Wassailing" among them...”
Oh, no,” Donovan murmured as May sat up.
The reporter continued. “Norma Waterson died Sunday at age 82. Her sister Lal died in 1998. Her brother Michael died in 2011...”
“Oh, shit,” Cade said.
Neither Simon nor May knew what this meant, but they knew that Cade and Donovan, who had not necessarily been getting on of late, who shared things that no one else understood, were both stricken.
“Norma Waterson was married to the renowned singer and musician Martin Carthy, who also performed with The Watersons, as well as Steeleye Span.
Waterson's daughter, singer and fiddler Eliza Carthy, announced her mother's death on her Facebook page: "Hello all. Not much to say about such monumental sadness, but mam passed away yesterday afternoon, January 30th 2022."
Not looking at the road, Cade pulled the phone out of the speaker, and they kept driving in silence. The car felt heavy, heavier than you’d think for hearing that someone famous who none of them knew had died, and May knew and Donovan knew that when such a thing happened it was because the apparent sadness came from a deeper sorrow as yet unexpressed.
“Poor Eliza,” Donovan said. “Mothers keep dying. Parents keep dying.”
That was a given. Donovan added, “All the wrong ones.”
He observed Cade’s face in the rearview mirror, and he observed Simon observing it. Saw that Cade’s expression was harder than usual, the look of someone who was trying not to cry.
Suddenly May said, “And my bitch of a mother just keeps on living.”
Cade burst out laughing, and they all did, and they laughed for a long time and then suddenly Cade, wiping the back of his hand across his eyes, lifted his voice and sang:
“I like to rise when the sun she rises
Early in the morning
And I like to hear them small birds singing
Merrily upon their laylums
And hurrah for the life of a country boy
And to ramble in the new mowed hay.”
Donovan had already begun singing, and now he leaned forward against Cade’s seat, and Cade reached back and touched his hand so that his curls were touching Donovan’s lips, and Don could smell the last of the cologne and the Black and Mild he had smoked at the gas station outside of Indianapolis.
“In spring we sow at the harvest mow
And that is how the seasons round they go
But of all the times if choose I may
I'd be rambling through the new
mowed hay.”
“I don’t want to drive anymore,” Cade said an hour later.
“Does that mean you want me to take over, or does that mean you don’t want to go any further.”
They were supposed to go up to Ely, but Donovan had already expressed doubt over this and May had said, “Well that’s almost an hour longer in the car. Maybe more.”
Earlier, when Cade had almost been in good spirits, he had shrugged and said, “Look, on the map it means we have to travel one more centimeter.”
He’d grinned cheesy at Don, which Don usually liked, and which was very different from the way Cade had been feeling most of the time lately, and Don only shook his head.
Now, in the night, Cade said, “Don, please don’t say I told you so.”
“Not now,” Donovan said. “I save my told you soes for better shit than this.”
“I’ll drive us to Ely,” Simon offered.
Cade gave a not entirely exaggerated yawn.
“No,” he said. “Let’s go home. Home home. And we’ll leave for Ely in the morning.”
On the other side of the window, Donovan heard a heavy howling through the blowing snow and he wondered, “Will we?”
“I was about to say there’s something homey about coming home,” May said, “but that just sounds stupid.”
“Redundant,” Simon suggested, “but not stupid.”
“There’s always this point,” Donovan said, “when we’re coming down the road, the highway or whatever, and then all of a sudden things start looking familiar, you know, because most of the main streets are also highway routes, and then all of a sudden you’re like, oh, this in Lincoln Street. Oh, we’re on Washington. Oh, we’re almost home.”
They had just passed the Citgo gas station on the corner of Western and Mayflower, and Kroger stood in the distance. Now they were passing the Mexican car wash, and then a few moments later, the broad black expanse that was the campus of Harrison School where he and Cade had worked together for a time.
“Don,” Cade said without looking back, “you hungry?”
Don looked at May.
“McDonalds?”
“I’d rather have Popeyes.”
“I’d rather have lobster and steak, but McDonalds is what’s open now.”
“There’s still that quiche you made in the freezer, right?”
“That and the chicken.”
“I’ll just have that,” May decided.
“So May will eat whatever, but I do want McDonalds, baby.”
“Let’s stop at Taco Bell too,” Simon said.
“Really?” Don and Cade both said. They were used to Simon having a more refined pallet.
Simon shrugged.
“It’s what’s open.”
As they walked into the house, Don declared, “I am so fucking tired of my own cooking.”
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness
was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters...
Genesis 1. 1,2
CREATION
BOOK
ONE
Vows
O N E
As I
Am Known
For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; but then shall I know, even as also I am known.
- 1 Corinthians 13.1
Headlights making two long antennae of light into the flurrying snow, the car rolled on through the night. Donovan Shorter was glad that Simon had been able to join them because he didn’t want Cade driving alone, and driving with Donovan was driving alone. It seemed like it was always winter, and Donovan didn’t really mind it. They had been spoiled by being down in Savannah, spoiled rotten, spoiled like fabric in two much heat and moisture, and now they were back in the Midwest, and back in time for the storm. January was the longest month.
In the back of the car, Donovan was asleep with the goddaughter. She was white like everyone else in the car. At least his cousin Frey had managed to have a nephew who looked somewhat like him. The offspring granted to Donovan was May a little white girl descended from disreputable parents whom he had adopted. She was finally eighteen and out of that crazy house, more than half asleep.
“I’m sorry for bringing us into this snow guys,” Cade said, his voice sounding tinny and distant.
“Yeah,” May snorted, “cause you had something to do with it.”
“We could have stayed in Savannah forever,” Cade said.
“I don’t think I wanted to stay in Savannah forever,” May said. “Aside from the fact that it was too hot, too moist, and built by slaves, those people weren’t real.”
“People at conferences never are,” Donovan said.
“Conferences make the academic world go around,” Cade said.
Cade Richard’s hair was shorter than usual. It was short like it had been when he and Donovan first met, just a little longish, to his collar. It seemed to Don that the longer they were together, the hairier Cade had gotten, and then he’d started graduate school, and cut off his strength with a Delilah of a razor, aiming to be Dr. Cade, aiming to be respectable. Don had resented it at the same time he understood it completely.
Simon leaned forward and plugged his phone into the car speaker.
Suddenly, in the dark, traveling through the snow that had waylaid them somewhere around Lafayette, the darkness was pierced by a coronet voice singing an English ballad:
A north country maid up to London has strayed
All though with her nature it did not agree
And she's wept and she's sighed
And she's wrung her hands and cried,
Oh I wish once again in the north I could be.
For the oak and the ash,
And the bonny ivy tree
All flourish and bloom
In my north country.
The song died down as the reporter declared:
“With earthy and arresting harmonies, the Watersons from Hull –originally Norma Waterson and her siblings, Lal and Mike Waterson and their cousin John — revived old English folk songs beginning in the 1960s. "The Good Old Way," "Hal-An-Tow," "Here We Come A-Wassailing" among them...”
Oh, no,” Donovan murmured as May sat up.
The reporter continued. “Norma Waterson died Sunday at age 82. Her sister Lal died in 1998. Her brother Michael died in 2011...”
“Oh, shit,” Cade said.
Neither Simon nor May knew what this meant, but they knew that Cade and Donovan, who had not necessarily been getting on of late, who shared things that no one else understood, were both stricken.
“Norma Waterson was married to the renowned singer and musician Martin Carthy, who also performed with The Watersons, as well as Steeleye Span.
Waterson's daughter, singer and fiddler Eliza Carthy, announced her mother's death on her Facebook page: "Hello all. Not much to say about such monumental sadness, but mam passed away yesterday afternoon, January 30th 2022."
Not looking at the road, Cade pulled the phone out of the speaker, and they kept driving in silence. The car felt heavy, heavier than you’d think for hearing that someone famous who none of them knew had died, and May knew and Donovan knew that when such a thing happened it was because the apparent sadness came from a deeper sorrow as yet unexpressed.
“Poor Eliza,” Donovan said. “Mothers keep dying. Parents keep dying.”
That was a given. Donovan added, “All the wrong ones.”
He observed Cade’s face in the rearview mirror, and he observed Simon observing it. Saw that Cade’s expression was harder than usual, the look of someone who was trying not to cry.
Suddenly May said, “And my bitch of a mother just keeps on living.”
Cade burst out laughing, and they all did, and they laughed for a long time and then suddenly Cade, wiping the back of his hand across his eyes, lifted his voice and sang:
“I like to rise when the sun she rises
Early in the morning
And I like to hear them small birds singing
Merrily upon their laylums
And hurrah for the life of a country boy
And to ramble in the new mowed hay.”
Donovan had already begun singing, and now he leaned forward against Cade’s seat, and Cade reached back and touched his hand so that his curls were touching Donovan’s lips, and Don could smell the last of the cologne and the Black and Mild he had smoked at the gas station outside of Indianapolis.
“In spring we sow at the harvest mow
And that is how the seasons round they go
But of all the times if choose I may
I'd be rambling through the new
mowed hay.”
“I don’t want to drive anymore,” Cade said an hour later.
“Does that mean you want me to take over, or does that mean you don’t want to go any further.”
They were supposed to go up to Ely, but Donovan had already expressed doubt over this and May had said, “Well that’s almost an hour longer in the car. Maybe more.”
Earlier, when Cade had almost been in good spirits, he had shrugged and said, “Look, on the map it means we have to travel one more centimeter.”
He’d grinned cheesy at Don, which Don usually liked, and which was very different from the way Cade had been feeling most of the time lately, and Don only shook his head.
Now, in the night, Cade said, “Don, please don’t say I told you so.”
“Not now,” Donovan said. “I save my told you soes for better shit than this.”
“I’ll drive us to Ely,” Simon offered.
Cade gave a not entirely exaggerated yawn.
“No,” he said. “Let’s go home. Home home. And we’ll leave for Ely in the morning.”
On the other side of the window, Donovan heard a heavy howling through the blowing snow and he wondered, “Will we?”
“I was about to say there’s something homey about coming home,” May said, “but that just sounds stupid.”
“Redundant,” Simon suggested, “but not stupid.”
“There’s always this point,” Donovan said, “when we’re coming down the road, the highway or whatever, and then all of a sudden things start looking familiar, you know, because most of the main streets are also highway routes, and then all of a sudden you’re like, oh, this in Lincoln Street. Oh, we’re on Washington. Oh, we’re almost home.”
They had just passed the Citgo gas station on the corner of Western and Mayflower, and Kroger stood in the distance. Now they were passing the Mexican car wash, and then a few moments later, the broad black expanse that was the campus of Harrison School where he and Cade had worked together for a time.
“Don,” Cade said without looking back, “you hungry?”
Don looked at May.
“McDonalds?”
“I’d rather have Popeyes.”
“I’d rather have lobster and steak, but McDonalds is what’s open now.”
“There’s still that quiche you made in the freezer, right?”
“That and the chicken.”
“I’ll just have that,” May decided.
“So May will eat whatever, but I do want McDonalds, baby.”
“Let’s stop at Taco Bell too,” Simon said.
“Really?” Don and Cade both said. They were used to Simon having a more refined pallet.
Simon shrugged.
“It’s what’s open.”
As they walked into the house, Don declared, “I am so fucking tired of my own cooking.”
