Soundtrack: 'Persevere' - Gang of youths.

Some years later.

{Conall}

Conall Douglas had a briefcase full of papers to mark and a splitting headache by the end of the day, as usual. This shitty little community college was the only place that would look at his resume after his personal life had exploded like a pipe bomb in the middle of his respectable career. He disliked the blank-eyed students just looking for a quick path to make a buck and loathed the school administrators who still looked down their noses at him like he should be grateful to have a job at all.

He took himself to his only haven, a dingy pub whose football flags on the wall and Celtic music playing tinnily over the speakers allowed him the illusion that he was home. Quantities of cheap, strong drink helped.

He was well into his after-school ritual, chasing the dulled mind that was necessary to wade through hundreds of pages of freshman papers, which he still insisted they print out and hand in to him in person, when a young man approached him at the bar.

"Mr. Douglas?"

Conall frowned up at the young man, trying to place his face. He had the shabby, neatly groomed appearance of an upper graduate student, with a dark beard on his lean face. "If you have a problem with your grade, see me in the office."

The man blinked, then slid his long frame onto a stool just one away. "Buy you a drink?"

Conall grunted. "Won't get you a better grade."

The man caught the eye of the bartender. He named a far better brand of whisky than the piss Conall could afford and told the woman to leave the bottle.

Conall relented. "I don't recognize you from campus."

The man watched the bartender drop ice into the glasses and splash the golden liquid over top, naming the university Conall had previously worked for, years ago. He set one glass on a coaster at Conall's right hand, the shaded edge of a tattoo briefly emerging from the cuff of his shirt, then took his own glass.

Filling his nose with the rich smell of the drink, Conall took a mouthful, rolling it over his tongue. He was almost sure he remembered this young man, an excellent student. He sat up a little taller on his bar stool, trying to hold in his gut.

"Well that's very gratifying to hear, thank you." In truth, it had been a long time since a student had had anything positive to say about his work. "What are you doing now? Did you go on with your studies?"

The man shifted, lifting a shoulder. "No, sir. I was not--what you would call your finest student. Scraped by and barely made it out."

Conall smiled at him like they had a secret. "No one looks at the grades, son. Unless you're trying to be a professor or a lawyer in a fancy office, all anyone cares about is the paper with the name of your school. You did your best, I'm sure."

"Huh." The man bent his head, his fingers turning the glass of amber liquid on the bar. His fingernails were blunt and rough, and Conall thought perhaps he had gone into a trade after his university years. Someone had to, after all. "That's not what my father used to say."

"No?" Conall chased back his drink and poured himself another. He couldn't think of the last time he'd had a good conversation partner to have a drink with. "What did your father used to say?"

The man glanced at him, smoothing a hand over his mouth. He took a moment to answer. "Nothing kind." He took a small drink. "Water under the bridge now."

Conall nodded and sighed. "That's a father's job, isn't it? It's a hard world out there, and you gotta be tough enough to face it. My father did me, and I tried to do right by my boys too. Didn't like it, but it had to be done."

In the silence, the other man tossed his drink back and made a face as it went down. Conall clinked the ice cubes back and forth in his glass. The room was pleasantly soft and blurry, like they were under water.

"Where are your boys now?" the man asked. What was his name? It was just on the tip of his tongue.

Conall dug for his wallet. "Here, I'll show you a picture of my Liam." He giggled a little as he flipped through the billfold. "Who keeps photos on paper anymore, right?" His son's soft baby face and clear blue eyes smiled out at him through the plastic sleeve. Conall's chest filled proudly as he looked at him, and he imagined Liam growing tall and strong. It was a minute before he remembered to pull the photo out and pass it to the other man.

"He's in Second Class now," Conall said, unconsciously using the term he'd used in his own childhood for Grade Two. "Top grades, just like his old man." The man turned the photo to the light, and Conall was pleased to see the way his eyebrows lifted and his mouth smiled to see it.

"Do you have any other photos of your son?" he asked.

"Nah." Conall rubbed a hand over the five-o'clock shadow on his jaw, his outlook darkening. "My wife sends me his school report every year, but scant else. I guess she's above the likes of me now."

"Where did you say they live?"

"No idea. I can never keep track." In truth, the woman was as careful as if she were under witness protection. The reports arrived with the relevant information blacked out. He supposed, with her history, she was right to be careful. He was well aware he had been the best thing that had ever happened to her, rescuing her from that horror-show of a family and giving her a new life with everything she could have asked or imagined. "Liam's top of his class, of course. Not like my other boy."

The man was handing the photo back and the smile on his face went still, like his face had just frozen in that expression. Conall barely noticed.

"Couldn't do right by him, no way, no how. I expect he's living on the street somewhere, killing himself with some chemical. Or rotting in jail. Keeps me up at night, thinking how I failed to set him straight." His throat was tight and a familiar wave of anger, black as pitch, went over him. "Goddamn him." He took a drink, and then another. The glass was empty and made a crack when he set it on the bar. He poured another, not caring that the ice was gone.

"You could be wrong." The man was sitting back, his arms crossed and two spots of colour in his cheeks. "If you did your best, like you say. Maybe he's forgiven you. Maybe he has a good life."

That jolted Conall upright. "Forgiven me? I'd have him in here on his knees begging my forgiveness for all the grief he caused. Ruined me. Ruined my life. Ruined my marriage. Goddamn him, he gets what he deserves."

Conall caught himself, blurrily aware he was about to make a scene. This was his favourite place to spend an evening after a long day of classes. He couldn't afford to be thrown out again.

The man had his feet on the floor like he might just take his bottle and walk out, watching him with that still face and his arms tight against his front.

Conall opened his hands, patting the air between them. "Never mind, never mind. Enjoy your drink—you've barely touched that one."

The man ducked his head and turned his body away on the stool. "So what if he did?"

"The hell you talking about," Conall grumbled.

"Get down on his knees and say sorry to you. Would you let him go?"

This young man's soft, even questions were making him uncomfortable—or maybe he just had to take a piss. "I'd say fuck him," Conall said shortly. "I did time for him. So fuck him." He frowned, trying to get a hold on his thoughts, slippery as newborn calves in his father's barn.

A memory of his boy standing up to read for him, all bony wrists and hunched shoulders and stumbling words, cut through the blur of the drink. He drew in his breath, feeling that pain and love again, as sharp as if it were yesterday. "No, I take that back. I take it back. You only get one old man and I'm his. I'd give him another chance." Conall nodded, savouring the spacious, magnanimous feeling this answer gave him. Forgiveness was what made humans higher than animals—someone had said that, he couldn't remember who. He swayed to his feet. "I would say—Ciaran...I would say—smarten up. Get your feet under you and stand up like a man."

The man was on his feet as Conall lumbered toward him, eyes on the bathroom at the end of the bar. Conall staggered and the man steadied him, his hands almost picking Conall up to stand him back on his feet.

"Good man," Conall said, clumsily patting the man's shoulder. "Good man."

{Jon}

Jon leaned against the truck with his collar drawn up against the chilly November afternoon, his eyes on the pub entrance. When his friend came out, he drew a breath of relief and checked for damage.

Cary stood a second, looking up the street like he didn't remember where he was, his breath making smoke in the air. Not bleeding, not broken. Cary's mouth made a crooked line inside his beard. He found the truck and ducked his head, crossing the snowy street in loping strides.

Jon turned and got in the passenger side. Cary dropped into the driver's side and thudded the door shut. It was quiet away from the street noise. Jon could hear the tiny pick-pick of snowflakes against the windshield. He held out a paper cup of coffee, a little cool now under its plastic lid.

"You were in there a while," he remarked.

Cary's face was smooth and still, and it took a moment before he realized that Jon was offering him the cup. He blew into the opening and took a small sip. He smelled faintly of cigarettes, and more strongly of the sharp-sweet smell of alcohol. "He didn't know me."

"Ah." Jon drew a slow breath. The pain of that, of all of this, would catch up with Cary—it just took him longer. He wrapped his hands around his cup, wishing he had been able to persuade Cary that this visit wasn't necessary. Now that they were here—he had to see it through. "Can you tell me what happened?"

Cary rolled his shoulders. "We had a drink." He turned the cup in his hand. His fingers were shaking. "He was already slurring and sounding Irish." He looked out the windshield like he wasn't seeing the line of parking meters and pedestrians. "So really... really drunk."

Jon frowned and checked the clock. It wasn't even 4:30 in the afternoon.

"He showed me a picture of Liam in his wallet. From when he was a baby. He didn't have anything recent." Cary bent his head and let out his breath, knuckling his eye. "He doesn't know where they are."

"That's a good thing though, right?" Jon asked quietly. "That's what you hoped."

"Yes." The word was muffled by Cary's hand over his face.

"Jesus," Jon said under his breath. Yes—and no. This had been Cary's last lead to find his mother and brother. Clearly they didn't want to be found.

Cary pushed his shoulders straight. "He talked about me."

Shit. Jon set a hand against Cary's shoulder like he could steady Cary with his own steadiness. "Yeah?" The edge of his anger was plain in his voice.

Cary shifted his feet. "He said if I came on my knees to say sorry to him, he would say—fuck it. I got what I deserved."

Jon's grip on Cary's shoulder tightened and he turned sharply toward his brother, on the verge of speaking.

Cary had his eyes closed and Jon saw his Adam's apple move as he swallowed, where his neck was clean-shaven and bare. "Then he changed his mind. He said he would give me another chance," he said huskily.

Jon dreaded what Cary would say next. "How did you...feel about that?"

Cary made a dry noise, wiping his nose on the sleeve of his sweater. "Fuck, Jon—I don't know."

Jon's smile was fleeting. He crossed his arms over his chest, watching Cary in case he needed him to help name the things he felt.

"He's a broken old man. It would be like being afraid of Grampa White," Cary said low.

"You know that's not your fault, right?" Jon asked.

"Yeah." Cary fiddled with the plastic lid and his lips trembled. "Mostly. I still feel sad." He held Jon's look for a second.

Jon put his face straight ahead, bracing himself. "So what now? You want to get a motel, stay a couple days? See him again?"

Cary held still, looking at the pub door. Finally, he shook his head. "Nothing more to say." He turned the key and the truck rumbled to life.

They were silent until the sign for the city limits whipped by overhead and prairie fields started to unspool, bare and yellow, on either side of the highway. Cary took a deep breath and let it out in a long, shuddery sigh. He dried his face quickly with two swipes of his hand.

"Call Dad and tell him we're coming back tonight, so he doesn't wait up and worry," Cary said in a low voice. "And I'll tell him the news when we get home."

END

*So I read WAKE out loud to a little group of young adults through summer 2019. And when I got to the end of the chapter called 'Wake' I personally felt like that was the end of the novel, that it would end with Cary and Jesus just like the ending of HIDING. And this couch full of friends looked blankly back at me like... is that it?

I had this epilogue scene written months before (with a few differences) and wasn't sure if I should include it in the novel. But I said, "Okay, try this and see what you think," and as I read it the room went electric and still. I mean...when the chapter opens with Conall's point of view it just feels like a bombshell.

When I finished reading there was this sigh of satisfaction like, yes now we can lay the story down. So there you go.

After all these thousands of words, do you feel satisfied with the way this story ends? What was your favourite moment? What do you still wonder about?

Thanks for the reads, votes and comments lovelies! I'll tell you more about the writing of this novel in the afterword later this week. Be well, and be good to one another  <3 *