Jericho's Wall - 13. Epilogue -- Summer 2022

I last saw Jericho a few weeks ago at Janey’s funeral—see, told ya I was gonna make you cry. I did. It was one of those random ludicrous things but nowhere near as blackly amusing as fire ants snacking on immature privates. A stormy day, a blind curve and a teenager adjusting his stereo while driving a little—not a lot—too fast; he wasn’t charged but I bet he’ll be traumatized for the rest of his life and even the family isn’t so much angry with him as pitying. The late-summer morning was gorgeous, no clouds in sight, sun sitting high in the sky. Hot but not too hot. A good day for interment if any day can be considered such. Jericho was standing outside smoking a cigarette as my husband, his—our daughter and I pulled into the church parking lot. Jeremy (go figure, and no I don’t call him Jer but yes he knows why) shook Jericho’s hand, kissed me and took Amelia inside to join her favorite cousins and Jericho’s twin grandsons, leaving us alone. He’d gained some weight and lost some of his graying auburn hair in the last couple years but his faded-blue eyes were as alive as ever and when he hugged me the elderberry wine scent was still present, albeit only faintly under the layer of smoke and nicotine. I wasn’t surprised at the aging, we see each other a fair amount as I now live in Huntsville, Alabama—the place also known in Chisaw County as “up the city” and maybe forty minutes away—where my husband and I established our game development company. I see Bud and Ron more often but I make time to visit the farm (belonging solely to Jericho as June and Rand spend half the year in San Francisco) though not as often as I should—they keep chickens now.

“How’s Juanita?” I asked, pulling out a cancer-stick of my own and hoping Bud wouldn’t catch me.

“She’s . . . better,” Jericho allowed. “Andy—” (her ace wife; I have no idea how it works and haven’t asked, it’s none of my business) “—says today will be hard but she has faith in Juanita’s resilience.” He took a drag, blew out the smoke. “I hope so. I’ve never seen my baby sister so unhinged.”

“I have faith in Juanita too,” I assured him. “Now I want to know how you’re doing.”

“One step at a time, Mateo,” he said; yes, the days of ‘Mat my lover’ or ‘Mat my brother’ or even a simple ‘Mat’ are long gone. “I put one foot in front of the other and work in the garden, same as I’ve always done.”

“Have you cried?”

“I’ve cried my eyes out,” he admitted, “but mainly for Jolene.” His niece is biracial but not like me; when perpetually single and happy veterinarian Janey got pregnant she refused to name the Hispanic father, saying the baby was her choice and they’d made a deal he’d never interfere. “It’s a hard thing for a teenager to lose a parent.” He knew this and knew it well.

“You and Jill are taking her in, aren’t you?” The old, rambling house is full to the rafters with the five of Jericho’s kids still at home—plus he’s got two more with families of their own. And here I thought one child was a handful. “Where are you going to put her?”

“Downstairs,” he said, hesitating before he finished, “in our old room.”

“I thought that was your office?” June’s Farm & Produce is a major player in Chisaw County, employing several hands and with fields from one end of the property to the other, the woods and ugly boogers like our endearments long gone.

“Eh, I’ll move into Mom’s old studio, Jill will get over it. She’ll still have plenty of space to sew in there only now she’ll have my awesome company too. She don’t like it she can move to the tornado shelter, I don’t care.”

I saw Bud’s Lincoln turning into the lot and hastily ground my cigarette under my heel and Jericho laughed. It was a tired and grieving sound yet still amused but he didn’t comment otherwise. “Mom and Rand should be here soon, I offered to pick them up at the airport but they said they’d just snag a rental and take it back tomorrow.” June still owns Caddy though she keeps it at the farm for when they’re here, and the gold car may be an official antique but it’s as pristine and smug as ever; I’d be astonished if the odometer has flipped once and amazed if twice, having mostly only been driven to church on Sunday.

“It’ll be nice to see them,” I commented, “just a shame it’s under these circumstances.”

“I hear ya,” he said, taking another drag. “How are your parents?”

“Busy. Dad makes noises about retiring but he probably won’t, you know how he is. Mom bullies him about it sometimes but she’s just as bad. There’s always another injustice for them to fight. Dad calls it ‘job security’.”

Bud and Ron came strolling up, my auntie looking thin and wan from his recent COVID bout and his partner limping, the result of a student accidentally breaking Ron’s foot by dropping a power saw on it years ago mixed with arthritis and age—they’re in their late sixties but going strong and happily bickering and flirting in their shotgun house. “Don’t think I didn’t see you stomp your fag when I turned in,” Bud gently scolded before pulling me into a hug.

“I smoke like three a week,” I countered, holding him close and trying not to notice how skeletal he seemed, and I knew better than to ask after his health; ‘no worries’ my Aunt Fanny. “I think I’ll be okay.”

“And don’t start with me either,” Jericho warned, taking his last drag and flicking away the butt. “I’m down to about a pack a month. Or was before three days ago.”

“You have an excuse today, Jericho,” Bud said. “Mateo doesn’t. And I’d like to casually remind the both of y’all if I’d been smoking when I became ill I likely wouldn’t be here today and that damn virus is still out there no matter how much the media ridicules and denies.” Nope, he’s not changed a bit, and please don’t get him started on how people are forced to manage their HIV these days instead of being cured—he’d be right but the snit might wear him out.

“You try raising a nine-year-old hellion without acquiring a few bad habits,” I said.

“Pish-posh. Amelia isn’t a bad child, she’s just . . . rambunctious. And if you think she’s something now wait ‘til puberty sets in.”

“You just had to go there, didn’t you?” I asked, and Bud laughed.

Ron hugged the both of us, spending an extra-long time with Jericho. “And how are you doing, filthy habit aside?”

Jericho replied with the same answer he’d given me. “One step a time, Ron, one step at a time.”

“I understand. Hang in there my friend, it’ll get easier eventually. I’m in your contacts, thumb anytime you need me, day or night.” To me, “Where’s Jeremy and the world’s most awesome nine-year-old hellion?”

“Already inside. She’s probably looking for you, ready to be spoiled rotten all over again. Damn you.”

He shrugged. “You don’t get to be a kid’s favorite uncle without a little bribery.”

“Or a lot,” I retorted, and he laughed.

I asked after Bud’s mom, he said she was the quite the hit at her assisted-living complex and would’ve come today but she tired easily in the heat. His sister showed up asshole-less but with Isabella and her brood (the youngest a grandbaby still on the hip) and Jericho asked after Ethan, who’s now a career Marine stationed in Japan, and we were pleased to hear he was tolerable well. My favorite waitress anywhere in the world, known in the diner and all over town as Miz Rodi in well-earned deference and respect, came alone, munchkin-no-longer Quincy having passed on some thirteen years ago, and she’s a little sadder these days but her sweet smile is undimmed. The chicken lady Clarice is long gone, of course, since the winter after I left, when they’d found her crumpled in the coop, her monstrous mutt dead as well with its head laying on her belly while the poultry scratched on, unconcerned. Sheriff Pauline is gone too, taken out by a massive heart attack several years ago, and while her replacement Royal Simmons is nowhere near as popular (or as lenient on marijuana) he gets the job done. When Bud and Ron went inside I stayed with Jericho and was unsurprised when he lit another cigarette. I watched our friends bicker over who would open the door for whom but as soon they were gone I lit another for myself with the rationale I’d only smoked half of my previous one. We didn’t talk for a couple minutes but when Jericho did speak again I was surprised by his topic; we’d not spoken of these things since I called him on his eighteenth birthday.

“Do you still have your dog-tag, Mat?” I guess mentioning our old room reminded him.

“Sure do, Jer,” I said. I’d not worn it in decades (Jeremy wouldn’t approve and I wouldn’t do that to my husband anyhow) but I store it in a Lynyrd Skynyrd coffee cup on my dresser. The cheap tin-alloy tag is tarnished but the stainless-steel chain bright and shiny, and I take the memento out to savor the weight in my palm occasionally. I still have June’s portrait (worth a small fortune and don’t I dread the inevitable rise in value) and the copied sketch of the artist and the curly-haired boy too, the former hung in pride of place over our mantle and the latter in our bedroom. “Do you still have yours?”

“Oh yeah.”

“I can’t believe Jill hasn’t thrown it out.”

“I never told her about it.”

“Really? Why not?”

“None of her dang business. I keep it hanging on a nail in the loft and she has no reason to go up there. As if she could climb the ladder anyway,” he added sourly, referencing her weight—yes, Jill has gotten much bigger over the years, and I am not at all sad about that. Sue me.

“Did you ever tell her about . . . about us?”

He shook his head. “What we did isn’t her business either and she’s learned not to ask me or anyone else.” Meaning I had become one of Jericho’s walls. There are worse fates. His faded-blue eyes squinted at me through the smoke. “But I’m glad we did it.”

“Yeah,” I said softly. “I’m glad we did too. Remember how nosy Janey was about us?”

“Ha. I sure remember wanting to strangle her after she almost busted us in the barn.”

We chuckled. I hesitated before asking, “Are you happy, Jer? I mean, other than the current situation?”

He took another drag off his cigarette and though it was only half-smoked he flicked it away into the parking lot. I followed suit and we started the long walk to the front door to grieve and eulogize our fallen loved one. “I’m happy, Mat my brother,” he assured me. “And content. I swear.” Meaning he also knew the two words didn’t mean the same thing, words for which synonyms will never do regardless how interchangeable. He raised his eyebrow. “What about you?”

“I’m happy and content too,” I said, and I meant it.

“Cool, cool. How’s the new game coming, Mateo?” The subject of our past was closed now.

“We’re on schedule to go into alpha-testing in thirteen months.” He nodded, having picked up on some of the lingo over the years. “Oh wait, I don’t think I told you!”

“Told me what?”

“I’ve added a new area into the game, a tiny agricultural hamlet named Jericho terrorized by attacks from giant ugly boogers and demonic dang-deer.”

“Really? Dang-deer?” His grin softer but still devastating.

“Yup. My team thinks the town is a nod to the biblical city and the dang-deer a pun on reindeer. I let ‘em think so.”

He laughed. “Well, I appreciate the tribute.” I opened the door for him and watched the careless yet tight sway of his meaty rump (even meatier now) as he went inside, though don’t tell my husband I said so. As Sister Sarah (now almost eighty) came over to hug my neck and discuss the service with him a metaphor came back to me June had used a couple times, first talking about her children and later herself, a metaphor which in the late nineties and due to a pretty good movie became a joke and mere cliché. He completes me. Jokes and cliches aside, Jericho has always completed me; he’s an essential piece to my puzzle. Not a corner, don’t get me wrong, more like one near the center, necessary for the full picture. I’ve had an amazing life so far and am on track for an amazing rest of my life too. I love my husband and our daughter. I love my family and my friends. I love Jericho even if I’m not in love with him anymore. And I know they all love me too, including Jericho. I think the majority of the reason I’m so happy now is due to the growing season of 1992. I learned plenty and loved even more during my time on June’s farm and in my cousin Jericho’s constant company, and I wouldn’t trade those days for anything, not even another heart, no matter how uncracked. A pristine heart means nothing because without fissures mature love can never find a way inside. And how do hearts crack? By being blown off the porch before they’re ready, and according to my wise old auntie we’re all blown off the porch before we’re ready. Simple and logical, am I right?