Page 177 of Beneath the Stain

Grant aimed his weary, dreamy gaze at Trav. “I hope you’re not expecting flowers, Mr. Ford. Or poetry. Or fancy dinners.”

“I know what I’m getting,” Trav said sincerely. “Good and the bad, hard and the soft. I know.”

“He’s amazing, isn’t he?”

“Stunning.”

“Shut up, both of you,” Mackey said thickly. “Now are you going to tell us what you need us to do or not?” He never stopped touching Grant’s hand. Trav would have picked up if he left off.

The directions were very specific. Trav was sure he was going to get flack from the boy’s family.

He didn’t care.

Three days later, it was Trav and Mackey’s turn to play with Katy on the little porch. She knew their names by now—all of them. She knew “Tav” from Mackey from Kell from “Bake” from “Tevie” from “Chef,” and got excited when they came.

That morning she’d almost fallen out of her mother’s arms in her attempt to get to Mackey, and Mackey actually caught her. Trav thought that maybe those few weekends a year, that one month they could leverage for, was going to count for this child. For the rest of the world, Outbreak Monkey was a band, a god, a source of music Trav didn’t think would ever dry up.

For Grant Adams’s daughter, they were going to be salvation and refuge—real men who would do their human best to share her father with her.

Trav could live with that. Letting her run from him to Mackey and back again was an easy way to spend a half an hour, and he was almost sad when Kell came out, looking strained.

“He’s not going to be awake much longer, Mackey. He’s asking for his song.”

Grant had wandered in and out of consciousness since he’d given them the file with the funeral directions. Nobody said the words “He doesn’t have long,” but everybody knew.

“Yeah, coming.” Mackey scooped up the little girl and started inside. Uncharacteristically he grabbed Trav’s hand, pulling him into the room behind him.

Grant’s chest hardly rose and fell, and the hush in the room was almost painful. Katy was ready for her snuggle time with Daddy, so Jefferson lifted the rail and settled her at his shoulder, on top of his wasted chest.

Trav had seen pictures of Grant since he’d come to Tyson. The Sanders kids didn’t have a lot of them, but every picture they had featured Grant. Their mother had kept a scrapbook, and he’d seen the full lips, the odd nose with almost no bridge, the golden eyes, as luminous in their way as Mackey’s gray ones. That beautiful boy bore no resemblance to the wasted frame Trav had seen for the past two weeks. He wondered—did his boys look at Grant and see him? Or did they see what Blake and Trav saw? Did it make it easier to see the illusion of youth and joy impressed on the frame of death, or harder, when the illusion slipped?

He didn’t have words for that question.

All he really had was the leather bag and the amp he’d bought from Mackey’s old music store. The night before, he’d held the bag and dodged as Stevie and Jefferson had, in an oddly synchronous dance, pummeled it, first one, then the other, their harsh grunts echoing in the garage like song. The night before that, Mackey gave the neighbors a solo performance, all guitar, no words, using the amp. The boys had the tools, but no words.

But Mackey’s hands maintained that ever-present smudge that showed he was writing. And the song about cleansing sins was on the top of the practice roster.

Trav found himself praying for Grant to let them go, toletgo, and do it soon, so his boys had enough of themselves to drag back home and grieve.

Today it looked like God might have visited that little room after all, and Trav might get his prayer.

“Mackey, you singing my song today?” Grant asked.

Mackey grunted. “Yeah. You got anything you want us to sing after? You can fall asleep to it.”

“Surprise me,” Grant murmured. His eyes were half-closed, and Mackey stroked his hand one more time before picking up the guitar.

Mackey’s song about making love in the river shadows rang through the room. The boys hummed the backup harmonies, and Stevie tapped out a sedate rhythm on the side of the gurney. The little room was peaceful, and the window in the vaulted ceiling let in a stream of thin autumn sunshine so pure the dust-motes looked like stars. Grant started out humming the song with the boys, but by the time Mackey was done, he was asleep.

For a moment, Trav thought that was it and the boys would pack up, kiss his cheek, and go.

But there was a weighted pause, and Mackey and Kell met eyes.

Kell opened his mouth this time, and although he didn’t have Mackey’s tone or his passion, he had a passable voice.

So. So you think you can tell,

Heaven from hell….