Part 10

“This is fucking awful. It burns. It tastes like olive oil with soaked Band-Aids. What is that? Who would drink this?” Andy drank their Fanta. “Ah, crap! Fanta makes it worse.”

“You are very good at describing the tastes, Andy. I love it.”

“I don’t care. And it’s oily, too. It’s like burned engine oil.”

“Why don’t you try again?”

Andy sipped the brown liquid with a frown of anticipation. They smacked his lips.

“It’s really like oil in the mouth. It tastes like fire twigs mixed with butterscotch, and it numbs my tongue.”

“There you go.” Lee drank.

“Why is it still on my tongue?” Andy smacked their lips.

“That’s what it does.”

“Now it tastes like sour apple and mint or something.”

“I never thought of that. You have a good palate, Andy.”

“I like that. Can’t they just make the last part without the first?”

“Nothing comes without pain, Andy.”

They lit cigarettes, sat quietly, and watched the grass outside sway, and clouds and sun traded places.

“Would you come to the funeral with me tomorrow?”

“You think I should?”

“You don’t have to. I’m just not sure whether anyone will turn up. In case nobody does, I could use someone to have my back.”

“Okay.”

“Thank you.”

“I don’t have anything to wear, though. Suits are not my thing.”

“Of course not. Let’s go!” Lee stood up and walked up the stairs. Andy followed.

Lee opened a door to a room filled with neatly stacked boxes, translucent containers, and hanger racks with clothes in plastic covers. He flipped through the hangers, pulled one down, ripped the plastic, and handed over a black jacket.

“See if it fits,” said Lee. He saw mistrust in Andy’s eyes. “It’s not dead man’s clothes. My son never got to wear it.”

Andy slipped into the jacket. It was four sizes too large.

“Take it off, turn it inside out, and put it back on,” said Lee. He opened a closet and pulled out a white plastic box filled with needles, threads, and pins. From that box, he pulled a smaller box filled with safety pins. Andy stood still wearing the jacket inside out, and Lee started to pin the jacket one inch in along the seams on each side and along the bottoms of the sleeves toward the armpits, and then he folded and pinned the sleeves.

“Take it off, turn it right side out, and put it back on.”

Andy did. “It’s a bit long, but otherwise it fits fine. How did you do that?” Andy asked in awe.

“I thought a girl would know.” Lee smiled. “When it’s just you and the one you love, you don’t have a choice besides working together on everything. So, sometimes I would help with the ironing and the sewing, and then she would help with furniture, gardening, and so on. You do what you can for people you love.”

“I’m sorry, Lee.” Andy’s eyes watered.

“It’s okay.”

“How will you live without her?”

“I don’t know. I don’t really live anymore. Not right now. Tomorrow, after the world will have moved on, I will sit here and drink whisky that tastes of burnt twigs, caramel candies, and mint.” Lee looked around. “Everything you see here is already nothing but a postcard from the past. It’s already gone. Harper and I built it together for us, and the ‘us’ is now gone. None of this makes any sense without her. Not to me.”

Andy sat down on a chair covered by a white sheet and started sobbing into his bandaged wrist. “Fuck.”

“It’s easier to hurt yourself than it is to watch others getting hurt.”

“Fuck you, man.”

“You don’t have to come tomorrow. It’s okay of you don’t.”

“I can do this.”

“I know. But you don’t have to. It might be too much. You are too young. I’m asking too much.”

“I need more burnt twigs, caramel apple, and mint drinks, and then we do this.” Andy jumped up and shook their head. Lee tussled their hair.

“That’s the man.”

“Fucking A. Today I’m the man. Tomorrow I’ll be the man, too. For you, Lee.”

“Okay. You are the man. Thank you, Andy.”