#TeaserTuesday - 11/21

 

Walsh got up to refresh their drinks, and suddenly Alex was alone with Mercy, the two of them seated across from each other.

Mercy stared at him a moment, mouth unsmiling for the first time all evening, eyes black and flat as a shark’s. Then he shook out a cigarette and lit it with slow, deliberate movements.

Alex had never cared for cigarettes. He’d coughed on a few as a kid, and had one as an adult, occasionally, after sex, after a night of drinking, but he didn’t want to stink like them, or grow addicted to them. So it wasn’t the need for a smoke that made him shift forward and half-reach across the table. “Can I bum one of those?” He didn’t ask if Emmie was okay with them smoking in her dining room; he figured Mercy knew it was allowable.

Mercy hesitated, glancing up through his lashes, then slid the pack and lighter across the table with a scrape that sounded too-loud in the otherwise quiet room.

“Thanks.” He lit one up, and slid the pack back over.

Mercy left it sitting by his plate and folded one arm across his middle, settling back in his chair, taking a long, contemplative drag. “You’re really doing it, huh?”

Alex wondered why the hell it was taking Walsh so long to get those drinks. He could hear the low murmur of the girls’ voices in the kitchen and wondered if they were coming back. “Doing what?”

“Blowing up your career.”

“I’m…if it comes to it, then yeah. I’m here to help,” he said, firmly. “If that blows up my career, so be it.”

Mercy smiled, slow and sharply-curled at the ends. It didn’t touch his eyes. “Good to know.”

Walsh returned, silent, a chambray-clad wraith toting all three glasses in one hand, fingers pinching the rims together. In his other hand, he carried two bottles, long necks crossed. Smirnoff and Johnnie Walker Red. He set the glasses down at their places, and thumped the Scotch down between them. “Figured I’d save myself a future trip.”

Alex looked at Mercy, surprised, and Mercy lifted his brows in return. Apparently, they both liked Johnnie Walker Red.

“Hmph,” Walsh snorted into his glass.

Mercy made a go ahead gesture with the hand holding the cigarette. “Guests first.”

“Nah. I’m good.” But Mercy stared at him until he bit back a sigh and reached for the bottle.

Update 11/20

This has been one of the prettiest falls in recent memory: the color in the leaves; the color of the skies, both the clear and cloudless kind, and the tumble-of-quilted-cloud kind, like today. A mild sort of cool, with crisp nights, and afternoons warm enough to wear shorts. 

But it's been a difficult one, too, in multiple ways. Real life nonsense coupled with holiday prep, topped up with a heaping helping of covid, three months in a row. 

Two weeks ago, the family said goodbye to Spoof, our 23-year-old mini who we've had since he was three months old. 

The most difficult part of horse ownership isn't the early mornings and the late nights; it's not the stall mucking, or the smashed toes, or the dirt up your nose (if you've ever been to a horse show, you'll know what I mean. You'll be blowing arena dust out of your nostrils for two days straight.) No, the worst part, always, is saying goodbye. 

It is with much relief, and no small amount of thankfulness, that I can say that Spoof passed peacefully. That wasn't the case for Cosmo, for Skip, for Markus. The final moment, the letting go, was peaceful in its own way with them, but all three were catastrophic colics. Strangulating lipomas, the silent, sneaky killer for which there is no cure, and no prevention. In Cosmo and Markus's cases, both of them very large, big-boned warmbloods with waning circulation, they suffered chronic lymphangitis for the final years of their lives. Letting them go meant an end to their pain...but it hurt. God, did it hurt. And it hurt worse, with all of them, having to make the decision. It hurt that letting them go was an act, was something I had to give permission for. 

Spoof was sick, too. In a different way. He'd been struggling with Cushing's Disease the last few years, which is a metabolic condition that manifests in older horses who've struggled with processing sugar in their younger years. It's a pituitary gland malfunction, for which they are medicated, but, eventually, their bodies simply...give up. It's a quiet capitulation. Two weeks ago, he was fine at lunch, and at dinner, I found him in his favorite sunny napping spot, already gone. There was no decision to make; no thrashing, no panic, no terrible pain at the end. He laid down to sleep, and then he let go. 

He's buried where he closed his eyes for the last time, in the shade of the pines and the honeysuckle. 

I'm doing okay. I'm doing better. When you're in this business long enough, you develop the ability to compartmentalize. Not to avoid your grief, but to still work through the practical necessities that follow a loss; it's a deep, still-pond sort of depression, but one in which you can still function, can still laugh. It gets easier, over time, over losses, to laugh at the memories and grin while you dash your tears. It's not wallowing. It's...sitting with it, for a few days. Taking the sadness in both hands in the sunlight and examining it, letting yourself feel it, and knowing that you're alright. 

I'm feeling better in a physical sense, too, post-covid. Still with hiccups here and there, but I'm exercising again. It took about a week after Spoof passed to feel like writing again, but now, in the way that I sometimes get after a sad spell, my mind feels sharp, all dagger tips and crystalline surfaces. The words feel like bright little explosions going down on the page, each one perfect, and weighted, and digging deeper into the action of the story. 

This past weekend was busy in a non-writing, real-life sense, but it was productively busy. Hopefully busy. And I think I might have some things on the horizon to feel excited about very, very soon. 

Just checking in to say that I'm hammering away at Lord Have Mercy part two. I still don't have a release date, and I'm helping my mom host Christmas dinner this year, so the upcoming weeks will be full of party prep, but I'm going to see how much progress I can make. I originally thought I'd have all four parts completed and published before Christmas - ha! - but life likes to laugh at our plans. I'm currently 90k words and 259 pages into it, and I can safely say that, even if you're disappointed you have to wait, you won't be disappointed in the story itself. 

Hope everyone's well. I'll share a tidbit or two tomorrow for Teaser Tuesday.