"The Gift" - a Brokeback fic
Brokeback fic, one-shot (ca. 3,800 words), movie canon, multiple POVs, rating G, no specific warnings.
Disclaimer:
They do not belong to me, but to Annie Proulx, Diana Ossana, Larry McMurtry and Focus Features, and I certainly do not profit from writing this, excpet for the joy I find in thinking and writing of Jack and Ennis.
A/N:
I was going for something a little more upbeat after the sadness and pain that understandably characterize many recent fics, but this turned more melancholy-filled than intended. Nevertheless, it springs from the realization that there is more than one kind of love, but all kinds can warm a heart - and there are loving joyful moments to be found for us all, be they ever so fleeting or even based on misunderstandings, and be our lives otherwise ever so difficult. And when those special moments appear, living in the here and now is all that anyone can do.
The plot is to some certain degree inspired by the movie "Pay it Forward". And the last sentence ows an obvious debt to the similar tranquility of the last sentence in Steinbeck's novel "East of Eden".
The fic takes place in the late winter/early spring of 1970, and has been split into two journal entries due to length.
The Gift
Alma
Junior was sitting at the kitchen table, making another drawing. She’d had a box of crayons as a gift for Christmas, and her favorite color ones had already been reduced to mere stubs. Deeply absorbed, she was lost to the world, pink tongue peeking out of the corner of her mouth as she applied another thick layer of brown to what had to be a horse… or a bear… or perhaps a dog.
Alma shook her head to clear her mind. Despite it all, she had to smile fondly at the sight of her creative little girl.
She’d just turned from staring blankly out of the window, her mood melancholy and somber, thinking - or trying not to think - of the upcoming Valentine’s day and whether or not he’d remember it. A little gift, some flowers….? But mostly she was trying hard not to think about what his feelings for her were, and what their marriage meant to him, trying desperately not to make sense of that mind-numbing, inexplicable sight of the kisses and intimate caresses he’d shared with that fishing buddy of his who appeared out of nowhere nearly 3 years ago. That moment and the following days had sent everything spinning, made her doubt everything, turned her marriage into an enigma too confusing for her to wreck her mind over. A mystery that kept renewing itself with every unsettling new postcard arriving from Jack Twist.
As usual, she tried very hard to think of something else.
She went over to look at Junior’s drawing, smiling down at her daughter’s light brown unruly hair. Alma truly cherished her little girls, and wouldn’t have minded more kids, if only…
Junior was so cute with all her intensely focused energy, Alma felt her heart welling with the summer-bright glow of pure, undeniable, simple and straight-forward love. The warm surge of affection made it impossible for her to hold still, she had to sweep Junior up half-way from her chair and squeeze the child, press her daughter to her heart in a strong happy hug.
Junior was not too big yet to protest being cuddled, she delighted in being kissed, but soon started squirming to get back to her business.
“Mommy, see, do you like my cow? What should I draw next?”
The answer came immediately to Alma, born of her troubled thoughts the moment before and the uncompromising love that was just now warming her heart and her cheeks:
“Why don’t you draw a big and real pretty heart for daddy, honey? Tomorrow is a special day, you know, Valentine’s day, when you must show the ones you love how much you care.
She hugged Junior again, kissed the tip of her nose and the top of her head.
“And I love you, sweetie, I’ll tell you just how much, not only tomorrow, but every day, and for free! Mmmm-mmm!”
Junior kept grinning long after she was firmly back on her chair.
Alma turned to start cooking dinner. She was too late, had squandered time idling about lost in heavy thoughts, brought on by the postcard that just came in the mail. But the world never stopped turning, Ennis would be home soon, and Jenny would wake from her nap any minute.
Alma turned the faucet with a decisive grip.
The glow of minutes before had already dimmed somewhat in the grey afternoon light of reality’s obligations, its remnants of brightness and warmth draining out of her as surely as the tepid tap water now was draining out of the kitchen sink, - swirling for a moment, then soon enough gone from sight.
But not lost.
Junior
Junior liked mommy’s idea. Liked it a lot. Something special for daddy. She had seen the pretty red and pink and frilly hearts in the shops, the cards on display, she know just how they were supposed to look. Aglow with purpose, on a mission now, she carefully selected the crimson crayon, turned a page in her drawing book and studied the white page critically.
A big, red, happy heart. A right and proper love-you-lots-and-lots heart.
Squinting with concentration, she set to work.
Ennis
Ennis was up at half past five the next morning. It was a long drive to the ranch, and he would be long gone by the time the rest of his little family was getting out of bed. Fixing himself breakfast in comfortable solitude under the bleak glare of the kitchen lamp, he was surprised to hear movement in the living room.
That soft rapid-fire patter of feet - it had to be Junior. Tousled hair and face mussed from sleep, she sprinted into the kitchen and stopped short.
“Daddy, happy Allatime, got something for you cause I love you!” She exhaled in a confusing sleep-muddled rush, excitedly jumbling it all together.
“Darlin’, you up this early, hunh? What’s that you say?
Standing in front of him, wearing her rumpled flannel winter nightgown, her bare feet skipping on the cold floor, she held both hands firmly hidden behind her back. Suddenly bashful, she squirmed and made a face, wrinkling her nose and looking at him sideways through downcast lashes.
“Happy Allatime!” she repeated, and with a sudden flourish held out her hands to him, displaying the object she’d been hiding, the gift she’d prepared.
A big red paper heart.
“It’s ‘cause I love you, daddy. And I wanna tell you that…. So I made it… for you.”
Now he understood. Valentine’s Day - he’d forgotten about that, he realized with a pang of bad conscience. Shit! He looked at the paper heart, its uneven scissor-cut edges, its crimson coating glistening in the lamp light. Carefully studying the two black stick figures in the middle - one little, one large - he felt an unaccustomed lump in his throat.
“C’mere, darlin’. You my very own Valentine girl today? Daddy’s gonna show you how much he loves you back. You ready for a real huge, big bear hug?”
Junior squealed with delight.
Jack
“Gave me a big, red, heart for Valentine’s day. Had made it on her own. Cut it out herself. Always doin’ things with her hands, drawin’ an’ such.”
Ennis reached for the wallet in his jacket pocket. He opened it and took something out. Red paper. Carefully unfolding it, he looked down on what had to be his daughter’s Valentine’s card for him, balanced on the palm of his hand.
“Handed it to me real serious like kids can be sometimes, you know, and then she even said, well - little darlin’ sure can be silly, hunh? Said she loves me an’ she wants to marry me when she grows up.”
Tell her to get in line, Jack thought morosely, eyeing Ennis’s shy ghost of a genuinely happy smile. But he grinned on cue, laughed a little and came up with some sort of response.
“Yeah, kids can be surprisin’, sometimes,” he offered. “Sounds like she’s a true and for real daddy’s girl alright.”
They were sitting side by side on a log by the fire, had finished up eating and were passing the last of the whiskey back and forth. Jack was shuddering a bit in the friggin’ freezing night air, feeling the dull cold ache of departure settling over him, but Ennis as was his usual seemed oblivious to the mountain chill.
It was the last night of their week together. The mood was heavy, their imminent parting weighing them down, though both tried their best not to show it.
They’d been talking some about their jobs and their lives, as if to ease tomorrow’s transition back to bleak everyday existence - speaking slowly, carefully, with big silences in between. Ennis didn’t mention Alma much at all, but he did talk about his girls. It was so painfully obvious that he loved them, that he was proud of them and their little achievements. When Ennis brought up his eldest daughter’s sweet Valentine declaration Jack had long since started to feel the sharp pangs that unhappy thoughts of their continuing separate lives always brought.
“Uhhm, well…” Ennis muttered, squirming a little bit before pulling on the bottle and sending Jack a quick silent look under his hat brim, before looking away.
“Mmm,” he exhaled as he lowered the bottle.
Jack had been carefully re-learning Ennis’s signals during their meet-ups these last couple of years. He could read a sign or two between the lines of Ennis’s gruff unease.
“Something more on your mind here, friend?
Ennis held the bottle out to him, then meticulously placed the paper heart to the side, lit up a smoke, and grabbed hold of the stick he kept near by. He started poking it into the ground as if he was planning to dig himself a hole to hide in.
“Christ, Ennis… it’s me. What’s up? Come on.”
Dropping the stick as if burned by it, Ennis picked up the red paper heart, held it out to Jack without a word, for the briefest of moments looking directly into his eyes, then averting his gaze.
Jack studied the crayon-colored piece of paper. Crimson, its color nearly that of dried blood in the flickering campfire light. The heart was frayed at the edges, worn and torn from being handled, from lying folded and pressed in the battered old wallet. The two black stick figures drawn in the middle, one big, one smaller, had been smudged and looked as if they were dissolving, merging into the thick blood-colored layers.
Jack didn’t want this, didn’t need Ennis to make a point about how much his girls meant to him, how much he was bound to stay in Riverton, a proper husband and father for all to see. He needed no reminders of what that heart meant to Ennis - the family life that held him back with ties of blood and love and duty, chains of fear and that dark desperate desire to be ordinary. Normal. Just an average hard-workin guy with little wife and kids and cute home-made Valentine hearts stuck to the fridge and hanging from the ceiling.
The tattered, bruised heart in his hand suddenly seemed a painfully accurate image of jack’s own. He stared at it, lost for words, turning it between his fingers in the firelight, tracing the biggest of the two shapes with his index finger. Way to show me there’s still no way, way to rub my nose in all that domestic bliss he insists we can never have….
Ennis was staring at him questioningly now, almost pleadingly, wanting so badly for Jack to understand his meaning without him having to spell it out, then resumed poking desperately at the ground with his stick, jabbing at the hard surface, intensely focused on this nonsensical task.
Jack shook his tired uncomprehending head, feeling sad, exasperated, heartshot, subdued. For a moment the bright hopes he always held his inner eye firmly fixed on, flickered and threatened to wink out.
“That’s….. somethin’, friend,” he whispered thickly. “Yeah, it’s sweet.”
The silence that settled between them was filled with so much left unsaid; - hopes, regret, longing, denials and despair. The air was thick with it, making it hard to breathe, hushing them up, - no more words spoken.
Ennis shook himself as if waking from an unpleasant dream.
“Well, I’m turning’ in, I s’pose,” he mumbled, abruptly rising to throw his stick into the darkness beyond their camp. He reached out to take the paper heart back from Jack’s hand, carefully refolding it, keeping his eyes dejectedly on his task this time, never for a second meeting Jack’s gaze.
“Just gonna go check on the horses first, take a piss. Where’s the damn flashlight? Won’t be long.”
“Well OK, sure,” Jack forced out of his tight throat, his words chasing Ennis’s retreating back.
“Sure enough. I’ll turn in too. It’s damn cold out here. Better get the tent warmed up good for you,” he ended in a lame attempt at innuendo that fell flat on the ground in front of his feet.
Ennis didn’t respond. Hunched and silent, he just walked on, disappearing out of the circle of light. Only the glowing pinprick of his smoke remained visible. There was a faint whicker from one of the horses.
Jack drained the bottle and got up, his joints creaking and complaining. On cold nights like this every one of his rodeo injuries were competing to remind him of their existence. He stretched his back and drew a deep breath, muttering disgustedly, furious with himself for feeling so low. This is the way it is, and you know it. He needs more time, there’s nothing to do but let him have it.
“Damn. Well alright then…. ”
One step towards the tent, and he stopped short, staring at the ground where Ennis had been sitting.
A distinct and recognizable shape had been carved into the soil. The lines formed a heart; slightly lopsided, but clearly recognizable, slashed deeply into the ground. Its edges were accented by flickering shadows, firelight outlining the muddy trenches and earthen bastions that protected and encompassed the embattled heart’s core within.
An illuminating flash of sudden understanding coiled its way through Jack at the speed of lightning. He stood transfixed with sudden glorious insight, intense joy curling flames of fire around his speeding heart.
Sometimes he feared that Ennis would never yield, that he would continue to insist this hopeless situation was all there could ever be, that he would never bring himself to speaking the “yes” that Jack longed for and lived every day for. Those unspoken words between them, relentless time passing while they seemed to be getting nowhere…. Jack had fought off occasional doubts and despair, though he admonished himself to stay strong. And now - this!
He didn’t pause to ponder whether his stoic gruff cowboy would consciously make use of such decidedly uncharacteristic sweet and romantic signs and shapes to be read where his words failed him. He didn’t consider the possibility that Ennis incidentally and nervously had happened to imitate the shape of his daughter’s gift that he’d been displaying so proudly and lovingly. He didn’t see that Ennis’s discomfort, his silences and actions alike, carried a dual message - could be read as “I can’t, please understand” - or equally as “I will, I do, just give me time”.
Jack had needed to know, had needed his hopes stoked, needed a sign with every fibre of his being, heart and soul. Now he knew. No more doubts - all Ennis required was more time. This simple shape, cut into the soil before their fire, was the farthest they’d ever gotten, Jack realized with elation.
Ennis might not be comfortable saying the words out loud, but he had managed to get his point across. There are other ways than speaking up in order to show someone your intentions and what you truly feel.
Settling himself in his bedroll, waiting impatiently, expectantly, jubilantly, Jack vowed to show Ennis as many of those ways as humanly possible during their last night out here in the middle of nowhere.
Next part of "The Gift" continues the "Jack" section: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/7170.html