A short story.

Be careful what you ask of a man who’s never known a home.

Be careful what you ask of what we had. You were the first and last good thing to happen to me

I am a man. A man with a past. A stray since the day I was born. The only home I’ve ever known is the one I built with you. I’ve gone to war for my food. I’ve fought for my place in this world.

What you ask of me now; it cannot be undone.

The single greatest mistake of my life was letting you leave.

And now, you ask me to protect you.

I will.

But you don’t understand what that means.

I’ve spent my life wild and free. And for you, I will end in a cage.

Willingly.

Silently, I walk to the door. No weapon in hand.

She waits in the car, sobbing. Her eyes are black and red. For a moment; just a moment; she came back to me. Long enough to remember what it felt like. Not long enough to keep.

I knock.

Heavy stomping on the other side. I step back, shifting my weight.

The door swings open.

The first thing I see is the barrel of his shotgun.

I grab it. Drive my steel toe into his groin. He crumples, gasping. The gun slips from his hands.

I look down at him.

I was the untamed one. The one her family warned her about. The one they said would never be any good.

He was the safe bet. The one with the badge. The one with a future.

And yet here he is; on the ground, groaning in pain. There’s nothing superior about him now.

I break the barrel. It’s loaded. I snap it shut and raise it.

“Do you remember when I bought you that beer?”

He nods, eyes wide with terror.

“What did I say?”

His voice is barely a whisper. “Make her smile. Never hurt her.”

“And what did you do?”

His head drops. A hollow, broken whisper. “Too many times.”

A shot rings out.

The floor is painted red.

I set the gun in the doorway. Light a cigarette.

His cruiser is parked in the driveway.

How many times have I seen that car? How many times has he sat behind that wheel, watching me get thrown into the back of another cop’s car?

He had laughed the last time, two years ago, as they hauled me off in chains. Drunk on whiskey, two months after their wedding. He watched them beat me, and he grinned.

I told myself she was better off with him. But I knew better.

I was always an outsider. A transient man.

I rolled into this town on a boxcar, a punk rock kid getting too old to roam. I busked for a month in front of the burger joint where she worked. The day the owner offered me a job was the best day of my life; because it was the day I met her.

She was kind.

I hadn’t showered in three days, turned away from the shelter for lack of space. It was ten below in Williston. The oil patch always hummed with its own industrial glow.

She was the only one who saw me as human.

After closing, she’d offered to share a joint with me in the alley behind the dumpster. She offered me her couch. A shower.

We were together for six years before her family convinced her I was no good. It didn’t matter that I had a steady job working the rigs as a derrickman. It didn’t matter that I bought her a house, built her an art studio with my own hands.

She still left.

And now, she’s walking toward me, shoulders shaking, arms wrapped around herself.

I glance at his parked cruiser, sitting there like it always has. Like he might come walking out and slide behind the wheel. Like none of this ever happened.

I sit on the bench on the porch. She lowers herself beside me, rests her head on my shoulder like she used to. I pull out my pouch, rolling a joint with slow, steady fingers.

I light it. Pass it to her.

The horizon glows red and blue.

The prairie is flat, endless. You can see those lights for miles. Thirty minutes, maybe more, before they’ll get here. Plenty of time to sit. To smoke. To wait for the cage I knew was coming.

I look at her.

And I remember.

Sitting in the studio I built for her, watching her paint. The smell of turpentine, the scratch of a brush against canvas. Her fingers smudged with color. The way she’d press her lips together when she concentrated, how she’d lean back and tilt her head when she wasn’t sure about a stroke.

So many nights, I just sat there. Rolling joints. Smoking. Watching her create entire worlds with her hands.

I loved every moment of it.

The lights creep closer.

I whisper, “I never stopped loving you.”

She exhales smoke, leans into me. Whispers back, “I know. I never should have left.”

I look back across the land, basking in the glow of it. The choices we make; are they really our own?

Did I choose this? Or was it fate?

Did she?

Her mother knew. Her mother knew about the loss.

We were supposed to have a family.

Her mother drove her to the clinic. Demanded it. Said I’d never make a good father. I was too reckless. Too wild. I’d never known a home. Not a loving one at least.

Maybe she was right.

But who was she to take that away?

I’ve spent my life doing my best not to be that man who raised me.

Yet here I am.

On my way to that very same cage he etched his name in.

Fate is a funny thing.