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There were differences, too, and they were important. The flu was not a depressive episode. HIV was not clinical depression. Mina was not Kimmie, and neither of them were their chronic illnesses.
He was the common point they shared. If he was feeling a sense of living his life over again, then, well, that was his problem to work through. He picked out an aspen in a neighbor’s yard and watched the leaves sway in the breeze. It was unsettling to realize that not reading the horoscope one, now two, mornings had not actually been the sign that he was completely over Kimmie’s death, which he’d been hoping for.
Even worse, he might never be over Kimmie’s death. And wasn’t that a horrible thought. Especially since he wanted Mina. No question that he wanted Mina.
His phone buzzing in his pocket was a welcome distraction. “Pardo,” he said as he swiped it on.
“Have you had your flu shot?” his sister asked.
“Hello to you, too.”
“I heard from a friend that you were in the ER with a woman who has the flu. I assume that woman was Mina,” Brook said. “You need to get a flu shot.”
He shook his head at the speed with which gossip traveled. “It’s the beginning of flu season. Lots of people have the flu.”
“That didn’t answer my question.”
He sighed. “No, I haven’t had my flu shot. I’ll get it. I promise.”
Brook had called to remind him to get his flu shot every year since Dennis’s illness. Though usually she waited until the first flu death in Montana was announced. “It might be too late. You’ve probably already been exposed.”
There was too much panic in her voice for this conversation to actually be about the flu. His sister could worry with the best of them, but she was not afraid of germs. “Brook, what’s up?”
“Dennis took the job in Bozeman.”
Levi blinked in surprise. “That’s great news, right?” Right? “It’s a promotion and a raise. And just a better job.”
He and Dennis had been friends for, God, thirty years, since Dennis and his family had moved into the house next door. They’d both decided to follow Levi’s father’s footsteps and go into the mines together. They’d been trapped during the mine accident together. They’d decided to move away from it all and come to Missoula together.
“I don’t know anyone in Bozeman. I don’t know the doctors in Bozeman. What if I can’t get a job in Bozeman?” The worries poured out of Brook’s mouth thick, like escaped mercury and probably as poisonous, if not to Levi, then to Dennis.
“You don’t like your job here.” His sister loved deeply and thoroughly, but she didn’t like anything. Her natural inclination to criticize was one of the reasons he hadn’t been too worried about her initial reaction to Mina. If Mina had had red hair, then Brook would talk about redheads and their tempers and their tendency to sunburn. Once Brook warmed up to someone, she still complained, but she would also drive cross-country to get them a bowl of chicken soup if they were ill.
Unfortunately, he didn’t know how much of Brook’s current complaints—about Dennis’s new job, about Mina’s illness, about anything—would make the switch to complaint plus support.
“That’s beside the point,” she said, and he could hear the way she waved her hand in the air, dismissing any argument that didn’t support her agitation. “Maybe this was your idea. Maybe you put him up to this.”
“Really, Brook?” He was ashamed to admit that when Dennis had told him about the job interview, a small part of him—one bigger than he was willing to acknowledge to himself—had hoped Dennis didn’t get the job. Not that he didn’t want his friend to get a better job, especially a better job that wouldn’t have such a detrimental effect on his health. But Dennis’s leaving would be a door shut on his past.
A bird taking off on the tree next to him startled him and shook the ridiculous thoughts out of his head. The past being over was in the definition of the past. Ending was what the past did.
He’d just never expected Friday nights at the bar with Dennis to be in the past.
