Recovering alcoholic Sam isn't quite ready to let go of his failing marriage. Gord gave up his dream to care for his dying father, and now he's trapped by an inheritance he doesn't want.
When Sam's new job sends him to Gord's remote farm in the hear...
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2014
2.1
Laughter floated over the damp, dark earth of the newly turned vegetable patch quilting the earth behind the cozy house. Apple trees snowed with delicate white blossoms nodded at the bottom of the garden, saturating the drifting breeze with their sweet fragrance. Beyond the apple trees, soft green buds unfurled along the arched branches of the poplars and the intermingled spruce were tipped with tender blue sprays of new needles. Sticky amber casings littered the grass at their roots.
Sam really should have left as soon as they finished discussing the new well Vivid planned to license on Gord's land. Instead, he had lingered with Gord on the back porch, a jug of lemonade on the small cedar-plank table between them, cool spring sun squinting overhead.
Sam held his sketchbook folded open on his lap, a fat, soft-leaded pencil loose between his fingers. Gord picked at his guitar as they talked, strings dancing joyfully under his fingertips. Beneath his battered cowboy hat, his brown hair was cut in a fresh, short style. His newly trim, tidy beard framed the square angles of his jaw pleasingly.
"It's just so bizarre," Sam said wistfully, looking out over the enceinte garden. "Sometimes I feel like I don't even know myself anymore."
"How's that?" Gord asked, playing a little melody. Frowning, he played it again, slightly different; then one more time, minutely different again, as Sam spoke.
"It's just-- I mean, the truck and the car was straightforward enough. He needs the truck for work, so I kept the car. No fighting there. The dog was a lot harder. Since I'm away so much with work I couldn't really object to him keeping her, you know? It wouldn't be fair to Molly. But it hurt, and I argued about it even though I knew I shouldn't. And of course, since he has the dog, he needed the house for the yard. I've been living in the condo since we separated, I'm used to it, but the way he just assumed it--" Sam shook his head, watching a black squirrel scamper along the branches of the nearest apple tree.
"Then, of course, there's the money. God, that's been a fight and a half. I'm not making much income with Vivid, we're mostly compensated in shares, but I've always made more money than he does. It's gotten ugly."
Sam laughed, as though he didn't even understand what he was saying.
"And now we're literally fighting over the fucking furniture. I don't know how we got to this point. I can't even imagine what it would be like if there were kids involved. And I never understood why divorce always seemed so acrimonious." He laughed again, ruefully.
Gord strummed a few notes, giving him a considering look. "You made a life together, hard to just divide that up."
"I just never imagined that I would become this person, you know what I mean? This petty asshole. And then one day you wake up and you realize you are that person. It's unsettling."
