Stockholm

Chapter 6

"Gimme that." Wyatt's hand appears from underneath my truck, his finger pointing at a wrench that lays on the concrete floor of his mechanic shop.

I slap the cool metal into his hand before it retreats underneath.

"So how's your woman?" he asks, his words coming out strained as my truck shifts slightly.

"She's good." I take a drink of the cold beer I brought as payment.

He mumbles something I can't make out, a clank sounds before a bolt comes rolling into view. "Don't lose that."

I pluck the bolt from the ground and set it on the red stand up toolbox. All it's drawers are open, tools rifled through and left a mess. Wyatt's always worked like that, nothing ever seems to have a system but yet he knows where everything is without a second thought. I long ago stopped trying to organize him or figure out where things should go.

"We're having a bbq next week for Sadie's birthday. You guys should come."

"Yeah that sounds like fun." I say, knowing I probably won't go. "I'll talk to her."

I lean back against the tool box, taking a drink as my mind rushes me memories of my life. Wyatt and I used to be joined at the hips as young kids, even after he had his daughter, Laney, at nineteen. He'd wrench on cars as she napped in a pack 'n play and I'd hand off tools. Or we'd strap her car seat in the middle of us on the bench seat of whatever truck he was driving and we'd go down to the river to fish. Where Wyatt and I went, so did Laney. At least until he broke up with Laney's mom and she turned into the wicked witch of the west, not that she was great to begin with. Wyatt would drop Laney off with her mom not knowing if he'd get to see her again. She loved keeping Laney from him, probably because he'd bend over backwards trying to appease her in an attempt to get Laney back. They finally went to court and the court sorted things out but I still feel like Wyatt got the worst end of the deal out of it.

Wyatt works in silence as I nurse my beer, handing him off tools that lay scattered around his feet. My truck sits lifted on a hoist, Wyatt's grease covered arm appearing for a moment with a mangled rusted piece of metal. He shakes it at me and I take it from him, inspecting the object, wondering what part of my truck it was supposed to be.

"Ya oughta bring me the truck before it completely breaks." He grumbles, "I don't even understand how it drove here. Damn ball joints are just 'bout nonexistent."

I shrug my shoulders, the same way I always have when he's gotten on me about the state of my cars. I'm not a car guy, I don't have time to be a car guy and besides I have Wyatt.

"One of these days this damn trucks gonna leave you stranded purely outta spite." He continues. "Cam never woulda let it get this bad and you know it."

His scolding aggravates deep seeded grief, upturns stubborn guilt that lives in my bones until all I can do is clear my throat in an attempt to swallow it all back down. My head hangs as I study the colorful flecks in the floor's paint.

"How is Myra?" He asks, a natural chain of questions I suppose but not the most desirable topic for me.

"She's okay." I mutter out, my voice thick with all my worries. "Still drunk."

Wyatt appears from under my truck, his brow covered in beads of sweat that are pooled with bits of grease and dirt and powdered rust.

"I gotta get over there to see her soon." He says, unboxing a new part for my truck. "It's been a minute."

Wyatt is one of the few people I've let come over in the last several years. Mostly because I didn't have a choice. There have been times when I've had to work doubles, leaving my mom home to her devices for uncomfortably long hours. Other times my mom's called me in hysterics, lost to her memories, searching for things that have long since been lost. I couldn't always rush to her side. But Wyatt, he owns his shop, it's nothing for him to step out for awhile.