Brody woke up in the middle of the night with his lower legs tangled in the sheets. He decided to spend the night at his Mom’s house, and his old bed, besides being bowed and uncomfortable to lie on, was a few inches too short for his long, slim frame. He started to stand up to find his way to the bathroom downstairs and nearly tumbled headlong into the floor. His big bare feet slapped loud on the hardwood floor while he struggled to right himself.

“Fuck!” The only good mattress in the house was his mom’s, but he wasn’t ready to sleep on it yet. He scratched at his bare chest while momentarily staring down at the gloom of the empty house before descending the staircase to the first floor.

The doorway to the bathroom was narrow, and Brody nearly tripped over the toilet that jutted out into the entry path. He fumbled for the light switch inside the door before remembering it was outside the room like in many old houses. Reaching his long arm around the frame, Brody found the switch and squinted when harsh, bright light from two light fixtures filled the room. The bathroom had a fluorescent light over the lavatory and an overhead light with a bulb two times as high in wattage as necessary.

“Dimmer switch,” muttered Brody as he flipped the toilet seat up. It was something to remember in the morning when he arrived for work at Home Pro. Brody glanced around the bathroom at the butterflies that filled so much of the space. He could almost imagine they were real. His mother was a lover of butterflies, and they took flight across the shower curtain, hand towels, and toothbrush holder.

By the time he thoroughly washed his hands, Brody’s mind raced back down the path of thoughts his great-uncle, Clyde, and the photo of him laying a kiss on a man that must have been his lover. They couldn’t be otherwise. They wore similar haircuts, and the clothing was matched carefully to avoid clashing in colors or patterns, but why was it a secret within the family? Brody was in the closet outside of his immediate family until his 24th birthday. He understood the need of hiding from the public in the past, but his mother knew about Great-Uncle Clyde. She had the photo.

As he climbed back up the staircase to the second floor of the old house, Brody understood why recently constructed homes had at least one bathroom on each floor. It was dark, and the steps were steep. There were so many ways to slip, fall, and end up screaming for help at 3:00 a.m. when no one around would hear. He remembered how he tore up and down the staircase as a teenager. He took the steps two at a time going up and leaped from the fifth step clear to the floor going down. Nearing age 30, he suspected either act could result in a broken neck in the middle of the night.

Crossing the threshold into his old bedroom, Brody saw the shadows of tree branches spreading across the bed. The moonlight shone through the leafy trees outside leaving a dark abstract pattern across the wadded up pile of linen sheets. Brody remembered lying in bed as a child after staying up late watching a horror movie. He stared out the window at the branches convincing himself that the scratching noises against glass were the fingernails of a monster trying desperately to get inside.

He shook his head and laughed. “It’s a good thing I know better now.”

Brody switched on the lamp on the nightstand and smiled as the bedroom was bathed in a much warmer glow than the bathroom. After he first found the photo of Clyde and an anonymous lover, Brody made a half-hearted effort to search through more of the photos before shoving the box back in the attic. Up at 3:00 a.m. and convinced he wouldn’t be able to sleep, he decided to conduct a more thorough search.

Brody remembered the sight of Dak and his muscular frame squatting down to duck walk into the dark, unfinished space of the attic. He was impressively handsome even in the most awkward of positions.

Brody tugged the half-sized door open and did his best to fold his even taller frame over double before entering the storage area. He reached up to pull the single chain attached to a light bulb and spotted the cardboard box marked “Photos” in the light cast by the amber-colored beam.

He tugged the box toward the doorway and coughed as he disturbed an ancient film of dust that settled over every surface in the attic. He growled when his head backed into a network of spider webs, and the stickiness descended over the tops of his ears and his shoulders. “Damn!” Brody reached up with one hand, behind with the other, and did his best to rake the sticky threads from his hair and his bare back with his fingertips.

The cardboard box was old. He found the box stashed in a pile in a corner in the basement. Brody couldn’t recall when his mother last needed a supply of boxes, but he grabbed the first he saw to pack up the photos he found on a shelf in her bedroom closet.

As he lifted the box out of the attic, the bottom sagged. Brody slid one forearm underneath to prevent the entire contents from scattering out on the floor. He set it gently on the bed and hurriedly retrieved the two boxes of loose photos. Brody leafed through the photo albums multiple times and, unless, for some reason, his mom revised the albums in the months before her death, he knew they were the same as always. He couldn’t recall when she last pulled the shoeboxes out. She always said they contained “extras” that were unimportant. He remembered her laughing when she said, “They’re the ugly blackmail photos I keep just in case.”

Almost subconsciously, Brody began dividing the pictures into separate piles on the bed. One stack was his parents before they split up nearly twenty years ago. The second was group photos of three or more members of the family. Brody had his own pile. He saw himself smiling after winning a blue ribbon at a school science fair in fifth grade. The last stack were photos of extended family members. The bulk of those were his grandparents on his mom’s side.

Grandma Miller once won a beauty pageant and then competed for the title of Miss Minnesota. She never let anyone in the family forget it, and, recently, at her 80th birthday celebration, she was still elegant, poised, and well-dressed. The photos of the grandparents included countless adoring gazes from Grandpa Miller. He was genuinely in love with the woman he married during a daring elopement in the mid-1960s.

To Brody’s surprise, he found five more photos of his great-uncle Clyde with the mystery lover. Only one picture portrayed them kissing, but they held hands in two others, and their cheeks were pressed together smiling directly at the camera in two more. Brody blinked back a tear while staring at the two happy men. He could feel the frustration at his mother welling up inside. She kept it secret. She hid their story from her gay son. Suddenly overwhelmed by her absence, he turned his head and wept.

---

Brody didn’t plan to arrive at work until 11:00 a.m. He was working through the store’s closing at 8:00 p.m. His usual evening manager was still on vacation, and it was an opportunity to get to know his evening workers better. Most of them were younger and more recent hires than those who worked during the day.

A usual morning off involved sleeping in until at least 9:00 a.m., throwing a bagel in the toaster, smearing it with cream cheese, watching an hour of DVR-recorded shows, and stumbling out the door at 10:45 after a quick shower and shave. Before returning to sleep in the middle of the night, Brody decided that he had to rise earlier because he had a mission to complete.

It was sunny out when he climbed out of his old bed with an ache in the small of his back. The room was cool in the early morning, but it would warm up again by the end of the late summer day. The temperatures throughout the old house never moderated even when the air conditioning was working properly.

Brody remembered the cemetery where Clyde Miller was laid to rest from his memories attending the funeral as a young child. He assumed that they trekked out to the grave itself, but he didn’t remember that part. Benson Hill was one of two large cemeteries in town. The other was Riverview Gardens where they buried Brody’s mom. He decided it was time to let his great-uncle know that he wasn’t forgotten.

After picking up breakfast from a fast food drive-thru, Brody drove his cobalt blue pickup down Elm Street to head for the Benson Hill Cemetery on the outskirts of town. Two primary roads headed out of town away from the river. One was Highway 21, the route to Brody’s Home Pro store, and the other was Elm Street as it turned into State Highway 336. It was the old highway that led toward Rochester and beyond.

As he spotted the Cloud Valley Nursery, Brody peered into his rearview mirror and braked suddenly before turning into the parking lot. The nursery was the best place in town to buy plants for landscaping. He hoped they sold displays for cemetery headstones. If not, he needed to return to downtown and check out the local florist.

A small wooden structure stood next to the parking lot and served as the checkout center for the acres of plants ranging from trees to tiny groundcover plants. Brody stepped inside and was immediately hit by the pungent, slightly acrid odor of fertilizers. He looked to his right and saw simple displays of plastic flowers arranged among small decorative pots in plastic, ceramic, and brass.

Brody began to browse the display and was startled when he heard a thin, high-pitched voice ask, “Can I find something for you?”

He knew the voice. It was unmistakable. As he turned, Bridget Tembow held her tiny hand to her mouth and gasped, “Mr. Sexton!”

Bridget was one of Brody’s best employees at Home Pro when she worked through her junior and senior years in high school. She left the store when she graduated and enrolled in an elite college on the East Coast. She was tiny, not more than five foot three inches in height, and thin. Her bony fingers and drawn face always made Brody think of spiders for some reason, but Bridget was intelligent. She was also diligent about successfully completing any task.

He began to hold out his hand to shake and then offered her a hug instead. She smiled warmly and wrapped her skinny arms around his torso. He said, “I thought we lost you to the coast for good.”

Bridget pushed her long, black hair off her shoulder and said, “I’m only home for the summer, but Mr. Pattison asked if I would work for him while I was home.”

“He is fortunate. You were always one of my best employees.”

Bridget smiled warmly at the praise. “Thank you.” He saw the rosy blush rise in her cheeks. “How is the store? Is there something I can help you with here?”

Brody said, “Home Pro is doing well. I’m a little concerned about competition nearby. There are rumors about a national chain coming to Zephyr. That would only be a fifteen-minute drive away.”

“They couldn’t match your service.”

Brody beamed at the compliment. The welcoming service coupled with employees who had significant knowledge about real-world projects was his primary source of pride in managing the Home Pro store. He humbly responded, “Thank you,” and then he asked the question, “Do you sell flowers for gravesites?”

“You mean to put out in the cemetery?” asked Bridget.

Brody responded, “Yes. I know the landscaping is your primary business, but I need a small grouping of flowers to take out to Benson Hill.”

“Live or permanent?” asked Bridget.

“Permanent?”

“Well, that’s what we call the plastic and silk. I’m sure the cemetery groundskeepers eventually remove them, but they last significantly longer than real flowers.”

Brody rubbed his chin and said, “Yes, we’ll do something like that. I take fresh flowers for Mom, but I won’t be visiting Benson Hill as often.”

“Your Mom? Mrs. Sexton? I…didn’t know.” Bridget held her hand to her mouth again.

Brody nodded. “Just about two weeks ago.” The words caught in his throat. Part of him wanted to protest and say, “No, it’s not really true.”

Bridget began to struggle through her words. She said, “I remember her telling us all stories when…” The sentence trailed off and was followed by, “She always helped me when I researched…” Bridget tried once more and said, “She was one of my favorite people. How did I miss it? No one told…” As the words trailed off, she burst into tears.

Brody felt helpless in the situation, and he reached his arms out to hug Bridget again. It was like the funeral all over again. With his own stoic demeanor, he found himself comforting countless relatives and neighbors who broke down at the idea that kindly Mrs. Sexton was gone. So far, Brody kept his own grief locked away in the privacy of his heart.

Bridget took a step back and wiped at her eyes. “I’m so sorry Mr. Sexton. I don’t make a habit of losing my composure. Come right over here. I’m sure we can find you something to take to the cemetery.”