Olive Garden, D8 {CB} {Done}

Broken marriages don’t mean boys are broken – just that things have frayed and mended beyond repair.

He is as the work between his fingers. Constant, fabric passing and turning until at last he’s told there’s no more work to be done. A shift bell will remind him to rise, turn out the door and take patience with stars overhead.

His mother’s left another note tacked to the fridge (gone to your aunt’s). He doesn’t mind being alone, but then, he’s always been able to drift out the door to find something new.

A few months ago, he found faith in the basement of an old basement. Not through scripture or words that compelled him to some higher power. But a boy – someone that’d spent more than a few moments sizing him up for what he was.

Not as a dusty pair of old jeans and scuffed up boots, or a long faced ne’er do well who’d never amount to much more than the lineman on the factory floor.

And maybe he liked the way Blackston would fill the space between them. How his family was so large, full of personalities, like his Aunt Birdie or Uncle Pierre, he didn’t have to make much room for his own.

Olive was good at offering a steady silence. He liked to think that sometimes people needed to get out what had been on their chests into the evening air so they could see if the words sank or float.

He’d sit still and make his best attempt at advice. What little he knew felt a poor substitute for real wisdom, but at least he could offer something.

He was happy to have someone to offer it to, anyway.