Running Wild

surreal.
“You had a rough night, my boy.”
Seamus stared, wondering why Zachariah was lying. No, wondering if he was lying. Seamus suspected the old man had been bluffing about kicking him out if he didn’t call his parents. However, this was different. Why bluff about a horse?
Maybe no one had carried him into the house, maybe there had been no horse. Could extreme stress cause hallucinations?
Zachariah added, gently chiding, “Why would I call a horse grandson?”
Chapter One
    Seven years later
“Seamus!”
He made it a point not to roll his eyes at his mother’s call. “Up here, Mom.” “Where’s Lanie?”
“On my lap while I read a book to her.”
His mother came into the bedroom to smile dotingly upon her only
    granddaughter. “You’re so good with children.”
He set his jaw.
But his mother had learned not to lament that Seamus was not going to
marry a wife and have two kids and two cars and two jobs. She smiled brightly. “Such a good uncle.”
    “If I was such a good uncle, you wouldn’t be checking up on me when I’m looking after my niece.” He sometimes thought his mother expected him to forget what he was doing and leave Lanie to wander out into traffic or off a cliff—if cliffs existed in Manitoba.
    An impatient two-year-old tugged his hair, and he went back to reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar and the days of the week. As he spoke, his mother talked over him, saying he was a good brother to take Lanie on Mother’s Day and a good son…
    “Mom. Enough! I feel appreciated. Thank you very much.” They didn’t talk about him being gay often, and he’d only ever brought one boyfriend home. In the years since he’d “run away” as his mother described it—he’d considered it more of a going-on-an-adventure disaster—his mother went to excessive ends to assure him he was part of the family.
    Which became a bit wearying at times.
“ On Thursday …” he continued, and his mother retreated to her kitchen. Once Lanie fell asleep and was settled in the traveling crib, Seamus also made his way downstairs.
His mother looked up from her baking. “Oh, I forgot to tell you. A letter came for you this week.”
He raised his eyebrows. He’d moved out three years ago, and apart from some alma mater junk mail, Canada Post had stopped delivering here.
She handed him a thick brown envelope, and it looked official. When his gaze fell on the address, his heart sank.
“Cornfield.” What an appropriate name, he thought vaguely, for the town surrounded by farms, many of them indeed growing corn. As he ripped the envelope open, he hoped he was wrong, that this didn’t mean what he thought it meant.
“Oh, honey, is it bad news?”
He swallowed as he scanned the letter that announced the death of Zachariah Smithson. While he wondered why he was getting this official announcement and regretted that he hadn’t visited there for two years, he kept scanning the letter until his eyes locked on his own name, Seamus O’Connor .
His brow furrowed, he shook his head as if his eyesight was wonky, and he read it again.
His name was still there.
His father stomped into the kitchen, took one glance at Seamus and landed a palm on his son’s back. “What’s wrong?”
It was hard, but he forced out the words. “Zachariah died.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said his father while his mother repeated, “Oh, honey.”
“But.” Seamus frowned, trying to make sense of the words and failing. “There’s some mistake.”
“Oh?” said his mother.
Seamus turned and looked at his parents, feeling at a complete loss. “It says he’s left the farm to me.”
    Why would Zachariah do this? The question came to Seamus again and again. Sure, he’d spent three summers working at the farm after their strange meeting. And sure, they’d had a good rapport. But they’d drifted apart afterwards, Zachariah deciding he didn’t need any more summer staff, as he described Seamus, and Seamus taking a job in the lab.
    Seamus should have made more effort to see him, but Zachariah hadn’t been that welcoming at the end. Seamus’s presence had agitated the old man, which became quite the deterrent to visiting, and Seamus had stopped coming by the farm at all. Had tried to learn to love his job.
    He didn’t love it. Didn’t hate it either. However, he couldn’t keep the farm and the job, and he needed to support himself. The commonsense thing to do was sell Zachariah’s land. Yet something in him balked at