Title: Pieces of Jade
Fandom: Brokeback Mountain
Genre: Drama, Angst
Word Count: 2,500 words
Pairing: Ennis/Jack (flashback)
Rating: PG-15 for language
Synopsis: Ennis del Mar attends his daughter's wedding, and finds himself remembering Jack Twist.

Story Disclaimer: This short story is written in tribute to the movie Brokeback Mountain, which belongs rightly to Focus Features, is in no way intended to gain profit or fame or reward of any significant value. This work of fiction is written simply for personal pleasure and for friends to read as well.

Pieces of Jade

The church was on a small hill, which he had to hitchhike three times to get to, alone and all throughout the dawn, just to get there in time. He didn't have a suit, didn't have the money to buy one, and it made him realize just how lucky it was that it's been a year since he'd had to pay $25 dollars each, for the child support of his daughters. Just as well that he put on his old hunting coat, which was more grey than black and tattered on the fringes--the one he wore that one time he and Jack got stranded in the cabin, one stormy August back in '73. It'll have to do, thought Ennis del Mar. He didn't plan on staying long, and anyway, he'd just be ruining a fine suit on the trip back to the trailer park.

The wedding was to be attended by a small group of friends and family, to be followed by a simple reception in the church's small functionary hall. Kurt Bretton, the groom, was talking to his folks, when Alma, "Junior" to her father, left her mother with her bridesmaids to stand outside by the church's front doors, apparently, to catch a breath of fresh air and watch the sun rise. That was how Ennis del Mar found her. Her father, in a dusty old hunting coat and an equally dusty, old pair of working boots, climbed up the few steps to the church doors to give his Junior a grin, small lopsided and a bit sleepy. The smile she gave him warmed his aching toes.

"Hi, Daddy."

"Junior," Ennis said. He tucked his daughter's hair behind one delicate ear, adorned with a simple silver star. She had the richest brown hair, like the summer floor of the forest, when the earth was fresh from an afternoon rain, when slips of honey-gold sunlight made everything glow faintly. Her voice tinkled like a merry mountain stream, and the light in her eyes were like the flashes of silver on the backs of fish swimming in that Wyoming river he and Jack were so fond of.

Junior took one collar of his coat, and stroked it absently. "If…if you don't mind, Daddy, I got you a suit."

That took Ennis by surprise, but he didn't let it show. He hardly ever let show anyone his feelings, even Jack. He kept his silence now, and with a meaningful gaze let his daughter continue, "Then we could go meet Kurt, after." A brief pause, breathing in, and then, "You okay with that, Daddy?"

Ennis knew perfectly well what she meant to ask. And maybe it was just something in his eyes, but when he nodded, Junior smiled. It seemed to be enough of an affirmation, for her.

Junior left him in a small changing room, intended for guests for such an occasion, near the functionary hall behind the church. The suit in question was clearly a rental, still wrapped in plastic and hung out on a peg beside a full-length mirror. It was a bit more grey than black, which made its lines look blurred, faded. But it was simple, had a white shirt with no frills, no fancy stuff, and it satisfied Ennis. He found a small rag and some shoe polish lying around, and he took off his old boots and gave it as good a lick as he could manage without getting his fingers too sooty. He wore the suit gingerly, stood in front of the mirror, and looked back at a man that was older than he remembered, still thin as a beanpole but with a barely noticeable, awkward stoop, blond hair thinning and bleached to grey from countless days of toiling under the sun, crow's feet deep in the corners of his eyes. For a moment, he saw too a wild animal, a mangy old wolf in sheep's clothing, with eyes hard and cold and dead. Ennis looked away, and forced down the shiver trying to run up his spine.

The door opened, and without looking he said, "I wanna tell you now, I'm not gonna stay for the reception. The foreman—"

"Ennis."

The voice drove the words from his throat. It wasn't Junior's. It was Alma's, his ex-wife.

Ennis forced himself to turn around. Slowly, pivoting on the balls of his feet, his jaw clenched something painful because he did not want to lower his head like some coward. "Alma," he said, voice a low rumble from his chest, where the name still squeezed painful guilt from his heart.

Not another word was spoken, but it was hardly needed for all the silence that filled the unbreachable space between their lives. It spoke of shame and sorrow, of privation and hardship, of a love that failed to blossom, broken promises, and disgust. Ennis' eyes went dead and cold, but he nodded, and she, his wife of 12 years he had never lived in full, returned it stiffly. It said little of what both felt, but Ennis understood it as her way of saying, "You can see your daughter off, and see that she and her man gets love out of their marriage, the way we never got out of our own."

She closed the door softly when she left. Ennis stood there for one silent moment, thinking that it would have been better had she stormed out and slammed the door, like she done when they were…like she done before.

The wedding was, surprisingly, somber. The church was quiet that Saturday morning, nursing a pregnant hush that lasted all throughout the ceremony. The preacher's litany was curiously muted, the bride and groom answering with barely more than whispers that reminded Ennis of a mountain breeze rustling the soft spring grass, making a meadow come quietly alive in a swirling green sea. Ennis, sitting on the front pew to the left, was a solitary figure, awkward in his borrowed suit and the lowness of his seat.

When Ennis walked his daughter down the aisle, it seemed like the world had slowed down, cocooning them in a strange and beautiful silence that resembled muted snowfall falling thickly upon a camp in the pre-dawn light. The hem of her gown touching the floor in a muffled, rhythmic swish reminded Ennis of that morning, bare feet crunching on the softest snow, when he woke to find that the world had transformed overnight into a smooth bed of pristine white.

Alma Jr. wore a small, soft smile, as if a painter had brushed those dainty upturned lips onto her sweet open face. Ennis, on the other hand, kept his face as closed as solid granite, because it was the only way he knew to face other people, especially this strange and foreign crowd that sat looking, some openly staring, at the worn-looking man in the rented tux that led the bride to the altar. If the groom, Kurt, thought him strange as well, he never let it show, not when he was taking Junior's hand from Ennis' own, formally, if a little too eagerly.

He remembered Alma then, young and fresh-faced, brightening everything with her smile despite the darkest scowl her father, Old Man Beers, wore as he walked her down the aisle; another altar, another church, another lifetime many years ago. He had just turned 20, still carrying the last vestiges of youth, enough to make him awkward and fidgety, but also naïve enough to believe that he was ready to take on the mantle of responsibility, like his brother did, like all good, decent men of his age did, and he had a paycheck from ranching all summer at Brokeback Mountain to prove it. Right before he took Alma's hand from the Old Man though, he couldn't resist meeting that cold, hard glare thinking that he could level it with his own, but when he did so, it was like a stone dropped down his gut and he thought he spied a half-sneer on the face of his father-in-law. He didn't think much on it then, but years later, he would come to realize that Old Man Beers had judged him that day, measured him up with that cold, hard glare of his, and found him wanting.

Ennis felt the storm coming on from the far horizon. It was a broiling mass of purple and grey, with splotches of sickly yellow and green, hovering at the periphery of his vision.

"Do you, Kurt Marshal Bretton, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?"
"I do."

He remembered his brother, K.E., who was his best man in his own wedding. K.E. took him aside the night before his wedding, and told him straight, "Ennis, you're my kid brother, and 'cause Ma and Pa ain't alive no longer, I havta be tellin' you this for your own good. Startin tomorrow, you're gonna be your own man. You're gonna have to live responsibly for yourself and for your wife. Now you better stand up to that, Ennis del Mar, or you will live the rest of your life fucking miserable and wishing yourself dead. Y'got that right, boy?"

All at once, lightning struck, flashing a blue so bright and sharp and painfully beautiful, just like Jack Twist's goddamn eyes. Thunder rumbled in his ears and he felt like his head was about to roll.

"And do you, Alma del Mar, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?"
"I do."

He had heard these words before, and fuck if he knew that they'd come riding out of the ether to come haunt him at his own daughter's wedding. He had a feeling Alma knew of this, of the sudden pain in his chest that blossomed like a wild rose full of nasty thorns. It bled the color from his face, his teeth were starting to chatter ever so slightly, and he knew that Alma had known this would come, as sure as she had opened that door to the changing room and gave him the coldest, most hateful glare as only a human being could give another. He believed that, believed she had foreseen this, though he was none the wiser. And then Ennis realized that he knew what her look meant after all, and that the silence bore him pure malice and contempt. Ennis thought he deserved that; looking at his little darlin speaking her wedding vows, he deserved all of the pain.

Strong gusts of wind swept all thoughts from his head, and for a second it felt like he was teetering, off the edge of a mountain cliff. He was blinking furiously to drive back the terrible empty ache in his head, but the storm of confusion, of fury and fierce regret, doubled its efforts and he almost left the church then and there, wedding be damned. But his feet were suddenly heavy as lead and it felt like his soul was chained to the church's floor, because he couldn't even take his eyes off Junior and her husband-to-be and it was as if he saw them both through a thick veil of rain and hail and sleet.

"I, Kurt Bretton, take you, Alma del Mar, as my wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better or worse…"

A memory came to him then, strong and clear and loud as the rolling thunder. He and Jack had had their rough share of storms up Brokeback; two sheep herders barely even men, trying to stand out the rough weather, hating for the moment the shit-for-jobs they have, and finding comfort where they least expected. They held onto each other so fierce, like they were clutching each other's hearts and souls in their arms. They made love recklessly in their tent, while hail and rain and mountain winds bore down upon their meager sanctuary, and it was like being in the eye of the storm, with everything around you wild and turbulent, but not caring about it because it can't touch him, it can't touch them both, safe in their tent and in each other's arms.

Hearing Kurt…well, he supposed he should get used to calling him "Son-in-Law", but he just can't bring himself to do that right now… Hearing Kurt speak his vows, hearing him take his Junior—a woman grown, he ain't afraid to see that now—as his wife, for better or worse… It made him long for a voice all too familiar yet painfully absent, speaking of things that mattered between them, whispering them in fits of passion to his ear; vows that would have been sweet as heaven to hear, coming from him. He longed for Jack Twist, his voice and his smile coming back to him like a cold November wind, rushing down with invisible knives from the mountains. He heard him say, as if it were yesterday, "We could a had a good life together, a fuckin real good life…"

"I, Alma del Mar, take you, Kurt Marshal Bretton, as my husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part, and hereby pledge to you my life, my heart and my soul."

The ache in Ennis heart turned his insides numb, and his guts were twisting excruciatingly, so much so that his eyes involuntarily watered and he had to cover his distress with a hard, throaty grunt.

"Then I pronounce you man and wife."

The ceremony concluded briefly after that. And with none being the wiser, Ennis slipped into the changing room, dressed swiftly back into his worn, dusty clothes and quietly left the church. He headed for the highway, planning to hitchhike his way back to the ranch where his trailer was parked. A slight drizzle started to fall, and a sudden cold breeze nipped at his face and neck. The road he walked was grey and desolate, and he plodded on in grim silence, letting the wind burn the tears from his eyes.

From the shadow of the church, unknown to Ennis, Alma watched him walk away, standing quietly from one window. Though the morning drizzle brought a sudden sharp clarity to everything else, Ennis' shape grew blurrier only, in his dusty old hunting jacket with his head bowed down and his shoulders stooping—a man who has been a listless wanderer most of his life, walking down the road with an air of resignation like some weary ghost fading against a whirlwind of color and life. When Ennis' small figure finally disappeared down a bend in the road, Alma sighed, a soft breath escaping her lips that sounded much too close to relief, and then she turned away from the window and went back to the newly-wed's party.

Pieces of jade in a summer-blue sky
Whistling a tune while the coyote cries
Both of us wading through rivers of lies
But only truth shines under the moon

Only truth shines under the moon

fin