Two years ago, Chris and his boyfriend left the city to settle in a small town at the US-Canada border. Eager to start a new life, Chris bought the Frontier Café, but a year later, his boyfriend dumped him, leaving Chris the only openly gay man in town. Nowadays he's resigned to a life of romantic solitude.<br><br>Hank spent the last years traveling through the country for his job as a water plant engineer. Deeply closeted, he's careful about the men he meets. Like the rivers he studies, he runs fast through the land.<br><br>In town only for a few weeks, Hank is intent on getting the job done and returning home out west to take care of his father. But Chris’s warm manner and decadent desserts are no match for Hank’s defense mechanisms. For the first time in his life, he finds himself wanting to go with the flow.

No River Wide Enough

“I won’t, Hank,” I said, my eyes filling with tears. “I swear.”13


In the hospital parking lot, on my way to visit Drika, I bumped into Donnie’s father, but as usual, Aleid barely slowed down long enough to say a few words. “How are you?” he asked a little dryly, jogging by me, but not stopping.


“How’s your sister doing?” I walked backwards to the hospital sliding doors.


“Better,” he said before opening his car door. That guy was always in a hurry. He gave me a quick look and climbed into his car.


I wanted to ask him how Donnie was going, but he’d already driven off.


I made my way through the sliding doors and inside Forked River Creek’s newly renovated hospital. I found the elevators and rode one up to the third floor. At Drika’s open door, I poked my head inside her sunny room. The window sill was lined with flowers and Drika was sitting up in bed, watching The Price is Right. “Hello, hello,” I said, staying in the doorway.


Chapter 31