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The scene was a gory mess, and I was honestly surprised that they were showing it on the television at all.
You didn’t actually see any blood or guts or anything, but you could see people screaming, waving their hands, and trying to stop the rampaging elephant you couldn’t see but could definitely hear.
That’s when I saw my brother looking on with his mouth open and his eyes wide.
My brother…
A sixty-year-old woman…
Holy. Fuck.
Was that my stepmonster?
“The family then decided to hold her funeral in Africa due to a problem getting the woman’s body home,” the anchorwoman continued. “And then this happened.”
This time, you could see the elephant in all his glory.
He was running full stop down the road straight toward a crowd of people. That crowd of people was surrounding a very elegantly decorated funeral pyre. On top of that pyre was a white coffin decorated with about a hundred vases filled with flowers.
It took the people surrounding the casket a few seconds to look around the area and see the stampeding elephant.
But soon, they were all out of the way except for the immaculately decorated coffin.
Then, I saw what looked like a burst of flowers as the elephant hit the pyre. The coffin went up high, something fell out of the coffin, and then the elephant was running away.
It happened so fast that even when they replayed it, I couldn’t see what happened to the body in the casket.
What I did see were my brothers standing there, looking shell shocked, staring at the horror and mess that now surrounded them as the elephant retreated.
Chaos ensued. Then the news station cut to a commercial for penile dysfunction.
“Holy shit,” I breathed as I watched a man tell the world about his penile dysfunction and the miracle of the little blue pill he took when he wanted some action. “Is that… is that for real?”
“Kobe said that it’s been all over the news,” he said. “Did your family call?”
I reached for my phone and pulled it up.
I had thirty-two missed calls.
All of them from my father, sister, and even two from my brothers.
Garth and Alan hadn’t called me in years. I was surprised to even find out that I had their numbers stored.
“I left it here last night, and when I got here this morning, I just plugged it in and shoved it in the desk.” I winced. “Why were they calling me?”
He pulled me into his side, then burst out laughing.
“I guess maybe they wanted you to know about this shit before it hit the news?” he guessed, laughter tingeing his voice. “I don’t know.”
I nuzzled my face into his vibrating chest.
“Karma is a bitch,” Etienne rumbled beside me.
I looked up at him and burst out laughing right along with him.
“She hated elephants.” I wiped the tears of hilarity from my eyes. “She hated them with a passion, and every time I suggested we donated to them when we were choosing charities, that bitch would laugh in my face. I never got my charity chosen. But I tell you what, I will scrape and pinch every single penny I make for the rest of my life to make sure that I donate a huge chunk of change to them at the end of every year.”
I would go broke before I didn’t.
He reached up and lightly tugged my hair. “I’ll donate whatever you want to donate.” He paused. “Or make my brother-in-law do it.”
All those times I’d all but begged them to stop going over there and doing those big game hunts… they’d never listened. And only did it all the more when I’d shown that I hated it.
Now… wow.
I just couldn’t process it.
I was… in a happy state of shock.
I picked up my phone and dialed my dad’s number.
He picked up on the second ring and said, “I already heard.”
I bit my lip to keep the burst of laughter from falling free of my lips all over again.
Once I had myself under control, I said, “I can’t believe it. Why were they really over there?”
“Ivory,” he said, sounding annoyed. “Those elephants aren’t dumb.”
I had a feeling that was the case.
The elephants may be illegal to hunt, but people still did it because they were assholes.
“I can’t believe that she’s dead,” I finally said. “What are you going to do with your life?”
“The same thing I always did. Live it. However the fuck I want to live it.” He hung up.
My dad was right.
It was time to live the hell out of my life.
But unlike him, I had a good person to do it with.
“Let’s forget about those things that need fixing, and go home,” I suggested to him as I all but wrapped myself around him. “I smell like pee. You look like you could use a beer and an air conditioner. And I could really go for some pizza right now.”
