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“Most likely. How are you?” Masok hugged him close. The clan shifted, gathering around him.
“I’m okay. It’s over.” Matt blinked as the full impact of the moment hit him. “It’s really over.”
“Looks that way,” Kom agreed. He watched Matt closely, no doubt worried some sort of emotional storm was brewing.
Matt wrapped his arms around the thick neck and gazed in the Nobek’s eyes. His savior, who’d given him support from inside a cell, then pulled him starving and broken off a space station. Kom had taken him home and given him a clan. A real family.
“It’s over. Now I can begin my life.”
Valter had a message delivered to Matt a few hours later. It was terse.Memorial tonight at True Light Chapel.
It was a simple matter to find where the Earther chapel, which claimed adherence to Earth’s “one true religion,” was located. It was close to the clan’s rooms, and they’d be able to walk to it through the local business district.
Avir debated as he scanned the chapel’s information on the computer site he’d found while they ate the lunch that had been delivered. “‘Admittance to the chapel granted to Earthers of true belief only.’ It sounds as if we aren’t welcome to attend the service.”
“Then I won’t go,” Matt said. He picked at the plate of green curry and rice despite not having had the chance to eat it in years. “I don’t feel the need to look at a casket. I said my goodbyes.”
“Since it’s being held here on Jedver, it sounds as if nobody but Valter gives a damn. Maybe he and Sven aren’t popular on Mercy,” Masok opined.
“What a surprise,” Kom muttered.
“Actually, it sort of is,” Matt said. “My understanding is a lot of those who thought the Church and government were right in what they did went to live on Mercy. They would have found plenty of likeminded people who believe homosexuality is a sin.”
“No offense, Mattie, but Sven and Valter didn’t strike me as the sort of people who’d attract friends of any ilk,” Masok said.
Matt chuckled. “I have to agree. Maybe the only people who’d miss them were each other.”
Which meant when Valter was gone, there’d be no one to mourn him. Matt wondered if he was indeed alone now. He hated to feel sorrow for the awful man, but he couldn’t deny a twinge of sympathy.
“It’s up to you,” Avir said. “But if you go, so do we, no matter who doesn’t like it.”
“I’ll think about it.” Matt scooped up a forkful of curry, determined to enjoy it while he could. He had a new mission in life; to refuse to allow his past to intrude on his present happiness.
* * * *
Upon arriving at True Light Chapel, the clan found the memorial wasn’t held inside the structure after all. There was a small pavilion outdoors, where a priest and Valter waited. Matt had no idea what Valter had opted to do with Sven’s remains, but they weren’t there. Nothing was present to declare whom it was they’d gathered for.
“Figured you’d bring them,” Valter groused, his gaze burning hatred at the three stoic Kalquorians standing behind Matt. “Your perversion doesn’t belong in God’s house, so we’re doing this out here.”
“I can leave. He wouldn’t have wanted me here,” Matt offered without emotion. The priest, after an initial look of horrified disgust, refused to acknowledge him.
Their disapproval should have sent him into a panic. Normally, he would have felt a threat being leveled at his clanmates. There was a slight twinge of anxiety, a momentary roil in his guts, but it subsided.
He might really be okay.
Valter’s jaw jutted in stubborn resolve. “You’ll stay and do at least one thing right by your father. Just one thing. I don’t want to hear a word from their mouths, though.”
The memorial was blessedly short. The priest intoned a prayer commending Sven’s soul to the hereafter and a scripture passage. Valter did most of the talking. He praised Sven for rising above a drunkard of a father and removing Valter from the situation once he had a job and could afford to do so. He cited Sven’s saintliness in resisting drinking himself and supporting a sickly wife and child, then raising the child when the wife “expired” despite the lack of gratitude for doing so.
Valter might have said a lot more, was in fact seeming to wind up for more, but abrupt sobs wracked him. He choked a few last remembrances of when they were boys, then subsided.
The priest said another prayer, and it was done.
Matt and Valter paused as the priest hurried away. Matt thought perhaps Valter waited to see if he’d speak. He had nothing to say. He waited to discover if there was a final insult his last remaining blood relative had to sling his way.
Apparently, the answer was no. Uttering an angry snort, Valter turned on his heel and stalked off.
“I guess that’s it,” Matt sighed to his clan. “Shall we go before we burst in flames for desecrating this holy space?”
