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I know I’ll have to come back here eventually. I know it would be best for the boys to be in their own home, or maybe I’m wrong, and this is the last place they should be. It’s one more damn question I’ll have to ask the therapist the caseworker promised me the boys would start seeing to deal with their grief. I know I can’t afford the mortgage payment on this place, so deep down, I’m hoping to be told starting fresh is best for everyone.
At any rate, I’ll have to clean the house up before any of us can think about moving in here.
I don’t make any detours. I cleared out the dressers in the boys’ room the first time I came, although I realized many of the clothes they had didn’t fit them very well.
I keep my eyes straight ahead, laser focused on just getting out of the house. There are no answers to be found here, and the longer I stay, the more questions arise.
Guilt is thick and heavy inside of me when I step out onto the porch, shifting the clothes in my hands so I can lock the door.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll wake up and all of this will have just been a horrible nightmare.
Chapter 3
Stormy
The funeral home is somber when I walk inside. The mood is thick in the atmosphere, but that still doesn’t stop people from chatting and gossiping in the corners.
As I look around the room, it makes me wonder who is here because they genuinely cared for Janet and Carlen, and who is here to try and get more information than the two-sentence story the local paper provided about their deaths.
I nod at people I don’t know as I walk deeper into the room, but I’m carrying a serious air of don’t fuck with me right now.
The guilt I felt for not speaking with Carlen for the last year or so and the miles between us for the last three have transitioned into anger, becoming a rage inside of me that wouldn’t take much to draw to the surface.
I lost my friend, but more tragically so, two little boys lost their parents.
I run my eyes around the room. I don’t see any children, but it’s not uncommon for the immediate family to stay sequestered in a different room until right before the funeral begins.
I do spot someone I know, and oddly enough, she’s standing off to the side alone.
“Mrs. Taylor,” I say, walking up to Janet’s mother.
She offers me both hands when I reach out to her, a sadness in her eyes I can’t even fathom.
“I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“Sweet Roger,” she says with a soft smile and a gentle pat to my hands. “You were always such a kind boy.”
I give her a weak smile, but I don’t correct her mistake. The woman just lost her daughter. Now is not the time to remind her of who I actually am.
“Mom, there you are. We’re about to get started.”
I turn in the direction of the voice that should be more familiar than it actually is, but Mila doesn’t even look my way as she grabs Mrs. Taylor’s hand and begins to pull her across the room.
“Don’t be rude, dear,” the older Taylor chastises. “Tell Roger hello.”
“Hello, Roger,” Mila mutters before walking away.
I narrow my eyes at the woman’s back.
I consider that maybe she’s just as upset, overwhelmed, and so lost in her grief like her mom, that she’s just going through the motions. I’ve met Mrs. Taylor several times when I was younger. Carlen was always with Janet, and since he was my best friend, which meant I was also always with Janet. A lot of times that included hanging out at her house as teens because Mrs. Taylor, as a mom to girls, was stricter than mine and Carlen’s parents were.
Mila was always a part of that little group whenever she got a chance, but it wasn’t the time spent sitting in front of the television or the trips to the rec center swimming pool Mila should remember. The last time I was in town visiting Carlen and Janet, I was on leave from the Corps. His father had just passed away from a long battle with cancer, and I was in town for the funeral.
That night ended with Mila knocking on the door to the above-garage apartment Carlen had set me up in for the night. The sun was well into the sky by the time she left that room, so the “Hello, Roger” stings a little. It doesn’t take much effort to recall the taste of the beer she drank on her lips.
A man steps up to the podium at the front of the room, a silent command for all of us still standing and lingering around to take our seats.
I drop into one of the pews, my eyes darting toward Mila and her mom sitting off to the side. The boys are sitting there, but Luca and Jace look nothing like I remember. Kids grow so incredibly fast. Luca was still in diapers the last time I saw them. Jace looks desolate and glum, his eyes locked on his hands folded into his lap. Luca, the younger of the two boys, is looking around, seemingly bored and probably still too young to fully understand what all of this means and how it will change his life forever.
