Z Day -5

  JAMES

  The funeral was thankfully uneventful. For some reason I’d been convinced something outlandish would happen. Probably just bleed over expectations from other parts of my life. Nothing ever seemed simple anymore

  A lot of people turned out, mostly friends and even more relatives I hadn’t seen in years. Miria, Richard, and I sat off to the side, hidden from the rest of the mourners for “privacy.” A man I didn’t know spoke, and I was sure he hadn’t known my mother, but then again, I couldn’t think of anything better to say. I felt like I should say something, but for the life of me, I couldn’t think of anything. *Story of my life,* I mentally sighed.

  I sat back, ruminating on the memories I had of my mother. As an adult looking back on my childhood, it was easy to see how selfish I’d been. That’s how it was when you’re a kid, everything’s about you. You don’t stop and think about how what you say and do affects others.

  My mother sacrificed, scrimped, and saved to take care of my sister and me. She did everything she could to make sure we were taken care of. I know I’d never told her how much I appreciated it, but I hoped I’d at least said “I love you” enough to let her know I cared.

  The trip to the cemetery on the South side of town was too quiet. What do you say to each other on the way to bury your mother? I didn’t think there was any etiquette book written that could cover that instance.

  I helped carry the casket to the gravesite and sat beside my sister while they read more scriptures. It was brief, and at the end, people came up to shake our hands and offer their condolences. I could not keep track of who I spoke to; I was in a daze and couldn’t focus. I probably sounded like a moron as I mumbled words in the general direction of those who talked to me.

  There was a small wake at my mother’s house following. My uncle Roger and his new wife had planned it for us. He was a big hulk of a man, complete with a long ZZ Top salt and pepper beard. He looked like the roughest biker you would ever run across but had a 24-karat heart. I had liked him as a child, and as an adult, I liked him even more.

  Roger had married my mom’s sister way back then, but she had died before I’d gone into the service. Miria and I spent many a hot day at Uncle Roger’s swimming pool out in the country. Those were good times, bright memories in my cluttered head.

  “How you doing, James?”

  I looked up into the faces of two of my childhood friends. “Oh, hey Trent, hi Mark,” I gave them both hugs.

  Trent worked for NASA now, running astronaut operations out of Houston, while Mark worked for a law enforcement supply distributor on the North side of town. I hadn’t seen either of them in several years, with how infrequent my leave was.

  “Sorry about your mom,” Mark said.

  “Thanks. How’d you get away from work, Trent?” I asked.

  “It’s still a couple weeks till our next launch; I told them I had to go to a family funeral, so they cut me loose,” He smiled through his shaggy beard and long hair. He always seemed to carry himself in a dignified manner but had a relaxed, slightly scruffy-looking appearance.

  On the other hand, Mark looked very bohemian with his goatee and earring. They both wore suits but did not look comfortable in the slightest. They were my high school buddies, Mark being the same age as me while Trent was a couple of years older. We had played role playing games, watched sci-fi and anime, and done generally geeky things together.

  “Liam would have been here, but he’s still working on his final out-processing,” Trent said.

  Liam was the last of my high school trio of close friends. He had joined the Navy four years earlier to get electronics training. I had kept an eye on him through my military channels. Now his tour was up, and he was heading back to Houston to live with his very well-to-do but terribly nice parents.

  “S’OK, I know how the military is,” I said.

  “Yeah, what have you been up to anyway? We barely hear anything from you,” Mark said.

  “Yeah, sorry, Mark, they keep me on the go. I’m back in the desert, more or less. Helping out the Army on some support missions,” I said.

  “Really?” Mark had that look in his eyes I typically saw anytime I mentioned the “war” to people. They seemed to think the whole place was a free-fire zone of non-stop combat. In reality, it was sporadic, untrained, and unplanned violence. I, unlike some of the other vets I knew, didn’t like talking about it. In my experience, the ones that liked to loudmouth about their service record either never did anything dangerous, were lying, or were straight-out nuts.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  “Yeah, don’t let the media get you spun up, though. There’s not a lot to it right now. I think I read the other day there were more deaths in Chicago every day than the entire country that we’re ‘at war’ with,” I offered.

  “You want to grab some dinner tonight? I gotta head back to Houston in the morning,” Trent noticed my tone and tried to change the subject.

  “Sure, sounds good. Mind if I invite Miria and Richard along?” They didn’t, but when I checked, they had other plans.

  Miria was drained and was going to leave soon. I told her to go on and I would take care of shutting everything down. She smiled and hugged me.

  “Thanks bro,” she said wearily hugging me.

  I shook hands with Richard and turned back to my friends. I made plans with them to meet up later and went back to mingling.

  When Miria left it was the signal that it was OK for other people to start going. It was just my uncle, his wife, and me within an hour. I thanked them for helping set everything up and for cleaning up. When they left, she hugged and blessed me. I’d found out during the afternoon that she was a part-time preacher.

  Then I was alone.

  The empty house was strange to me. My grandfather built the place when they moved to Austin, back when my mother was just a child. He had added on a garage and a few rooms, even put on a second roof (literally above the original one.)

  My grandfather had served in the Navy during WWII but didn’t like to talk much about it and never said why. I now believed I had a good idea of why he stayed silent. He’d been warm and caring and the other father figure I had growing up, my parents having divorced when I was in kindergarten. I didn’t get to see my father near enough growing up and my grandfather filled in where he could.

  My father had also been at the ceremony and the reception but had excused himself part of the way through. While it had been many years since they had been together, I figured there were still feelings between my mom and dad after all. *I guess we love no matter how much time goes by,* I thought.

  I had asked my dad about dinner, but he had to catch a flight back shortly after the wake. Something was going on back in Colorado that my dad had to get back to but he didn’t tell me what.

  I started to close up the house, deciding to come by tomorrow and give the place a good once over. There were still several things I had in storage on the property. Calling storage places was on my list for tomorrow as I would need to move my stuff.

  As it turned out, my mom had a will after all. The reading was not for two days and I wasn’t sure what would happen, but I didn’t want to scramble at the last minute to get my stuff out.

  Miria had suggested I stay in the house instead of wasting money on a hotel. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it yet and told her I’d think about it.

  As I looked around, listening to the eerie silence of the place, I couldn’t bring myself to stay any longer and left.

  Later, I met up with my friends at my favorite Tex-Mex grill. Whenever I came to town, I ate there at least twice, filling up on all my favorites. I ordered another round of drinks as I sat across the table from my two old friends.

  We talked for quite a while as we stuffed our faces and slowly got tanked. Trent talked about the NASA missions he had worked on and how they had changed over the years. With all the changes lately, he didn’t know what they were going to do with him as he was technically a contractor. He hoped they would move him over to revamping the latest rocket project, but he wasn’t sure.

  Mark was still looking for something else to do. While he liked his job at the “cop shop,” it just wasn’t him. He’d initially taken it because a friend worked there. But that friend had left, and he had quickly grown bored with the job, not being law enforcement himself.

  The conversation turned personal and I learned Trent was currently in an online relationship with a woman from California. They played an online computer game together and were making plans to meet up in person.

  Meanwhile, Mark was “shacked up,” as he called it, with a girl. She was a medical student at the local college. They’d met playing a LARP of all things. That turned into us talking about our time playing “boffer” games way back when and how we’d eventually angered the local “druids” at the park where we played. The druids felt we were violating the sanctity of nature in the park with our violence.

  “Whatever happened to that girl you used to bring around to the park?” Mark asked. “She was hot.”

  “Yeah, I remember Mark used to dress her up in costumes he’d make,” Trent added. “I always thought you were trying to steal her away from James.”

  “Are you kidding? She wouldn’t give me the time of day. She was nice and all except on the field. If you crossed the line she’d cut you down to size. I saw one guy try to cop a feel once during a ditch battle. Never seen someone go down so quickly,” Mark said.

  I shook my head; it never seemed to fail. Whenever I came back to town, Shae’s ghost would somehow slip back into my life. First Miria and now my buddies. It seemed Shae had made as much of an impression on my family and friends as she had on me.

  “Don’t know. We just…had a falling out,” I didn’t mention the fact she’d up and disappeared on me and how I’d tried to forget her ever since. “You still LARPing, Mark?” I tried to change the subject.

  “Oh yeah,” Mark said. “We actually created our own LARP. It mixes some character creation aspects and moves away from the fighting and more towards role playing. We’ve got a book online, complete with pictures and everything. We even have some old pics from back in the day. You might be surprised by some of the faces.”

  “Tell me I’m not in there,” I said.

  “Nah, we could only use those who gave us permission. We couldn’t ever get a hold of you, so you’re out!” Mark laughed.

  “Bet you have plenty of pictures of your sisters, though, haven’t you?” Trent goaded him. Mark had identical twin sisters a couple of years younger than him. They were both beautiful and everyone flirted shamelessly with them back then. I don’t know why men have this ingrained fantasy about twins. I mean, most sisters don’t want to have sex with the same guy, let alone in the same room at the same time.

  “Hey, they signed the releases!” Mark said defensively.

  We laughed, continued plowing ourselves with drinks, and reliving old memories late into the night. Eventually, the restaurant closed, and we had to say our goodbyes. Trent was heading back to Houston in the morning, and Mark had work the following day. I returned to my hotel room in a somber but not sober state. I had a few more drinks at the hotel bar to ensure I slept well before stumbling my way up to my room and passing out.