Rest in Peace

by Darrell Maloney

  “And I pretty much didn’t.

  “In college my grades were average.

  “Every man I dated was a dirt bag.

  “I carried on my family legacy, all right. But certainly not in the way I intended.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Frank wasn’t buying any of it.

  “What do you mean, bullshit?”

  “It’s a term people use when they don’t believe what somebody else is saying.

  “I get that. I know that. But why do you think what I’m saying is bullshit?”

  “Because you didn’t carry on your family’s legacy. You broke the heck out of it.

  “You may have the same blood as your brothers, but you’re nothing like them.

  “If you were you wouldn’t have tried so hard to better your family’s name. You just wouldn’t have cared what people thought of you.

  “If you were like your brothers you’d have gone to prison instead of college.

  “You wouldn’t have chosen a career that saves lives instead of takes them.

  “And you darn sure wouldn’t have worked so hard to save the life of an old man you didn’t even know, knowing it might place you at odds with the other folks around here.”

  “Oh, I can handle Crazy Eddie.”

  “I’m not talking about Crazy Eddie, Josie. I’m talking about John and some of the cousins.

  “John never liked me from the beginning. On the day they hijacked my Hummer and made me drive them here he told me flat out.

  “He said I struck him as someone who’d give him trouble and he planned to shoot me as soon as we got to where we were going.”

  “Well, I’m glad he didn’t.”

  “You’re glad? I’m glad he didn’t.

  “Look, Josie, my point is that you’re nothing at all like your brothers.

  “So things didn’t work out like you planned in high school.

  “So what?

  “We can’t win at everything we try. If we did there would be no such things as championships and trophies. Everybody would succeed at everything so there would be no real winners, no real losers.

  “So high school was a bust.

  “It doesn’t matter. You rebounded nicely. You picked yourself up and dusted yourself off and chose a noble career and made a difference.

  “As for always dating dirt bags, that was just fate stepping in to teach you a lesson.”

  “What kind of lesson?”

  “To teach you that men your own age weren’t worth your time.

  “To teach you you should save yourself. Become a spinster. Wait until you were in your thirties to date.

  “So that someday, in a big drafty warehouse in Plainview Texas of all places, you’d meet the man you were always destined to be with.”

  “Boy, that’s a stretch, don’t you think?”

  “I’m a stretchy kind of guy, what can I say?”

  “You sure know how to spin a yarn.”

  “I stand by every word. Madame Fate brought us together so I could prove to you that older men can be much more stable, much more supportive, much more faithful and loyal than younger men.”

  She cast a disbelieving eye.

  He added, “Not in all cases, mind you.

  “I’m sure there are some decent men out there your own age.

  “You just really sucked at finding them, that’s all I’m saying.”

  “Well tell me this, old man. If fate meant for us to be together, how come she didn’t save me a lot of grief and introduce us years ago?”

  “Well, she does have a reputation for being fickle, after all…

  “Look, I think she didn’t introduce us years ago because I was happily married to Eva.

  “And because you were busy putting people back together again and saving their lives.

  “The timing wasn’t right then.

  “It is now.”

  “You still love Eva, don’t you? You talk an awful lot about her.”

  “I will always love Eva. She was my first true love.”

  “Would she have approved?

  “Of you robbing the cradle, I mean.”

  “I don’t see it as me robbing the cradle. I see it as you robbing the walker. After all, you’re the one who stole my heart. I didn’t steal yours.”

  “I think you did, Frank. I honestly think you did steal my heart.

  “And that scares the hell out of me.”

  -49-

  “And just why would that scare you?”

  “Well, first of all because I don’t know what my brothers would think if I went to them and told them I’ve fallen in love with you.

  “I think they’d be suspicious that you pushed me into it to better your own situation.”

  “How can you push someone into falling in love?”

  “Don’t sell yourself short, Frank. You have a gift. I suspect you’ve had it all your life. I suspect you’ve always been able to talk the pants off any woman you wanted to.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Ouch what?”

  “That’s not what this is all about. I didn’t want to fall for you, Josie. In fact, I tried not to. I planned to be far away from here by now.

  “If things had gone according to plan I’d have escaped that night, and you’d have been nothing more than a distant memory.

  “Then Crazy Eddie decided to gut me like a fish and everything changed.

  “You were going to escape that night?”

  “Yes. I was.

  “Now I’m kinda glad I didn’t.”

  “What are your plans now, Frank?”

  “My plans now are to convince you this was meant to be. That maybe it’s not a mistake you’re falling for me too.

  “Maybe, just maybe, you’ve stopped fighting it and started to accept that I’m more stable and mature than the men you’ve fallen in love with in the past.

  “Gray hair doesn’t just happen, Josie. It comes with years of life experiences.

  “Some are good. Some are bad. But together they make someone young and unseasoned into someone older and more experienced.

  “More patient, maybe. More understanding. More willing to bend.

  “More loveable.”

  He ended his argument with a wicked grin.

  One which she couldn’t help smiling at herself.

  “So where do we go from here, Frank?”

  “We go from day to day. We get on with life and see where it takes us.”

  “Should I tell my brothers?”

  “I think they’ll see it on their own.”

  “What about Aunt Stacy? What about Eddie?”

  “I think they should stop hiding their love for each other and become a couple. We can double date.”

  “I’m serious, Frank.”

  “I think you should just step back and let nature take its course.

  “If this thing is real, and I’m pretty sure it is by the way, then everyone will see it for themselves.

  “Some might be angry, and we’ll deal with that as it comes.

  “But I’d like to think most of them will be happy for you.”

  “And what about the long term?”

  “You mean after the thaw?”

  “Yes. What will you want to do when the skies clear and the snow melts? Will you want to go back to that mine you told me about?”

  “No. Once the thaw comes my friends will leave their mine and go back to farming their land again.”

  “And will you want to go back there and join them?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  “I mean I don’t know. They’re good people down there, honey. They’d welcome you with open arms and try to make you part of their family.

  “They wouldn’t judge you by your name, or your family’s past.

  “They’d accept you as the woman their friend Frank fell in love with, and they’d fall in love with you too.

  “On the other hand, though, I do
n’t know that it would be fair to take you away from Plainview.

  “Your roots are here, such as they are.

  “Your family is here.

  “I have no family left.

  “Uprooting me would be easy.

  “I might settle for taking a trip to Junction, the two of us. So I can tell them in person what happened to me, and why I was gone so long.

  “I owe them that much. They’re very good friends of mine.”

  “Will you visit Eva’s grave?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what will you tell her? About us, I mean?”

  “I’ll tell her I’ve met a wonderful woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. And she’ll be happy for me.”

  “Why don’t we just play the whole thing by ear?”

  “The whole thing? You mean us?”

  “Yes. Us. And everything else.”

  “How so?”

  “I don’t mind telling you I love you, Frank. And I don’t mind sharing my life with you.

  “But I’m still struggling over whether it’s right for two people who are so different to fall for one another.”

  “Age is just a number, sweetheart. Nothing more.”

  “I know that. My heart says to jump. My mind points out to me there will be problems ahead.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as I’ll almost certainly be a widow in my golden years. And that’s when I’ll need the help and comfort of a man the most.”

  “Don’t count me out. I’m tougher than you might think. I just might outlive you.”

  “Right. You were almost killed by a man-boy in aluminum foil, pretending to be a knight.”

  “Touché.”

  She kissed him.

  “I’m not saying let’s not proceed, Frank. I love you and I want more than anything right now to be your woman.

  “I’m just saying let’s tred carefully.”

  “Okay. Just know I’m not going anywhere. I’ve officially cancelled my plans to escape.”

  -50-

  Mark and Hannah were in their fifth day of digging through trailers and were becoming frustrated.

  They’d spilled the beans about their mission to Sami and Brad, and accepted their offer to help.

  Actually, Sami was limited in what she could do. She was with child now and certainly incapable of climbing in and out of the trailer and bending over into the plastic tubs to drag stuff out of them.

  Rather, she “supervised” the operation, deciding which items to set aside to place in the supply area they’d set up in the occupied side of the mine since the very beginning.

  It was the bay they lovingly called “Walmart.”

  “Ooh, shampoo! And my favorite brand, too!”

  She grabbed a bottle and hugged it close to her chest, as a little girl might hug a teddy bear.

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” Hannah reminded her.

  “It’s more than ten years old now. It might not be any good anymore.

  “Have Brad try it on his hair first.”

  Brad called out from inside the trailer, “I heard that!”

  He walked to the trailer’s end and stuck his head around the corner.

  “Would you still love me if that stuff made my hair fall out and I was bald?”

  “Honey, you already have a bald spot. And I love you now. So I guess the answer would be yes.”

  Brad laughed.

  Then he saw the faces of Sami and his friends.

  They weren’t laughing at all.

  Sami said, “You mean you didn’t know?”

  Brad panicked and felt the back of his head with both hands.

  “No way! I can feel hair back there!”

  “What you’re feeling are the few hairs that are left, and the comb-over,” Hannah said.

  She turned to Sami and asked the same thing she had.

  “He really didn’t know he has a bald spot?”

  Brad looked to Mark for support.

  Mark just made a sad face and shrugged.

  “Sorry, buddy. Can’t help you out here. Don’t you ever look in the mirror?”

  “Heck yes I look in the mirror. I look in the mirror every day. And you know what I see? I see hair! That’s what I see.”

  “Well of course you see hair,” Sami added. “You see the hair on top of your head. You can’t see the hair on the back of your head unless you have two mirrors.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t know you had a bald spot.”

  Hannah said, “I don’t know if that qualifies as a bald spot. I think it’s more like a hair spot.”

  Brad’s face contorted into a look of sheer terror.

  He said to no one in particular, “I’ll be right back!” before turning and running at top speed back to the recreational vehicle he and Sami shared.

  The three watched him disappear in the distance.

  Hannah asked, “How long do you think he’ll be gone?”

  Sami said, “I don’t know. Maybe five minutes to get back to the RV. Another five minutes rooting through my stuff looking for a hand mirror.

  “Maybe ten minutes in the bathroom, using both mirrors to examine the back of his head.

  “Then another five minutes cursing us out, at the same time dancing around celebrating because he doesn’t have a bald spot after all.

  “Ten more minutes walking back here all happy and in no hurry.

  “What’s all that add up to?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t count that high. A very long time.”

  Mark asked, “He won’t be mad at us, will he?”

  “I don’t think so,” Sami said. “He didn’t get mad about us watching you guys shower that time.”

  That got Mark’s attention.

  Hannah gave Sami a panicked look and said, “Shhhhhh!”

  But it was too late.

  “You mean you never told him?”

  “No. I never saw any reason to. Why would I tell him? Sarah never told Bryan either. Why did you tell Brad?”

  Hannah turned back to Mark and said, “Don’t mind us, honey. We’re just rambling on about nothing.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Nothing, honey. Let’s get back to work now, okay? I really want to find those guns today. And the sooner we get finished the sooner Sami can test that bottle of shampoo.”

  She started to climb back onto the trailer.

  Mark picked her up by the waist and put her back onto the mine floor.

  “Na uh. You’re not going anywhere until I get some answers.”

  Sami tried to help by changing the subject.

  “You know, I might just give that shampoo to Sarah. It’s floral scented and I prefer the one with apple-scent.

  “It reminds me of when I was a girl and used to go picking apples with my grandmother.

  “We always finished the day by peeling some of them and making a home-made apple pie.

  “Those were the good old days. What I wouldn’t give to be back there again.”

  Mark simply glared at both of them.

  Sami tried to deflect one final time by looking toward the main part of the mine and saying, “I don’t know what’s taking Brad so long. I wish he’d hurry up.”

  Mark was having none of it.

  “Fess up, you two.”

  Hannah gave up and came clean.

  “You remember the early days in the mine, when you and Bryan and Brad were digging the tunnel to the compound?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “So you had portable showers set up way in the back of Bay 24 so you could shower the salt dust off every day when you finished up.”

  “Again, so?”

  “So… Sarah and Sami and I hid in the shadows one day and watched. That’s all.”

  Sami took over. “To tell you the truth. Mark, you didn’t impress me much. Neither did Bryan. But Brad… woo boy, let’s just say I fell in lust with him that very moment.

  “I mean love. Love is what I meant.”


  Mark’s expression didn’t change. He looked at both of them rather stoically.

  “Well, I guess that’s fair.”

  Hannah was puzzled.

  “Fair? What do you mean that’s fair?”

  “Well, Brad and Bryan and I have watched you girls and Sarah shower lots of times.”

  Sami looked at Hannah, who looked back at her.

  Both their jaws dropped.

  Hannah said, “What? When? How?”

  Mark didn’t answer. Instead he climbed aboard the trailer and went back to work.

  He was lying, of course.

  He and Bryan and Brad never watched the women shower.

  But he thought it would be a fitting punishment for the girls’ bad behavior.

  He’d beat them back to the main part of the mine.

  He’d take his friends aside and tell them what transpired.

  He’d get them to go along with him.

  And for weeks it would drive their wives crazy.

  Sometimes the very best revenge is a dose of the same medicine.

  -51-

  Hannah said she was tired of searching through the trailers. She said she wished they would find the rifles and BB guns and be done with it.

  She was tired of the dust, the dirt and the spiders.

  Her fun meter had pegged out long before.

  She was about to get her wish.

  They were halfway through the second trailer when the stuff they were going through transitioned from cosmetics and toiletry items to toys and games.

  Hannah didn’t remember, since it was years before and they’d gone through a lot of things since.

  But the day they bought the BB guns the Walmart was having a huge toy and game sale.

  They stocked up on toys and games that day to take advantage of the sale, and bought the two Daisy BB guns along with everything else.

  On her way home to unload she called Mark and mentioned the Daisy guns.

  “That’s a great idea, honey. That’ll be a good first step for teaching the kids how to handle and shoot a gun. Why don’t you get a couple of .22 rifles when you go back to town for your next load?”

  Now that they were digging through toys from that long-ago shopping spree, the BB guns weren’t far away.

  And the .22 rifles should be close by as well.

  They’d set five o’clock as their quitting time.