by Fiona Druce
***
“But he can’t be dead.”
“I’m sorry, son. I…Wish I had better news for you.”
The balding, middle-aged man wore his ill-fitted suit with little comfort. He fidgeted in his chair, pulled at his wrists, and tugged the collar away from his throat. Alabama heat was no friend to a man in a suit.
Greg bit his lips between his teeth and closed his eyes. Breathe, buddy.
The couch cushion under his ass felt like granite, but he’d long since given up squirming for comfort. Considering the news, the stoney cushion felt apt.
“Dead…” He whispered, resting his face in his hands. Muscles around his neck clenched; he tightened his jaw in response and swallowed his emotion back down.
“Again, I’m…So damned sorry, son.” The private investigator rubbed his face, scrubbing the raggedy skin of an alcoholic.
Not him. No.
Why hadn’t he searched, sooner? What the hell was wrong with him?
The tears pounded at the back of his eyes, demanding release.
He inhaled. He exhaled. He repeated the cycle. Over and over. The tears dissolved into a calm numbness that Greg had come to know a lot over the past twenty-four years.
With stoic determination, he stood on creaky knees and reached for the investigator’s bulbous, meaty hand. “Thank you, sir.”
The man’s head bobbed while they shook hands.
Greg left the office in a pained daze. He arrived at his house three hours later with no memory of having driven.
The dilapidated building–almost a hut–did not welcome him home. It kicked him in the gut; a reminder of what he’d lost. Twice.
The old Toyota sputtered in the gravel driveway until he shut off the engine. Then it hissed into a relieved silence. Greg pulled himself out of the vehicle and progressed in hopeless fashion to the front door.
His phone vibrated against his hip. “Hello?”
“Where have you been? I’ve been trying to get ahold of ya.”
Natasha. Shit.
“Sorry. I’ve…Uh…Been in Birmingham, guess I had my phone on vibrate and forgot.”
“Birmingham? Why the hell were you in Alabama?”
Greg closed weary eyes. “What do you need, Natasha?”
“I need you to take Robbie for a while this summer. I have to do an internship for school.”
Greg let himself into his two-bedroom house. Musky, stale air burned his eyes. Bring his son here? He wasn’t sure that was the best idea. The dingy mud-brown wallpaper peeled off the walls, revealing pock-marked walls that had seen years of neglect and not much else. The floor creaked as he walked, which didn’t worry him; it was the fact that the wood actually sagged under his steps that got his heart rate up. The kitchen worked for food preparation and eating, if only because it was on natural gas and that was hard to screw up without the law getting involved.
In fact, the most positive thing about his current abode was the excellent plumbing.
As he was a plumber, that didn’t seem very notable. Furthermore, he, himself, had plumbed it. Which is why he could afford to currently live where he did.
“Uhh…I dunno, Natasha. I’m not really set–“
“Gregory. Seriously? He’s your son. And I need the help. Mom and Dad are on vacation this summer and I have to take this internship; it’s required for me to graduate. Unless you want to pay for another semester?”
He shuddered. Paying her tuition was what kept him in this position, to begin with. “No. No. I’ll…Figure it out. Of course I’d like to see him. I miss my boy. I just…Have a few things to fix up to make things livable for him.”
“Good. Great. Awesome. Okay, well…Can you come pick him up, say, May fourteenth?”
The calendar near the kitchen displayed the current month in big bold letters: April.
Nothing to do but get it done, I guess. “Yeah…Yeah, I’ll go get him.”
“And I’ll call you when you can drop him off, again. It’ll be like…End of June or July. ‘K?”
He nodded. Then remembered he was on the phone. “Yeah. Yeah. Sounds good.”
She hung up without further word.
The musty, grey sofa welcomed his sudden weight with a fluff of dust that tickled his lungs.
He had two weeks to get the house set to rights so that his son could live with him. It wouldn’t be bad. He hadn’t seen his boy in three months, after all. And considering today’s news, a little time with his only family was more than worth the effort he’d be putting forth.
Who was he kidding…Family was worth any effort, at all. Which was why he put his ex-wife through college, in the first place.
Maybe he’d take Robbie up to Kentucky. It would be good for the boy.
And seeing the grave would be good for Greg, too.
He set to work, immediately, by calling his landlord to discuss the particulars involved in the business of tidying up the house.
The overburdened and less-than-interested landlord immediately agreed to cover the rent in exchange for Greg’s efforts.
And the efforts kept Greg’s mind from touching on topics he wasn’t ready to face.
It was a win-win, in the end.
