CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
GABE
I’ve never been in a funeral home in my life, but I suppose there’s a first time for everything. The well-suited man in front of me is speaking slowly and quietly, with reverence, as he runs us through the paperwork.
“Yes, sign here. Thank you. And here. Wonderful. Yes, very good. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
I’ve watched a lot of boxes being loaded onto planes abroad, bodies, or what was left of them, sent back to loved ones. But seeing the coffins arranged around us here, a showroom of death, I’m suddenly numb. I try to search for an emotion, but I’m blank inside.
Matt offers to pay, of course, but I won’t have it. You save up a lot of money when you’re holed up in the middle of a desert with nothing to blow it on.
The home is small, quaint, but it somehow seems suitable. Matt told me Mom made it clear she didn’t want a fancy coffin or unnecessary expense, didn’t even want a funeral—frugal to the end, not wanting to be a burden on her sons. She wanted to be cremated, couldn’t even handle being an encumbrance to the earth and soil itself.
But I can’t let her death go unremarked. The funeral will be small, but at least Matt and I will be there to celebrate her, respect the woman and mother she was.
Our next meeting is with a lawyer downtown. His office is the complete antithesis of the funeral home, his desk filled with family photos, a bright, abstract artwork framing the wall behind him.
He smiles at us while he works through the papers.
Matt is looking out the window. He’s been distant all day. I know he’s struggling with this. After all, he spent a lot longer with Mom in her final weeks than I did, saw the full measure of how the disease systematically broke her down.
At least in battle it’s usually over quickly—a bullet to the brain or an RPG turning you to mist. Cancer, with its slow creep towards death, is a fucking monster.
“Are you aware your mother didn’t have life insurance?” says the lawyer.
I nod. “We are, but the funeral’s been arranged and paid for.”
The lawyer smiles back. “Excellent. Now, onto the matter of her estate.”
Matt brings his attention back to the lawyer.
He looks from Matt to I. “To put it bluntly, there’s not a great deal here. She rented. There’s the car, a 1971 Toyota Corolla, a few personal effects and so forth.”
“It’s alright,” I tell the lawyer, trying to make it clear neither of us are here for a cash grab. “She wasn’t that big on fancy things.”
He shuffles the papers together. “Yes.” He’s looking back down at the paperwork. “Actually, Gabriel, there was one, final amendment here…”
*
Matt turns to me in the elevator. “I suppose you don’t have to keep this charade with Shannon going any longer then.”
It hadn’t even occurred to me. “I suppose so.”
Matt faces the elevator doors, hands in his pockets. He’s wearing the same clothes he was in last night. I feel like I have to add something. “Shannon… She’s not what I’d ever look for, consider, but I guess...” I don’t know where I’m going with this.
“What?” snaps Matt. “No more short-term stripper girlfriends and Navy girls? No Major Payne pussy like Triss?”
“Easy,” I warm him, starting to bristle.
He’s not done. He puts his hands up. “Fine. I apologize. How is she, Triss? Is she… all there?”
The door’s open. We step out into the underground garage.
“I’m not sure,” I reply. “She wants me to join this mercenary group with her, a contractor thing.”
Matt stops, tugging on my arm. “Fuck that!” he shouts, his voice echoing around us. “You just got back, just like that.”
I don’t know where this sudden anger is coming from. “Matt—”
He shoves me away, his eyes wet. “No, fuck that. Shit, man. I just lost Mom. I don’t want to lose you too.”
I’m not sure what to say to that, so I simply turn and keep walking to the car. “Come on.”
I drop Matt off and head home, standing in the middle of my apartment. Boxes are still piled by the doorway, unopened, like I’m still in transit.
There’s only one thing I think of doing.
I call Shannon.
She doesn’t answer. I text her instead.
I fix a snack—the world’s saddest spaghetti—and try Shannon again, but she’s still not answering out.
Probably out securing that dream job.
I let it go for another hour before calling again. It’s unlike her not to reply.
Three hours more and I’m getting concerned.
This is probably how she felt the other day trying to get hold of me, and where was I? With Triss.
You’re not needy, I remind myself. You are not that guy.
In truth, I don’t know what I am anymore without mortars flying overhead and bullets zinging past.
I tell myself she’s probably in an interview or something, unable to reply. It makes perfect, logical sense, but even so, a terrible sinking dread begins to swell up inside me.