Read Online Family Blessings by Lavyrle Spencer - Free Book Online
Authors: Lavyrle Spencer
Tags: Fiction
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memories . . . hell, but they hurt.
In time Christopher rose, put the lasagna in the refrigerator and headed down the hall to the far end of the apartment. Outside Greg's bedroom doorway he lingered a long time, standing in the murky shadows, working up the courage to turn on the bedroom light and face the emptiness. Finally, he did . . . and stood leaning against the door frame coming to grips with the finality of Greg's absence. That gun and holster on the chest of drawers would never be strapped on Greg again. The department badge would never be pinned on, not the tie clasp or the radio, none of the police paraphernalia he'd worn for the past two years. He'd never sleep in this room, wear the uniforms in the closet, look at the family pictures in frames on the dresser, finish reading the Robert B. Parker book with the bookmark sticking out of it, pay the bills that were propped against a mug on his dresser, turn on that radio, put on those earphones, yell from this room, "I'm starved! Let's go out and get a hot dog someplace!"
He used to do that and Chris would yell back, "You and your hot dogs!
Gimme a break, will ya, Reston?"
The hot dog jokes never ceased.
For Christmas last year Greg had given him a gift certificate from Jimbo's Jumbo Dogs, a dumpy hot dog wagon on Main Street that had become a town fixture. When you ate one of those gut-rotters with everything on it you tasted it for two days and everyone around you smelled it for three. Many was the time they were cruising in the black-and-white and as they approached Jimbo's, Greg would say, "Pull over."
"Aw, no," Chris would say. "Jeer, come on, not today!"
"Look at it this way: We'll save on Mace," Greg had replied the last time it had happened.
Chris moved into the room, still wearing the green cap. He felt it coming--the welling up, the thick throat, the hot, tight chest and the burning eyes. And he let it in. Let it slam hard and double him over as he squatted on the floor with his back against Greg's bed, his knees drawn up while he held the sides of the green cap against his skull and bawled as he'd never bawled in his life. Great whooping, heaving, terrible sobs that wailed through the room and probably up through the ceiling into the apartment above. He didn't care. He let it out, let its force control and wilt him, taking him one step closer to accepting Greg's death.
It felt terrible.
It felt brutal.
It felt necessary.
"Goddamn it!" he shouted once, then went on weeping until he was spent.
Afterward, he stayed where he was, on the floor, drooping, blowing his nose, wearing Greg's cap, wondering again why the good ones got taken and the slime kept on beating and raping and robbing and dealing and neglecting their kids.
He sat there with his head throbbing at one o'clock in the morning, turning Greg's cap around and around in his hands, caught periodically by a jerky after-spasm, feeling weariness steal in and turn him defenseless. He sighed twicc deep, shuddering sighs-looked around the room and wondered why it was said that crying like this made you feel better.
He felt like shit.
Felt as if his head were going to explode and his eyeballs burst like popcorn.
And he admitted to himself that maybe a little bit of the reason he'd wept so hard was--at long last--for himself, for the child he'd been, the loneliness he'd lived with and the painful memories that today had put him through.
At Lee's house everyone was gone. The children had dressed for bed, where they were reluctant to go alone. As it had been for all of them when Bill had died, the dread of aloneness had returned.
"Come into my bed," she invited, and they did, gladly.
They lay three abreast, sleepless, with Lee in the middle, an arm under each of them.
It took a long while before Joey hesitantly confessed his greatest guilt.
"Hey, Mom?"
"Yes, dear?"
"When you called . . . I didn't mean what I said. I mean, it was stupid, what I said."
"What did you say?"
"That Greg was
In time Christopher rose, put the lasagna in the refrigerator and headed down the hall to the far end of the apartment. Outside Greg's bedroom doorway he lingered a long time, standing in the murky shadows, working up the courage to turn on the bedroom light and face the emptiness. Finally, he did . . . and stood leaning against the door frame coming to grips with the finality of Greg's absence. That gun and holster on the chest of drawers would never be strapped on Greg again. The department badge would never be pinned on, not the tie clasp or the radio, none of the police paraphernalia he'd worn for the past two years. He'd never sleep in this room, wear the uniforms in the closet, look at the family pictures in frames on the dresser, finish reading the Robert B. Parker book with the bookmark sticking out of it, pay the bills that were propped against a mug on his dresser, turn on that radio, put on those earphones, yell from this room, "I'm starved! Let's go out and get a hot dog someplace!"
He used to do that and Chris would yell back, "You and your hot dogs!
Gimme a break, will ya, Reston?"
The hot dog jokes never ceased.
For Christmas last year Greg had given him a gift certificate from Jimbo's Jumbo Dogs, a dumpy hot dog wagon on Main Street that had become a town fixture. When you ate one of those gut-rotters with everything on it you tasted it for two days and everyone around you smelled it for three. Many was the time they were cruising in the black-and-white and as they approached Jimbo's, Greg would say, "Pull over."
"Aw, no," Chris would say. "Jeer, come on, not today!"
"Look at it this way: We'll save on Mace," Greg had replied the last time it had happened.
Chris moved into the room, still wearing the green cap. He felt it coming--the welling up, the thick throat, the hot, tight chest and the burning eyes. And he let it in. Let it slam hard and double him over as he squatted on the floor with his back against Greg's bed, his knees drawn up while he held the sides of the green cap against his skull and bawled as he'd never bawled in his life. Great whooping, heaving, terrible sobs that wailed through the room and probably up through the ceiling into the apartment above. He didn't care. He let it out, let its force control and wilt him, taking him one step closer to accepting Greg's death.
It felt terrible.
It felt brutal.
It felt necessary.
"Goddamn it!" he shouted once, then went on weeping until he was spent.
Afterward, he stayed where he was, on the floor, drooping, blowing his nose, wearing Greg's cap, wondering again why the good ones got taken and the slime kept on beating and raping and robbing and dealing and neglecting their kids.
He sat there with his head throbbing at one o'clock in the morning, turning Greg's cap around and around in his hands, caught periodically by a jerky after-spasm, feeling weariness steal in and turn him defenseless. He sighed twicc deep, shuddering sighs-looked around the room and wondered why it was said that crying like this made you feel better.
He felt like shit.
Felt as if his head were going to explode and his eyeballs burst like popcorn.
And he admitted to himself that maybe a little bit of the reason he'd wept so hard was--at long last--for himself, for the child he'd been, the loneliness he'd lived with and the painful memories that today had put him through.
At Lee's house everyone was gone. The children had dressed for bed, where they were reluctant to go alone. As it had been for all of them when Bill had died, the dread of aloneness had returned.
"Come into my bed," she invited, and they did, gladly.
They lay three abreast, sleepless, with Lee in the middle, an arm under each of them.
It took a long while before Joey hesitantly confessed his greatest guilt.
"Hey, Mom?"
"Yes, dear?"
"When you called . . . I didn't mean what I said. I mean, it was stupid, what I said."
"What did you say?"
"That Greg was
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