…

It’s one thing to put a date in your diary; it’s something else to remember it’s there.

And then it’s something else entirely if you lose the device the calendar is on.

Of course, in this modern day and age, there’s this thing called the cloud, and any and all of your devices can connect to it, so really, there is no excuse.

Is there?

It was one of those things, you know, four inseparable friends at university, all going through the ups and downs of life, love, learning, and success and failure.  Two boys, Jake Sever and me, Albert Mendall, and two girls, Gillian Rogers and Melanie Monk.

We had lived separately, together, in relationships, and in the end, as friends.  After graduation, there was the party, the celebration, the reminisces, and the parting.  There were no romantic attachments, at least not one I was aware of, and each of us had applied for and got jobs in various parts of the country.

We all promised to catch up once we were settled, and all put an entry in their diaries to meet at the Empire State Building on Christmas Eve in two years’ time, a nod to Gillian’s favourite film, and just in case we lost track of each other. 

That final farewell was, for me, poignant, particularly with Gillian.  We had one of those on-again-off-again romances, it started out well enough but Gillian had always thought there had to be more, and as each succeeding romance of hers failed, for one reason or another, it brought us back together.  The last, she believed she had found the one, and when she left, with Derek, the one, I felt more than a little sad.  For me, she was the one, and it would be a long time before I found another.

Fast forward a year, and I had had sporadic communications from the others, all pursuing their dreams, their lives taking turns they could never have predicted.  Jake has literally married the boss’s daughter, the company he chose to work for a family-owned business.  Melanie had gone from being a forensic accountant to a footloose and fancy-free nanny doing the tour of Europe with a wealthy American family with three young children.  It was she said the only way to finance her travel bug.  Gillian had married the man of her dreams, Derek, and was living in a castle in Scotland.

That left me.

Of the four, I was the one with the most nebulous plans, having taken the first opportunity that presented itself.  I could do anything, but what I really wanted was to be a journalist, a stepping stone to becoming a writer, and then, if the planets lined up, a best-selling author.  That may have been possible if Gillian and I had remained together because she was my muse and fiercest critic.  Without her, that dream had lost its shine.

Now I was languishing at my desk, working for a weekly magazine that was one of the last of its kind in the American Midwest, on the outskirts of Cedar Rapids.  I liked the place the moment I arrived, but there had always been a big if hanging over the job and staying there, so I had diversified into becoming an English Literature teacher part-time at first, but now looking very much like my new vocation.

I’d just finished a feature story on the gradual disappearance of reading and writing skills in schools when I realised, I was running late for class.  I dropped the story on the editor’s desk, ran out the door, jumped in the car, and sped off, thinking that I would make it with five minutes to spare.

That was, until another driver, also running late, failed to stop at a T intersection, and just seeing the oncoming car out of the corner of my eye and gave me no time to react.  I didn’t even have time to say a prayer.

When I woke, I was in unfamiliar surroundings, though the combination of disinfectant, pale-coloured walls, and curtains surrounding the bed were all a dead giveaway I was in the hospital.

I didn’t know why, but a cursory glance showed no visible signs of injury, so I had to wonder if it was something else, like a heart problem.  I had palpitations recently, the first time since I had been much younger.  It had not been serious then, but the doctors had not ruled out, then, it might return one day.  Had that day come?

Inevitably, my waking brought visitors, a doctor, and a nurse.

And not surprisingly it was the first question I was expecting, virtually a cliche, asked by the doctor, “How are you feeling?”

I answered it with a question, “How should I feel?”

He looked almost amused.  “OK.  Let me ask you another question, and this time, an honest answer, not another question.  What is your name?”

An honest answer?  Did I have more than one name?  That should be easy, except…  I couldn’t remember, or was it I didn’t know?  Surely everyone knew their name.  Or was that the reason her asked, that he knew that I didn’t know or that I could not remember.

He could see that I was having trouble.

“I should know the answer to that question, shouldn’t I.”

“Normally I would expect in normal circumstances you would, but yours are not normal circumstances.  You were in a very bad car accident, so bad that we had to put you into an induced coma.  It was supposed to be a week, two at the most.  Instead, it’s turned out to be nearly a year.  To be honest we had no idea when or if you would come out, and when you did, how you would be when we woke you, but loss of memory is probably the best outcome we could have hoped for.  Your name, by the way, is Albert Mendall.”

“Then what else don’t I know?”

“Most likely for the past three weeks, once you started waking, it’s been a rather intense time for you.  Chances are you don’t remember any of it, but it’s fairly standard for long-term coma patients to take time to recover.  We kept you sedated for the last three days, gradually allowing you more wake time, and come to terms with your recovery.  All in all, this is the outcome we hoped for.  It could have been very, very different.  You’ve lost a lot of weight, and you’re going to need a month or two before you will be able to move around.  Other than that, you will have time to work on those memories.  What is your last memory?”

“Going to work, I think.  Going somewhere in a car, that much I can remember.”

“Family?”

“Nothing.”

“Friends”

“I knew people at University, faces but not names.  I know what I studied, Literature, but beyond that, not a lot.”

“You were a teacher, in fact, one of your colleagues has been dropping by every week just in case.  She’s here now if you’d like to see her?”

“It might jog something, but I hope she isn’t offended if I don’t remember her.”

“I’m sure she won’t be.  We’ve kept her apprised of your recovery.”

It made me think perhaps there had been more between us, but I couldn’t remember working as a teacher let alone anyone that I may have worked with.  It was going to be interesting if it sparked anything.

Eileen Westmacott did not look like a schoolteacher.  When she put her head in the door and asked if it was alright to come in, I thought she was looking for someone else.  She looked more like a model, or actress though I had no idea why I thought that.

She came in, crossed to the bed and sat in the chair, perhaps giving me the time to examine her and see if I could remember.  If I had known her, I would remember her.  I didn’t.

“How are you?  Oh, sorry.  Typical silly question to ask in a hospital.”

She had a shy manner and put her hand to her mouth as if she wanted to put the words back in.  Her manner and her smile lit up the room.

“The doctors tell me I’m fine, except that I have no idea who I am, other than the name Albert Mendall.  I’m very sorry I can’t remember you because I feel as though I should.  I know this is a dumb question, but were we…”

“We were very good friends, Al, and things were going in the right direction.  We were going to have dinner the night of your accident and talk about our future together.  I was on the verge of taking a role in a television series.”

“Did you…”

“Yes.  I managed that and came back every week to see how you were.  Tiring, but in the end it satisfied my desire to be an actress, and harsh enough to make me realise it requires someone more hardened and single-minded than me to pursue it.  Teaching ratty teenagers is far easier I can tell you.”

“Did you give it up?”

“No.  Just took a break from it, and wait until the series is aired, successfully or a failure.  It seems failures are far more common than we’re led to believe.  Besides, you gave me a reason to come back home.”  She reached out and took my hand in hers.

It was like an electric shock and sent a wave of feelings through me.  And a few memories surfaced.

“Oh, God!  I did something to hurt you, didn’t I?  I can see you, crying.  It was me, wasn’t it, and a woman named Gillian.”

“What do you remember?”

“Fragments.  I said something really stupid, but I can’t remember anything else, except I hurt you, and you cried.  I’m sorry.  I rather think now, before all this I must have been some sort of bastard.  You said we were going to talk about it the night of the accident.”

“It’s more complicated than that.  You were not a bastard.  I wanted to talk to you about the acting role, and you said that it might be better if I pursued my dream and put us on hold.  You’d just got a letter from Gillian, an old University friend, who obviously meant a great deal to you, and you were going to see her, and I said a few things I regret now, mostly because I think I was the reason why you had the accident.  If we had not argued the night before, you would not have stayed up to finish that article for the paper, you were tired, and … well, you know the rest.”

“I don’t remember anything about her other than her name.  If she and I were meant to be together, she would be with me?”  Another memory popped into my head.  “She never seemed to be satisfied and went off with a guy called Derek something or other.”

“Whom she divorced.  It was the reason for the letter.  She came to see you, I brought her here, and she stayed for a few days, then left.  I sent her an update each month but never got a reply.  I can send a message to her and tell her you’re awake if you like.”

“What would be the point.  I don’t remember her.  I don’t remember anything, other than it seems I was horrible to you, and I was pining after a girl I could never be with.”

“I think you are being a little harsh on yourself.”

“I’m so sorry.  Perhaps you should come back tomorrow when I’ve had some rest if those memories have surfaced, maybe some others will.”,

She stood.  I saw a tear escape one eye and trickle down her cheek. 

“You were the only one who believed in me, Al.  The only one, and for that, I will always be grateful.  And despite what fragments of memory you have, you were never horrible to me, you were probably the only one who was totally honest.”  She leaned over and kissed my forehead.  “I’m glad your back, and if there’s anything you need, just let me know.”

It was not as if after a year of being ‘absent’, you can leap out of bed and do a quick circuit of the hospital corridors.  It took three days to work my way from the bed to a wheelchair, the most time taken disconnecting me for all the monitoring, and IV tubes.

It took another week to get out of the room and venture further afield.  The physio visited me every day, working on a regimen that might see me on my feet in a month.  A month?

No more memories came, not in the next three weeks, and neither did Eileen.  While it made me feel sad, I had to expect it because all I could remember was not being the person she expected me to be, or that’s what I assumed.

The other thing was that I didn’t call her.  I went to, several times, but hadn’t I disappointed her?  What would be the point of doing it again?

Exactly a month to the day, another woman put her head in the door and asked if she could come in.

I thought she was another physio, or perhaps the hospital psychiatrist because I was sure I would be having issues with missing the world for a whole year.

She sat down in the same chair Eileen had sat in.

But her opening gambit wasn’t to ask me how I was.  Instead, she asked, “Do you know who I am?”

First off, the face was not familiar, and yet I knew it should be.

Then I remembered Eileen asking if she should send Gillian word of my walking.

“You must be Gillian.”

“You remember me?”

“No.  I think we were at university together.

“We were.  We lived together, off and on, for most of that time.  In the end, we had an argument, split up, and you came here.”

“You got married, didn’t you?  I have had a couple of flashes, one being you married a man called Derek.  I didn’t remember the argument.  How is Derek?”

“Dead, I hope.  I can state with some authority, the grass isn’t greener on the other side.  He wasn’t you.”

“Well, sadly, I don’t remember who he was, and even worse I don’t remember who I am now.  I’ve been told I was a teacher and a part-time journalist.  It’s been a year, they probably think I left town or died.  What I feel like right now is like I died and come back with a clean slate.  One thing I do know, is I don’t deserve it.”

“There is nothing you remember about us?”

“Nothing.  Did I hurt you?  I’ve been having a few memories where I don’t think I was a very nice person.”

“No.  You were always the kindest and most forgiving person I knew.  I’m sorry that you have ended up like this.”  She stood.  “I should not have come.  I wish you well Albert.”

Then she was gone.

Two weeks later the doctors decided I could go home.

It appears I had a home, a small two-bedroom house in a quiet street, bought from the proceeds of a story, well, several stories, I had sold to a magazine, and on the back of it a sizable advance from a book publisher.

In that year in limbo, my book had been published and I  wasn’t quite the number one bestselling author yet, but my career, I was told, was only just beginning.

Something I did remember … the follow-up novel to the first.

That was the first surprise.

When the nurse wheeled me out into the pick-up area, Eileen was waiting, leaning against a rather expensive European import.

“Your car awaits, literally.  It is your car.  The insurance company replaced the one that was wrecked in the accident.  Good thing it was this type of car, it basically saved your life.”

“Where have you been?”

“Working out the details of becoming your guardian until you’re back on your feet.”

“I can walk.”  I got out of the chair and stood, albeit a little wobbly.

Eileen had come over and taken me by the arm.

“Like I said until you are back on your feet.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to.  Besides I had to quit my teaching job.  They are making a series two and asked me to come back.  With a lot more money.”

“Good for you.  How long before the departure?”

“A few months.  Problems with the other actors.  They all thought it would fail.”

She helped me into the car.  It had that new car smell, the one that costs a lot of money.

“By the way,” I said, once she was out in traffic, “I remembered two more things, one which might be of interest to you.  The first, you played each one of the seven women characters in my next book, taking my ideas of them and becoming them.”

“Which one did you like the most.”

“The one I had a dream about, Mary-Anne.”

“I should hope so, she is the wife of the character you based on yourself.”

She smiled at the thought. 

I would remember that portrayal as long as I live, crash or no crash.

“The second, you were not the cause, directly or indirectly, for my crash.  Gillian was.  She called me that morning while I was in the car, and when I went to pick the phone up, I dropped it on the floor and took my eyes off the road for just a few seconds.  It was a few seconds too long.”

“You distinctly remember that, out of everything else?”

“She came to see me two weeks ago.  Perhaps she was looking for the old Albert, the one that took her back every time her romance hit a rock, and then happily left when something new came along.  I’d called her the day before and told her I was no longer that person, that I had moved on.  I was going to ask you to marry me at that dinner.”

She had a wider smile now.  “I know.  I found the ring when I was looking for something else.  The answer’s yes by the way.  While you’ve been on vacation, that’s what we’re going to call your time away, by the way, I moved in and did a little redecorating.”

“Anything else I don’t know about.”

“Probably a zillion things, but the most important, you have a daughter,  she’s four months old, and her name is Mary Louise, after both our mothers.  How does the first day of the rest of your life feel?

There were tears and no words.

She squeezed my hand.  “I know how you feel.  We’ll be home soon.”

…

© Charles Heath 2023

…

Here’s the thing.

I spent years listening to my brother, the perfect child in my parents’ eyes, tell me just how good life was.

For him.

He landed on his feet.  One of those students who had no learning difficulties graduated top of his class, was in the right place at the right time to get a dream job, and, yes, you guessed it, the dream wife.

His favourite line every time we met, usually at a very exclusive restaurant, or after celebrating the purchase of a new car or apartment, was “You could have all of this too…”

And, wait for it, “if only…”

His mantra relied on one factor, we both had the same genes and in his mind, we had the same possibilities in life.  To him it was simple.  And after years of the same, over and over, I began to wonder why it wasn’t so.

The simple fact was that we were as different as the proverbial chalk and cheese.

It was one of those quirks that appeared in families.  The progeny although produced by the same father and mother quite often were totally different, even when they looked so similar.

George and I were not alike in appearance although my mother always said I had my father’s hair and nose, whereas George was the spitting image of him.

My two younger sisters Elsa and Adelaide, though two years apart were almost identical twins and looked like our mother.

Our mother, long-suffering at the hands of her husband had died five years ago, and my father, in what was the longest deathbed scene ever, had finally died, the previous evening with all his children in attendance.

I was surprised my father wanted me there, and equally so when he usually spoke to me as though I was dirt under his feet. That he treated me better this time I put down to the fact in dying he had become deranged.  The others, George, Elsa, and Adelaide simply ignored me.

His death was the end.  I had no reason to stay, less reason to talk to my siblings, and muttering that my duty was done, left.

I never wanted to see any of them again.

…

Of course, we never really get what we wish for.

She had never deigned to come and see me before, and our meetings could be counted on the fingers if one hand, her wedding, my 21st birthday, fleeting as it was, and the death of our father, three times in fifteen years. Nor had I met the two mysterious children they had and wondered briefly what George had told them about me.

I could guess.

Two days later. I was getting ready to go back to my obscure job, the one George said was beneath a man of my talents, without qualifying what those talents were, when the doorbell rang.

Unlike my brother’s apartment building with a concierge and security staff, visitors simply made their way to the front door.  I was on the third floor, and the lift was out of service, so it was someone who wanted to see me.

I looked through the door viewer, I didn’t have the CCTV option, and saw it was Wendy, George’s perfect wife.

I could tell she didn’t want to be knocking on my door, much less come into the salubrious apartment, in a building that should have been condemned a long time ago.

I could just ignore her, but she looked increasingly agitated.  People sometimes lurked in the corridors, people who looked like jail escapees.

She just pushed the doorbell again when I opened the door.  She didn’t wait for me to ask her in, stopping dead in the middle of the one other room I had other than a bedroom.

I could see it written all over her face, this, to her, was how the other half lived.  I closed the door but didn’t move.

“How can you live here?”  The tone matched the shock on her face.

“When you ignore the faded and peeling wallpaper, the mould on the roof, and the aroma of damp carpets, it isn’t so bad.  There are far more of us living like this than you can imagine, almost affordable.  My neighbour has the same apartment but has three kids and a wife.”

She shook her head.

“Why are you here Wendy?  I can’t believe George would send you down here to do his dirty work.”

“George didn’t send me.  He doesn’t know I’m here.”

“Then how did you know where to find me?”

“Don’t ask.  The funeral is in three days’ time.  You should be there?”

“Why?  Everyone hates me.  Even your kids hate me, and I haven’t even been formally introduced.”

“Just come, Roger.  You don’t deserve to live like this, no one should.”

“It’s the real world, Wendy.  Not everyone can afford weekends at Disneyland, and apartments overlooking Central Park.”

She crossed the room back to the door and I opened it for her.  “I’ll think about it.”

“Do think too hard.  After all is said and done, he was your father.”

Sadly, that was true.

…

I was having dinner in the diner not far from my apartment block, when Alison, a waitress I’d known for a year or so, and like me, could not catch a break, came over to offer a second cup of coffee.

I was a favourite, not everyone got seconds.

“I heard your father died,”: she said. 

It was the end of the shift and just before closing. The last of the customers had been shooed out.

“My life hasn’t changed with him in it, or not.”

“He was your father.”

I shrugged.  “You free tomorrow?”

“Why, you finally asking me out on a date?”

“If going to a funeral is a date, yes.  The service will be boring, the people way above our station in life, and my brother and sisters will be insufferable, but there’ll be good food and top-shelf booze at the wake.  Date or not, want to come with me?”

“Why not?  I’ve never had real champagne.”

She lived in the same apartment block, and I’d walked her home a few times.  “Pick you up at 10?”

She nodded.  “I’ll even behave if you want me to.”

…

Alison looked stunning in her simple black dress.  She was wearing more black than I was, and looked like she was going to a funeral.  She had turned the drab waitress into something I didn’t realize lurked beneath the surface.

She did a pirouette.  “You like?”

I smiled, which was something given the way I felt about everything to do with my family.  “I do, very much.”

We took the train to Yonkers, upstate, where the family home was, and where my father had gone to die, as he put it.  I’d lived there, in the mausoleum until I was old enough to escape.  The catholic church would no doubt be gearing up for the service.  It was due to start at 11:30, and we made it with a few minutes to spare.

I planned it that way, I did not want to sit with the rest of the family up front.

“You should be sitting with the others,” Alison said, not understanding why I wouldn’t.

“You haven’t met them yet.  When you do, you’ll know.  Besides, I find it better to sit in the last row.  You can escape quickly.”

She shook her head, and we sat.  Not in the last row, she was adamant she would not.  It was about halfway up, on the same side as the family were situated.  From there, I could watch George and Wendy, and my two sisters looking very sombre, receive the guests.

There were quite a few, I counted nearly a hundred.  My father may have been awful to me, but a lot of people respected and liked him.

Soon after we sat two young girls came and sat in the seats in front of us.

Then they turned around and looked at me, then Alison, then back at me.

“Daddy said you wouldn’t come,” the elder of the two said.

“Are you his daughters?  If you are, you could ask him why I’ve never seen you.”

“He thinks your eccentricity would rub off on us.”

Alison couldn’t contain herself at that remark.  “Your father actually said that to you?”

“Not directly.  They’ve been talking about him since my mother went and asked you to come.  He doesn’t really think much of you, does he?”

An astute child.

“I left home and became a motor mechanic.  We are supposed to be bankers, lawyers or doctors.  If you got a car you want to be fixed, then I’m your man.  You want advice on money, don’t come to see me.”

“Are you coming to sit with us?”

“I don’t think your mother and father could handle the shame.  No, we’ll stay here and leave them in peace.”

I watched Wendy glance in the direction of her girls, they came almost running to rescue them from the monster.

The elder girl looked at her mother when she arrived, breathless.  “He’s quite normal you know.”

I had to laugh.  Wendy looked aghast.  She glared at the girl, then her sister.  “Come, the pair of you.  Enough of this nonsense.”  She grabbed their hands and almost dragged them away.

I could see George up the front of the church, glancing down in our direction.  The fact he didn’t come said a lot.  It was clear neither of them wanted me sitting with them, and that was fine by me.

“They’re lovely girls, Roger.”

“The first time I’ve seen them, but they don’t seem to belong to my brother.  They don’t have his arrogance or her disdain.”

“I’m sure, now they’ve met you, it won’t be the last time.  It seems odd that Wendy, that was Wendy, wasn’t it?” 

I nodded.

“Then it seems odd that she would ask you to come and then treat you like that.”

“No, not at all.  I’ve only met her three or four times, and that’s her.  I won’t tell you what she thought of my apartment.”

The service took an hour and various people got up to say nice things about a man who was not very nice, but that was the nature of funerals.  He was dead now, so there was no need to live in the past.

I didn’t intend to.

I had intended to leave and go back home after the service, but now I’d decided to go to the wake at the old house.  It would be nice to show Alison where I grew up and give her some context as to why I hated my family so.  I was willing to bet my room would be the same as it was the day I left.

And it would be good to see Alex and Beatrice, the manservant and housekeeper again.  There were more parents to me than my mother and father.  There were sitting up the front of the church and hadn’t yet seen me.

What I hadn’t noticed during the service, was that a woman had come in and quietly made her way to our pew and sat down.  She had given me a curious look, one that said I know you, but can’t place who you are.

But that wasn’t the only odd thing about her.  I had the feeling she was related in some way, that sort of feeling you had when you met someone who was family but you didn’t really know them.  It was hard to explain.  Perhaps she was one of my mother’s friends, there were a few in the church,  and they, like me, had a strained relationship with my father.

He had not treated her very well, in the latter stages of her life before she died.

Just before the service ended Alison leaned over and said quietly, “The woman next to you.  You and she are related in some way.  She has the same profile, perhaps an aunt.”

As far as I knew my mother was an only child, she certainly never spoke of having a sister, in fact, she rarely spoke about her family at all.  Now I thought about it, it was all very strange.

The service over we could all finally stand and stretch.  The woman slowly stood, then turned to me.

“You are Roger, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

“Shouldn’t you be up the front with the rest of the family?”

“No.  I’m the black sheep.  I didn’t like my father all that much, and he certainly hated me, so it’s a miracle I came.  Perhaps you should introduce yourself to my brother, George.”

“I’m not here to see him, Roger, I’m here to see you.”

“Were you a friend of my mother’s?  I know there are a few here, keeping their distance like I am.”  This woman was trouble, I could sense it.

“Yes, and no.  I knew your mother briefly.  I knew your father better, I used to work for him a long time ago.

“Like I said, you’re probably better off talking to George.  I rarely saw him when I was a child, and when I did, he ignored me, and as soon as I could I left, and only saw him on a few occasions since.”

“Do you know why he was like that?  Did he treat George the same way?”

“No.  George was always the favourite son who could do no wrong, the heir apparent.”

“Then I’m sorry to hear that.  That was not how it was supposed to be.”

“How would you know that?”

“Because Roger, I am your real mother.”

…

© Charles Heath  2023

…

Here’s the thing.

I spent years listening to my brother, the perfect child in my parents’ eyes, tell me just how good life was.

For him.

He landed on his feet.  One of those students who had no learning difficulties graduated top of his class, was in the right place at the right time to get a dream job, and, yes, you guessed it, the dream wife.

His favourite line every time we met, usually at a very exclusive restaurant, or after celebrating the purchase of a new car or apartment, was “You could have all of this too…”

And, wait for it, “if only…”

His mantra relied on one factor, we both had the same genes and in his mind, we had the same possibilities in life.  To him it was simple.  And after years of the same, over and over, I began to wonder why it wasn’t so.

The simple fact was that we were as different as the proverbial chalk and cheese.

It was one of those quirks that appeared in families.  The progeny although produced by the same father and mother quite often were totally different, even when they looked so similar.

George and I were not alike in appearance although my mother always said I had my father’s hair and nose, whereas George was the spitting image of him.

My two younger sisters Elsa and Adelaide, though two years apart were almost identical twins and looked like our mother.

Our mother, long-suffering at the hands of her husband had died five years ago, and my father, in what was the longest deathbed scene ever, had finally died, the previous evening with all his children in attendance.

I was surprised my father wanted me there, and equally so when he usually spoke to me as though I was dirt under his feet. That he treated me better this time I put down to the fact in dying he had become deranged.  The others, George, Elsa, and Adelaide simply ignored me.

His death was the end.  I had no reason to stay, less reason to talk to my siblings, and muttering that my duty was done, left.

I never wanted to see any of them again.

…

Of course, we never really get what we wish for.

She had never deigned to come and see me before, and our meetings could be counted on the fingers if one hand, her wedding, my 21st birthday, fleeting as it was, and the death of our father, three times in fifteen years. Nor had I met the two mysterious children they had and wondered briefly what George had told them about me.

I could guess.

Two days later. I was getting ready to go back to my obscure job, the one George said was beneath a man of my talents, without qualifying what those talents were, when the doorbell rang.

Unlike my brother’s apartment building with a concierge and security staff, visitors simply made their way to the front door.  I was on the third floor, and the lift was out of service, so it was someone who wanted to see me.

I looked through the door viewer, I didn’t have the CCTV option, and saw it was Wendy, George’s perfect wife.

I could tell she didn’t want to be knocking on my door, much less come into the salubrious apartment, in a building that should have been condemned a long time ago.

I could just ignore her, but she looked increasingly agitated.  People sometimes lurked in the corridors, people who looked like jail escapees.

She just pushed the doorbell again when I opened the door.  She didn’t wait for me to ask her in, stopping dead in the middle of the one other room I had other than a bedroom.

I could see it written all over her face, this, to her, was how the other half lived.  I closed the door but didn’t move.

“How can you live here?”  The tone matched the shock on her face.

“When you ignore the faded and peeling wallpaper, the mould on the roof, and the aroma of damp carpets, it isn’t so bad.  There are far more of us living like this than you can imagine, almost affordable.  My neighbour has the same apartment but has three kids and a wife.”

She shook her head.

“Why are you here Wendy?  I can’t believe George would send you down here to do his dirty work.”

“George didn’t send me.  He doesn’t know I’m here.”

“Then how did you know where to find me?”

“Don’t ask.  The funeral is in three days’ time.  You should be there?”

“Why?  Everyone hates me.  Even your kids hate me, and I haven’t even been formally introduced.”

“Just come, Roger.  You don’t deserve to live like this, no one should.”

“It’s the real world, Wendy.  Not everyone can afford weekends at Disneyland, and apartments overlooking Central Park.”

She crossed the room back to the door and I opened it for her.  “I’ll think about it.”

“Do think too hard.  After all is said and done, he was your father.”

Sadly, that was true.

…

I was having dinner in the diner not far from my apartment block, when Alison, a waitress I’d known for a year or so, and like me, could not catch a break, came over to offer a second cup of coffee.

I was a favourite, not everyone got seconds.

“I heard your father died,”: she said. 

It was the end of the shift and just before closing. The last of the customers had been shooed out.

“My life hasn’t changed with him in it, or not.”

“He was your father.”

I shrugged.  “You free tomorrow?”

“Why, you finally asking me out on a date?”

“If going to a funeral is a date, yes.  The service will be boring, the people way above our station in life, and my brother and sisters will be insufferable, but there’ll be good food and top-shelf booze at the wake.  Date or not, want to come with me?”

“Why not?  I’ve never had real champagne.”

She lived in the same apartment block, and I’d walked her home a few times.  “Pick you up at 10?”

She nodded.  “I’ll even behave if you want me to.”

…

Alison looked stunning in her simple black dress.  She was wearing more black than I was, and looked like she was going to a funeral.  She had turned the drab waitress into something I didn’t realize lurked beneath the surface.

She did a pirouette.  “You like?”

I smiled, which was something given the way I felt about everything to do with my family.  “I do, very much.”

We took the train to Yonkers, upstate, where the family home was, and where my father had gone to die, as he put it.  I’d lived there, in the mausoleum until I was old enough to escape.  The catholic church would no doubt be gearing up for the service.  It was due to start at 11:30, and we made it with a few minutes to spare.

I planned it that way, I did not want to sit with the rest of the family up front.

“You should be sitting with the others,” Alison said, not understanding why I wouldn’t.

“You haven’t met them yet.  When you do, you’ll know.  Besides, I find it better to sit in the last row.  You can escape quickly.”

She shook her head, and we sat.  Not in the last row, she was adamant she would not.  It was about halfway up, on the same side as the family were situated.  From there, I could watch George and Wendy, and my two sisters looking very sombre, receive the guests.

There were quite a few, I counted nearly a hundred.  My father may have been awful to me, but a lot of people respected and liked him.

Soon after we sat two young girls came and sat in the seats in front of us.

Then they turned around and looked at me, then Alison, then back at me.

“Daddy said you wouldn’t come,” the elder of the two said.

“Are you his daughters?  If you are, you could ask him why I’ve never seen you.”

“He thinks your eccentricity would rub off on us.”

Alison couldn’t contain herself at that remark.  “Your father actually said that to you?”

“Not directly.  They’ve been talking about him since my mother went and asked you to come.  He doesn’t really think much of you, does he?”

An astute child.

“I left home and became a motor mechanic.  We are supposed to be bankers, lawyers or doctors.  If you got a car you want to be fixed, then I’m your man.  You want advice on money, don’t come to see me.”

“Are you coming to sit with us?”

“I don’t think your mother and father could handle the shame.  No, we’ll stay here and leave them in peace.”

I watched Wendy glance in the direction of her girls, they came almost running to rescue them from the monster.

The elder girl looked at her mother when she arrived, breathless.  “He’s quite normal you know.”

I had to laugh.  Wendy looked aghast.  She glared at the girl, then her sister.  “Come, the pair of you.  Enough of this nonsense.”  She grabbed their hands and almost dragged them away.

I could see George up the front of the church, glancing down in our direction.  The fact he didn’t come said a lot.  It was clear neither of them wanted me sitting with them, and that was fine by me.

“They’re lovely girls, Roger.”

“The first time I’ve seen them, but they don’t seem to belong to my brother.  They don’t have his arrogance or her disdain.”

“I’m sure, now they’ve met you, it won’t be the last time.  It seems odd that Wendy, that was Wendy, wasn’t it?” 

I nodded.

“Then it seems odd that she would ask you to come and then treat you like that.”

“No, not at all.  I’ve only met her three or four times, and that’s her.  I won’t tell you what she thought of my apartment.”

The service took an hour and various people got up to say nice things about a man who was not very nice, but that was the nature of funerals.  He was dead now, so there was no need to live in the past.

I didn’t intend to.

I had intended to leave and go back home after the service, but now I’d decided to go to the wake at the old house.  It would be nice to show Alison where I grew up and give her some context as to why I hated my family so.  I was willing to bet my room would be the same as it was the day I left.

And it would be good to see Alex and Beatrice, the manservant and housekeeper again.  There were more parents to me than my mother and father.  There were sitting up the front of the church and hadn’t yet seen me.

What I hadn’t noticed during the service, was that a woman had come in and quietly made her way to our pew and sat down.  She had given me a curious look, one that said I know you, but can’t place who you are.

But that wasn’t the only odd thing about her.  I had the feeling she was related in some way, that sort of feeling you had when you met someone who was family but you didn’t really know them.  It was hard to explain.  Perhaps she was one of my mother’s friends, there were a few in the church,  and they, like me, had a strained relationship with my father.

He had not treated her very well, in the latter stages of her life before she died.

Just before the service ended Alison leaned over and said quietly, “The woman next to you.  You and she are related in some way.  She has the same profile, perhaps an aunt.”

As far as I knew my mother was an only child, she certainly never spoke of having a sister, in fact, she rarely spoke about her family at all.  Now I thought about it, it was all very strange.

The service over we could all finally stand and stretch.  The woman slowly stood, then turned to me.

“You are Roger, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

“Shouldn’t you be up the front with the rest of the family?”

“No.  I’m the black sheep.  I didn’t like my father all that much, and he certainly hated me, so it’s a miracle I came.  Perhaps you should introduce yourself to my brother, George.”

“I’m not here to see him, Roger, I’m here to see you.”

“Were you a friend of my mother’s?  I know there are a few here, keeping their distance like I am.”  This woman was trouble, I could sense it.

“Yes, and no.  I knew your mother briefly.  I knew your father better, I used to work for him a long time ago.

“Like I said, you’re probably better off talking to George.  I rarely saw him when I was a child, and when I did, he ignored me, and as soon as I could I left, and only saw him on a few occasions since.”

“Do you know why he was like that?  Did he treat George the same way?”

“No.  George was always the favourite son who could do no wrong, the heir apparent.”

“Then I’m sorry to hear that.  That was not how it was supposed to be.”

“How would you know that?”

“Because Roger, I am your real mother.”

…

© Charles Heath  2023

…

Time and I never quite achieved that level of understanding required for me to be where I was supposed to be at the appointed time.

It was why my mother always told me my appointments were an hour earlier than the right time, and while she was alive that worked well.

At Uni I simply tagged along with the others and was rarely late for lectures tutorials and exams.

But once that ended and I was cast out into the big unhelpful world it became a problem again.  Time became my enemy.

It was that thought, along with a dozen other unrelated but equally worrisome thoughts that were uppermost in my mind.

I had an important meeting at 10am that morning, one that might just decide the course of the rest of my life.

I was lying awake staring alternately at the ceiling and that alarm clock, on one hand fearing I would go to sleep and miss waking up and on the other how unrelentingly slow time took to pass.

Only three minutes had passed since the last time I looked, and it felt like at least an hour.

Annabel had said she would stay with me and make sure I was ready, then take me, just to make sure I got there, but it seemed overkill, and surely, she had better things to do.

It wasn’t until about two hours ago that I finally realised what she really meant, and I’d been kicking myself for being so blind.

Several others had told me she liked me, but I thought she was being nice to a somewhat eccentric friend.  Now I realised it was more than that, and I would have to make amends somehow.

I just didn’t understand the nuances of romance or women for that matter.

As daylight seeped in he the cracks in the curtains I knew it was time to get up, and I’d never felt so tired before.

I looked at the clock and saw that it was after six, so nearly four hours to stew over the questions they were going to ask and the answers I’d give them.

That mock session in my head lasted precisely ten minutes when there was a knock on the door.

No one came to visit me at this hour.  No one came to visit me, period.  I crossed to the door and looked through the viewer.

Annabel.

Then panic of a different sort set in.  She’d never called by my place never expressed a desire to go there and now she was here.

I had never invited anyone home, it was always a borderline mess, but in an organised way, because I never thought that day would come, or that it be a girl who would want to.

The place was more disorganised than usual, I wasn’t dressed, and it had been impressed on me a long time ago that it would never do to be seen other than immaculately dressed, and I couldn’t leave her standing outside the door.

Whatever hope I may have had in fostering a relationship of any sort was about to go out the window.  I took a deep breath and opened the door.

“Annabel.”

“Richard.”

And then I stood there like a statue, the extent of my social small talk exhausted.

She waited about thirty seconds and then asked, “May I come in?”

“It’s a bit messy, well, a lot messy.  I wasn’t expecting visitors.”

She smiled.  “You should see my room.”

I shrugged, stood to one side, and let her pass.  I closed the door and leaned against it.

She did a 360-degree turn in the middle of the living room, ending up looking at me.

“This is what I would call a representation of you, Richard.”

I was not sure how to take that.  There were piles of papers and textbooks on the dining table and chairs.  Unlike some places I’d been, discarded clothes did not stay where they landed or languished on the backs of chairs.  The kitchen bench was crowded with appliances and food boxes.  The floors were clean, whereas stacks of books were not.

At least you could sit in the chairs.

“A place for everything, and everything in its place.  You have a lot of books.”

She’d notice the four sets of shelves filled to overflowing.

“I don’t get out much.”

“Perhaps you should.”

A hint.  Was she hinting she was available?  I had not realised then that I was still in my pyjamas, and could feel the pinkish tinge of embarrassment.

“Sorry.  Just got out of bed.  Didn’t sleep much.  Didn’t want to sleep through the alarm.”

“I thought I’d drop in.  Just to make sure you were OK.”

“I’m sorry about yesterday.  I wasn’t thinking.  I appreciated the gesture, and perhaps didn’t quite…”

“You get dressed, Richard.  I’ll make some tea and ferret out something to eat.  Then we can talk.”

About what, I wondered as I went up the passage.

I wanted to believe that it might be about her and I, but I was realistic enough to know that there were expectations of her from her parents that didn’t include people like me.

And I was fine with that.  Just to be her friend was enough.

I spent more time that I should, showering and dressing, and thinking of all the topics she might have up for discussion, and I finally came to the conclusion that this was probably the last time.

She had been mentioning the fact her parents were moving to the other side of the country, and she was to go with them.  Her studies were done, and she was now ready to take up a management role in her father’s company.

I knew she was having reservations, starting at the middle, over the top of others who had to fight their way up the ladder, and the resentment it would bring.    All I had said was it was a golden opportunity.  It hadn’t been received very well and I had wondered later if I should have not agreed with her father.

That’s the trouble with words, once they’re out there, there’s no taking them back.

When I came back, she had cleared the table and sat, a cup of tea in front of her, and one on the other side, waiting for me.

She had a pensive look on her face.  Or was it troubled?

I sat.  It felt like a seat at the inquisition.

“I’m not going.”  She used a tone that dared me to disagree.

“Going where?”

“San Francisco.  Why would I want to go there?  It’s the other side of the country, away from everyone I know, everyone I care about.”

Should I agree with her, or play devil’s advocate?  I sipped the tea instead.

Perhaps if looked closer before I might have seen the hastily repaired eye makeup, a sign that she had been crying, or maybe shed a few tears?  Had she been arguing with her father? I’d met him once and he was a force of nature, not a man I would cross.

And I just remembered last night she had been summoned to dinner with her parents and brother, an equally forceful type that I didn’t like.  He’s once warned me that his sister would never be allowed to have a boyfriend like me, and I’d assured him that had never been nor ever would be my intention.

I was just surprised he could think that.

“So dinner didn’t go well.”

“Not after I threw my pudding at Leonard.”  The seriousness left her face for a moment to allow a whimsical smile at the memory of it, then back to thunder.

“Well, that is an interesting way to decline an invitation, one I might add, most people your age would kill for.”

“I’m not a manager.”

That was another bone of contention.  She completed her MBA, as well as a few other degrees, as a means of staying here.  That was no longer a reason.

“Not what your qualifications paint you as.”

“Whose side are you on?”

“Whose side do you want me to be on?”

A ferocious glare told me I was treading on very, very thin ice.

“Alright.  I’m on your side.  Stay.”

“Where?  If I stay, no allowance, no apartment, no car, nothing.  I was virtually told that I would have to be either a checkout clerk or a waitress in a sleazy bar.”

“Why a sleazy bar?”

“Leonard obviously frequents them, enough to suggest it.”

A thought came into my head, and I cast it aside instantly.  “Would you?”

“No.  A diner maybe, I can and have been a waitress, and it’s not all bad.”

“With an MBA at your disposal?”

She made a face.

“What do you really want to do.  I mean, you have spent your life being someone else, someone who deserves more than just being a waitress.”

“There’s more.”

“How can there be more?”

“My choice of boyfriend.”

“I thought what’s his name, yes, William, was just the sort of boy who would be eminently suitable.  You took him home one weekend, and what was it you said, they loved him, more than they loved you.”

“That was the problem, he was too perfect.  I didn’t love him; I couldn’t love him.”

“Why?”

“Because… I care about someone else.  Of course, he’s too blind to see what’s right in front of him.”

A new boyfriend.  She’s been playing that one close to her chest.

“Then perhaps I should go and see him and drop some very unsubtle hints.”

Of course, it took a few more seconds for the cogs to turn, and the pieces fall into place.  It was not another boy.

“I have no real prospects, Annabel.  If it’s me you are alluding to?”

“Yet I know how you feel about me, how I feel when I’m with you, even if you are frustrating me into the middle of next week.  You’re going to get that job, Richard, and then you will have prospects, certainly enough for me.  You do love me?”

“More than you can imagine, I just never thought…”

“No.  It’s what I love about you, you never assume, and you never take me for granted.”

“Where are you going to stay?”

“Here, of course, though it could do with a woman’s touch.” She smiled.

“Are you going to survive without the Davison billions?”

“I have an MBA, you said so yourself.  I’m sure I’ll come up with something.  Besides, when I told my father anything he could do I could do better, my mother muttered under her breath, ‘good for you Annabel.’.  At least she had faith in me.”

Well, that seemed settled. 

“When are you moving out of the penthouse?”

“Now.  We have just enough time for me to move in before your appointment.”

…

©  Charles Heath 2023

…

Time and I never quite achieved that level of understanding required for me to be where I was supposed to be at the appointed time.

It was why my mother always told me my appointments were an hour earlier than the right time, and while she was alive that worked well.

At Uni I simply tagged along with the others and was rarely late for lectures tutorials and exams.

But once that ended and I was cast out into the big unhelpful world it became a problem again.  Time became my enemy.

It was that thought, along with a dozen other unrelated but equally worrisome thoughts that were uppermost in my mind.

I had an important meeting at 10am that morning, one that might just decide the course of the rest of my life.

I was lying awake staring alternately at the ceiling and that alarm clock, on one hand fearing I would go to sleep and miss waking up and on the other how unrelentingly slow time took to pass.

Only three minutes had passed since the last time I looked, and it felt like at least an hour.

Annabel had said she would stay with me and make sure I was ready, then take me, just to make sure I got there, but it seemed overkill, and surely, she had better things to do.

It wasn’t until about two hours ago that I finally realised what she really meant, and I’d been kicking myself for being so blind.

Several others had told me she liked me, but I thought she was being nice to a somewhat eccentric friend.  Now I realised it was more than that, and I would have to make amends somehow.

I just didn’t understand the nuances of romance or women for that matter.

As daylight seeped in he the cracks in the curtains I knew it was time to get up, and I’d never felt so tired before.

I looked at the clock and saw that it was after six, so nearly four hours to stew over the questions they were going to ask and the answers I’d give them.

That mock session in my head lasted precisely ten minutes when there was a knock on the door.

No one came to visit me at this hour.  No one came to visit me, period.  I crossed to the door and looked through the viewer.

Annabel.

Then panic of a different sort set in.  She’d never called by my place never expressed a desire to go there and now she was here.

I had never invited anyone home, it was always a borderline mess, but in an organised way, because I never thought that day would come, or that it be a girl who would want to.

The place was more disorganised than usual, I wasn’t dressed, and it had been impressed on me a long time ago that it would never do to be seen other than immaculately dressed, and I couldn’t leave her standing outside the door.

Whatever hope I may have had in fostering a relationship of any sort was about to go out the window.  I took a deep breath and opened the door.

“Annabel.”

“Richard.”

And then I stood there like a statue, the extent of my social small talk exhausted.

She waited about thirty seconds and then asked, “May I come in?”

“It’s a bit messy, well, a lot messy.  I wasn’t expecting visitors.”

She smiled.  “You should see my room.”

I shrugged, stood to one side, and let her pass.  I closed the door and leaned against it.

She did a 360-degree turn in the middle of the living room, ending up looking at me.

“This is what I would call a representation of you, Richard.”

I was not sure how to take that.  There were piles of papers and textbooks on the dining table and chairs.  Unlike some places I’d been, discarded clothes did not stay where they landed or languished on the backs of chairs.  The kitchen bench was crowded with appliances and food boxes.  The floors were clean, whereas stacks of books were not.

At least you could sit in the chairs.

“A place for everything, and everything in its place.  You have a lot of books.”

She’d notice the four sets of shelves filled to overflowing.

“I don’t get out much.”

“Perhaps you should.”

A hint.  Was she hinting she was available?  I had not realised then that I was still in my pyjamas, and could feel the pinkish tinge of embarrassment.

“Sorry.  Just got out of bed.  Didn’t sleep much.  Didn’t want to sleep through the alarm.”

“I thought I’d drop in.  Just to make sure you were OK.”

“I’m sorry about yesterday.  I wasn’t thinking.  I appreciated the gesture, and perhaps didn’t quite…”

“You get dressed, Richard.  I’ll make some tea and ferret out something to eat.  Then we can talk.”

About what, I wondered as I went up the passage.

I wanted to believe that it might be about her and I, but I was realistic enough to know that there were expectations of her from her parents that didn’t include people like me.

And I was fine with that.  Just to be her friend was enough.

I spent more time that I should, showering and dressing, and thinking of all the topics she might have up for discussion, and I finally came to the conclusion that this was probably the last time.

She had been mentioning the fact her parents were moving to the other side of the country, and she was to go with them.  Her studies were done, and she was now ready to take up a management role in her father’s company.

I knew she was having reservations, starting at the middle, over the top of others who had to fight their way up the ladder, and the resentment it would bring.    All I had said was it was a golden opportunity.  It hadn’t been received very well and I had wondered later if I should have not agreed with her father.

That’s the trouble with words, once they’re out there, there’s no taking them back.

When I came back, she had cleared the table and sat, a cup of tea in front of her, and one on the other side, waiting for me.

She had a pensive look on her face.  Or was it troubled?

I sat.  It felt like a seat at the inquisition.

“I’m not going.”  She used a tone that dared me to disagree.

“Going where?”

“San Francisco.  Why would I want to go there?  It’s the other side of the country, away from everyone I know, everyone I care about.”

Should I agree with her, or play devil’s advocate?  I sipped the tea instead.

Perhaps if looked closer before I might have seen the hastily repaired eye makeup, a sign that she had been crying, or maybe shed a few tears?  Had she been arguing with her father? I’d met him once and he was a force of nature, not a man I would cross.

And I just remembered last night she had been summoned to dinner with her parents and brother, an equally forceful type that I didn’t like.  He’s once warned me that his sister would never be allowed to have a boyfriend like me, and I’d assured him that had never been nor ever would be my intention.

I was just surprised he could think that.

“So dinner didn’t go well.”

“Not after I threw my pudding at Leonard.”  The seriousness left her face for a moment to allow a whimsical smile at the memory of it, then back to thunder.

“Well, that is an interesting way to decline an invitation, one I might add, most people your age would kill for.”

“I’m not a manager.”

That was another bone of contention.  She completed her MBA, as well as a few other degrees, as a means of staying here.  That was no longer a reason.

“Not what your qualifications paint you as.”

“Whose side are you on?”

“Whose side do you want me to be on?”

A ferocious glare told me I was treading on very, very thin ice.

“Alright.  I’m on your side.  Stay.”

“Where?  If I stay, no allowance, no apartment, no car, nothing.  I was virtually told that I would have to be either a checkout clerk or a waitress in a sleazy bar.”

“Why a sleazy bar?”

“Leonard obviously frequents them, enough to suggest it.”

A thought came into my head, and I cast it aside instantly.  “Would you?”

“No.  A diner maybe, I can and have been a waitress, and it’s not all bad.”

“With an MBA at your disposal?”

She made a face.

“What do you really want to do.  I mean, you have spent your life being someone else, someone who deserves more than just being a waitress.”

“There’s more.”

“How can there be more?”

“My choice of boyfriend.”

“I thought what’s his name, yes, William, was just the sort of boy who would be eminently suitable.  You took him home one weekend, and what was it you said, they loved him, more than they loved you.”

“That was the problem, he was too perfect.  I didn’t love him; I couldn’t love him.”

“Why?”

“Because… I care about someone else.  Of course, he’s too blind to see what’s right in front of him.”

A new boyfriend.  She’s been playing that one close to her chest.

“Then perhaps I should go and see him and drop some very unsubtle hints.”

Of course, it took a few more seconds for the cogs to turn, and the pieces fall into place.  It was not another boy.

“I have no real prospects, Annabel.  If it’s me you are alluding to?”

“Yet I know how you feel about me, how I feel when I’m with you, even if you are frustrating me into the middle of next week.  You’re going to get that job, Richard, and then you will have prospects, certainly enough for me.  You do love me?”

“More than you can imagine, I just never thought…”

“No.  It’s what I love about you, you never assume, and you never take me for granted.”

“Where are you going to stay?”

“Here, of course, though it could do with a woman’s touch.” She smiled.

“Are you going to survive without the Davison billions?”

“I have an MBA, you said so yourself.  I’m sure I’ll come up with something.  Besides, when I told my father anything he could do I could do better, my mother muttered under her breath, ‘good for you Annabel.’.  At least she had faith in me.”

Well, that seemed settled. 

“When are you moving out of the penthouse?”

“Now.  We have just enough time for me to move in before your appointment.”

…

©  Charles Heath 2023

I remembered sitting in on the briefing for the raid the next morning.  The officer in charge said, at one point, you hit hard and fast just before dawn when everyone is still asleep.

It was the time of least resistance.

That raid went off exactly as planned, the people whom the task force had been targeting were all there, along with the contraband that had arrived the night before and was sitting on the kitchen table.

It was just one of several thoughts going through my mind, an hour before dawn, unable to sleep.

Another and perhaps more potent thought was the aftermath of what could only be described as a witch hunt. 

That task force’s success had slowly diminished, its raids were less effective and then ineffective.  The only explanation, we had an informer on the team

And in the usual blunt force methodology for handling problems, officers were singled out, investigated, and then moved on.  Guilty or not, their reputations are destroyed.

I was one of them.

Of course, I made a mistake, but the thing is I should have known the woman I’d been dating at the time was a relative of one of the crime families we’d been investigating, and for those investigating the task force it was a slam dunk connection.

It didn’t matter there was no link between her and the criminals other than by name.  I didn’t get booted out of the police, just sidelined into a dead-end basement, shuffling paper.

And the woman stayed with me, despite the heavy-handed investigative process that destroyed her reputation too.

I was angry, she was resigned.

I wanted revenge, she wanted to move to a remote croft in northern Scotland and forget about the rest of the world, and I was finding it hard to find an argument against doing just that.

Perhaps then I would get a good night’s sleep.

I heard a cell phone receiving a message, and then a minute or two later, Angelica emerged with the offending cell phone in hand.

“They’re coming,” she said.

The whole ordeal we had been dragged through had taken a toll on her more than me, and she was almost a shadow of her former self.

“Who’s coming?”

“Your people.”

It was not delivered with rancour, just as a statement of fact.

“How do you know this?”

“My father.”

“I thought you had no contact with them?”

“I didn’t, but after all of this, he reached out.  He offered a helping hand, but I declined.  Seems he wasn’t listening.”

She flopped into the seat next to me.

“How does he know?”

“How does anyone know anything?  We should go.”

“Where?  Running is the admission of guilt.”  It seemed obvious to me, knowing how the system worked.  They were not going to let it go.

“So, we’re staying?”

“Do you want to go?”

“Yes.”

“How long have we got?”

“About a half hour traffic withstanding.”

I shrugged.  Why not.  No point in going through another round of meaningless accusations.

“OK.”

We didn’t go far, oddly at Christina’s request, and it made me think there was more to the message she received.

She had insisted I bring binoculars and we took up a position on a carpark roof a little over half a mile from our residence, a sort where we had a perfect view of the front and rear entrances.

We just made it when several cars pulled up out the front and one blocked off the rear.  At least 20 officers in bulletproof vests and a dozen swat officers swarmed around the building.

32 officers versus two allegedly unarmed people.

Overkill.

What were they expecting?  A small army.

I watched the usual briefing of team leaders and then the disbursement of personnel to the front, rear, and escape points. There were three.

Then the swat officers went first, in sync through the front and rear doors, with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

Just before dawn, at the peak of the targets unpreparedness.

In less than a minute, six shots rang out.  Six.

Angelica looked at me.  She knew the significance of it as well as I did.  “We were not meant to walk away from that.”

It was a simple statement with huge ramifications.

Someone was covering their tracks, and using us as scapegoats.

I watched the front entrance, waiting to see who emerged, and I was betting it would be someone else, other than the usual crew.

Fifteen minutes it took.  About as long as it would take to see that we had stuffed the bed with lifelike dummies, then searched the building, discovering the almost well-hidden entrance to the basement, and then the entrance to an escape tunnel.

The fact only three came out of the front entrance told me there were 20 plus officers down the rabbit hole chasing ghosts.  It would take several hours before they realised, they’d been deceived.

But, back at the front entrance, I knew the three, and none of them would pull the trigger on unarmed targets.

I waited and was rewarded.

Montgomery. A shadowy little man hired to train us in shadowy stuff.  I’d read a file on him that I’d received from an external source and among his many talents, alleged assassinations of people we couldn’t touch, not that any of the crimes his name was attached to had been proved.

The perfect man for an off-book operation.

A few sharp words to the officer in charge and he was gone.

“Scotland’s looking good then,” she said.

”Very good.  How did they know what was about to go down?”

“Bad people need badder people to organise hits like this.”

“And your father…”

“Knows bad people who do bad things.  Be grateful you’re still alive.  And, you know who it is now trying to kill us.”

“But not the person who ordered it.  Now you have an entry point.  If you want to stay, do so, but I’m not.  I’m going to Scotland.  I’ve been innocent of any wrongdoing, and the fact they chose not to believe that means their worst fears are going to come true.”

“They’re not all bad people?”

I wanted to believe that, but it looked more and more like I picked the wrong task force to be on.  It begged the question of how deep the problem was.

“You just saw what happened.  We’d be dead now if it had been for that message.  I think you can safely assume they want a scapegoat and you’re it.  I would have been collateral damage.”

She was right.  I could stay, and talk to friends, but who could I really trust?  And with the sort of lies and manufactured evidence they could create against me, who would believe me?

“Then, two for Scotland it is.”

She smiled and took my hand in hers.  “Good choice.  Time to go.”

Two words with so much left unsaid.  What had been the ‘bad choice’?

…

© Charles Heath 2023