quesarah | Challenge response

king_ghidorah issued a New Year's challenge: write a piece of original fiction 366 words in length (one for every day of 2004) and post it here. Mine is more like one and a half words for every day, but he says that's okay. (He knows how I get to talking and can't stop.)

Dutiful Son

John hadn’t been back to Cleveland in ten years, but when he stepped out of the airport it felt like he’d never left. The familiar sight of the Ford plant billowing white plumes greeted him. Factory smoke burned his lungs. The potholes in the road were the same, dotting the streets between orange barrels. The smell of asphalt hung in the summer air, a product of the summertime's perpetual road patching program. And as he neared his childhood home, he saw that St. Mary’s church still cast her oppressive shadow on his parents’ neighborhood, sitting back from the street like some feudal manor.

His mother greeted him at the door, kissed him lightly and offered to make him a plate of food. She looked disappointed when he declined and she commented that he looked skinny. His weight had been nearly constant for three years, but he supposed he looked thin in relation to his brother’s expanding midsection. John studied his brother as they shook hands. Joe’s neck was thick and he was developing jowls. His eyes were recessed behind puffy cheeks.

Joe addressed their mother without turning his head. “Ma, can I get a cup of coffee? Two creams two sugars?”

“Of course, dear. John?”

“Black, please.”

Joe regarded John for a moment, his meaty hands straining the pockets of his grey suit pants.

“Mom’s packed up Dad’s stuff but she wants us to go through it in case there’s anything we’d like to keep. I was wondering about his watch; the one he got when he retired? I’d like to have that, if it’s all right with you.”

“It’s fine, Joe.”

“It’s just I’d like to have something of his to give Peter when he’s old enough, and since you’re not going to have—“

“I said it’s fine, Joe.” He failed to keep the irritation from his voice. Their mother had reappeared, coffee mugs in hand. She seemed embarrassed at having heard the exchange. Joe’s neck had gone pink around the collar of his white dress shirt. He nodded and walked away. John took his coffee outside. The humidity of the Ohio summer was oppressive but he preferred it to the atmosphere in the house.

******

He arrived at the wake promptly at the start of evening hours but was caught outside in a knot of relatives he hadn’t seen in years. After giving noncommittal answers to most of their questions and deflecting the rest, he entered the funeral parlor. His mother stood at the casket wearing an inscrutable expression, stroking one of his father’s hands. John’s gaze shifted from her to his father’s body, traveled up the length of the old man's good blue suit, past the politely folded hands to the somberly composed face. He looked sunken somehow; his chest, his cheeks, his eyes. He was hollow. Empty. As John gazed upon the body in casket he knew with unshakeable certainty that his father was gone.

John’s throat constricted; he felt the heat prick behind his eyes and suddenly he couldn't breathe. He ran from the room choking back a sob. His mother watched him, believing her youngest son regretted never reconciling with his father. Joe watched him, thinking his brother grieved not having as close a relationship with their father as he had. Joe even felt sorry that John lost the chance to have what he had.

Out in the hall, John thought of never again hearing his father’s voice; of never again hearing the accusations that lay behind everything said, moreso behind what went unsaid. He thought of never again feeling the judgment implicit in his father's gaze.

He covered his face and wept in relief.