Page 5 of Whatever Will Be

Fate undivided.

Whatever will be.”

I know there is plenty to be unhappy about.

But I also know I can count on the loyalty of my sister. And even my brother.

I’m starting to hope that might be enough to help me stand tall against the storms on the horizon.

1

Trent

I don’t know jack shit about funeral manners.

Manners aren’t my priority, never have been.

Yet I can’t shake the thought that I need to pay my respects.

I haven’t been in contact with anyone from the family and this is why I’m thinking about manners and wondering if it’s a fucked up gate crashing move to go knock on a door an hour after the girl who lived there was buried far too young.

Then again, a funeral isn’t a wedding or a tuxedo event. No one is shelling out three hundred bucks a plate and mailing out gold embossed invitations. When someone dies, you’re supposed to show up. That is, if you give a damn.

And I do.

Despite the fact that I haven’t seen Jules Aaronson in a hell of a long time, I was floored by the news she’d been killed in a car accident less than two miles from here on the night I returned to Lake Stuart. I even passed the scene and cursed the forced detour with no clue that a girl I grew up with had just lost her life.

That was three days ago. This morning Julianne Aaronson, lifelong resident of Lake Stuart, was laid to rest at Woodlawn Cemetery. I tried to force myself to attend the service and couldn’t. Woodlawn Cemetery is a place I’ve been to once and refuse to return to. That lone occasion was also a winter day, the day my mother was buried, but the month was December instead of February.

The digital version of the Lake Stuart Gazette only gave lean details of the accident. The streetlights were out. A garbage truck was parked where it wasn’t supposed to be parked and the roads were caked with a sheet of black ice. There was a link to click if you wanted to offer typed condolences and I clicked on the link but typed nothing because ‘thoughts and prayers’ aren’t in my vocabulary. But there was also information on the funeral plans and a request to donate to a local animal shelter instead of sending overpriced flowers that no one cares about and will die the next day.

Of course, I could have just called Danny instead of playing internet detective.

This is what I should have done.

The old days of childhood when we were the best of friends are long gone but we touch base now and then and I keep tabs on him. He spent some time playing college baseball in Michigan before being drafted into the major leagues. Danny’s lucky break came when he got called up from the minors after a wave of midseason player injuries left a gaping hole on the roster of the Boston Red Sox. His batting average that season was a personal best and he seemed destined for a seven figure multi-year contract and a permanent place in the sun.

Then his unlucky break came when he collided with the catcher at home plate and suffered a gruesome knee injury. He’s been down in the minor leagues ever since, playing for a second rate league in Arizona, earning peanuts, and hoping for another shot at the brass ring.

I haven’t seen him in a while and we don’t talk more than once or twice a year. Danny knows nothing about my return to Lake Stuart. He would have asked why the hell I’ve come back. The reason is a thorny one. It’s not worth thinking about today.

No, today I’m going to pay a visit to a house I used to like much more than I liked my own. Today I’m going to face my old best friend and shake his hand before telling him I’m sorry as fuck that there was ice and a garbage truck.

Worst of all, Jules left two little girls behind, which multiplies the heartbreak by a million.

The Aaronson family has suffered some hard knocks long before this. Years ago, Danny’s father bludgeoned a summer tourist to death following a traffic dispute. His family was shocked to pieces but I wasn’t shocked at all. Alex Aaronson was a heavy drinker with a crazy temper. He probably still has a crazy temper but I doubt he’s allowed to drink himself silly in prison. Before my dad’s mind evaporated, he had to chase Alex Aaronson off the brewery grounds all the time because the guy would run up monstrous tabs at the bar and irritate the paying customers.

The murder was Lake Stuart’s first one in something like thirty years and it was all anyone talked about. My fists got scraped up more than once from having Danny’s back when he had no choice but to shut people up when they decided to shoot their mouths off. As long as I live I’ll never understand what’s to be gained from kicking someone when they’re down but in high school it’s a regular old hobby. Jules seemed like she was able to brush off the noise and Danny was high enough on the social food chain that he could still hold his head up.

His other sister was another story. Skinny, rabbit-faced little Gretchen was always wound up a little too tight and the stress got to her. One day she snapped, started shrieking her head off in the middle of class and got sent to some hospital for a little while.

I lost track of what happened to her after that because my own life took a turn for the worse and the world of Lake Stuart became a memory. I guess Gretchen is all right now. Last time I heard from Danny he mentioned she was going to medical school.

Or maybe it was business school.

I forget.

School isn’t a subject I take an interest in. Not since I got accused of a phony crime invented by a psychopath and sent to a place that included the word ‘school’ but was the opposite.

---