Page 34 of Parker
Ebony and I stand in perfect synchronization. She follows me from the office, her heels noisy on the tiles.
“You could’ve warned me,” she says, once my father’s door is closed and we are alone in the hallway. I stop but don’t answer. “You blindsided everyone. Including me. That’s not just bad PR, Joel—it’s personal.” Then she walks away.
***
I sit at home, mindlessly hitting the buttons on the controller. My avatar runs across the screen slaying aliens while I watch on vacantly, my emotions conflicted between guilt and desire. This virtual world offers me escape.
The warrior is swinging his sword, slicing the green bodies in half. Blood splatters everywhere as he runs to his next victim.The task is strangely comforting, as if I’m slaying a few demons of my own.
I keep thinking about the look Ebony gave me outside my father’s office: half pity, half warning. She hasn’t messaged since, but I know I’ll be seeing her again soon. She always circles back. PR, they say, but she’s more than that. She knows where the bodies are buried. Sometimes, because she helped dig the graves.
If only a power up and a sword could slay real monsters.
I’m not concentrating—an alien invader slices my hero in two.Game Overflashes on my TV. For me, it very well could be.
***
The ringing in my ears wakes me from my slumber. Looking around, confused, I see my phone vibrate madly on the glass coffee table. My dinner lies uneaten on the floor—it must have fallen from my lap as I drifted off—curry sauce is splattered across my wool carpet. Fuck’s sake, that will never come out.
Imelda Calling
Urgh, I really cannot deal with my mother just now. The phone goes silent and then immediately starts ringing again. Reluctantly, I answer her call.
“Joel,” she shrieks. “It’s your father. He’s dead.” She’s sobbing down the line as I process her words. There’s a sinking feeling in my stomach. I killed him with my betrayal. My selfishness.
“What happened?” I stammer.
“They found him in the river. They think he had a heart attack and fell in during his evening jog.”
“Where are you?” I ask. “I’m coming.” I grab my keys and run for the door. As much as he affected my life in a negative way, he was my father, and now, he’s gone.
***
The hospital mortuary is bleak. My father lies motionless on the steel bench covered to the neck in a white sheet. His skin is pale, all the life gone from him.
I hold my mother in my arms as tears stream down her face. She shakes, and I know it’s from the fear of being alone. Without him to control her every move, she won’t know what to do with herself.
Since the tender age of eighteen, he’s been her dictator. She’s now facing life without direction.
“What will we do?” she whispers. “How will we cope? There is only us and so much to manage.”
“I know.”
There is nothing else I can say. Nothing that will ease the terror we both feel at being left our family businesses to control and manage.
Neither of us truly knows what goes on in Parker Industries, only what my father allowed us to see. I’m absolutely sure I’d rather remain unaware of most of his dealings. But now, we must learn to handle it all, no matter how dark or uncomfortable it makes us.
After the death of the Parker CEO, I know the company moves into survival mode with the key personnel shifting to maintain the running of the business while they train the new boss, which should be me.
Having not long recovered from alcoholism and a near breakdown, I know the added pressure is something I won’t handle well. But who else is there?
Without siblings or a close male relative, my future is predetermined unless my mother and I devise an alternative.
***
The cemetery is filled with a sea of black. Men, women, and children have turned out to pay their respects to my father.
Nicky clutches my hand. I feel her terror—our first public event is my father’s funeral. The woman is incredible. When I told her of my father’s death, she immediately came to my side and hasn’t left.
