Ripples Through Time (21 page)

“Damn it!” I mumble, turning the ignition.

Slowly, my car rolls out of the driveway.

One
Week Ago… - Richard Greenwood

The ostentatious and elegant lobby of the Parker-Kingston
building was packed with dapper, fashionable men and women. The sort of
citizens that are conspicuous in a crowd wearing multiple thousand dollar suits.
Richard’s kind of people.

Eye contact was exchanged, nods were offered, but barely a
word was spoken. The only sounds were the clacking of shoes across marble
flooring and the trickling of water down a faux waterfall in the central
chamber of the decadent lobby.

Everyone was in a hurry: lawyers always were. Their time was
important because they were able to use it effectively. Wasting it was a nearly
unforgivable sin. The job was demanding. Only a certain type of person really
thrived in it.

Richard was that type of person. He was that type of person
in spades. He could handle anything the job threw at him, hitting homeruns on
curveballs. If lawyers stood out in a crowd then
he
stood out in a crowd
of lawyers.

And that wasn’t bragging. He wasn’t the type to brag. He
just understood the importance of projecting well-earned confidence.

Rick shouldered his way through the milling crowd in front
of the elevator. He didn’t have time to wait. He was a fairly big man,
well-built and handsome. Part of his appeal was sheer charisma, and the rest
was physical attraction. If
he
knew he was important, then everyone else
would as well. He felt it in their lingering gazes wherever he walked. Women
couldn’t take their eyes off of him. Men were jealous and deferential.

He rode the elevator and walked into his offices. To his
right and left were full length windows showing picturesque views of the city
beyond, tinted to keep the sun at bay whilst showcasing the best skyline in the
city. It was like stepping into a work of art, beautiful and serene.

And intentional. Follow the left hallway around the corner
and find a series of windowless rooms where tired people typed reports and
correspondence. The right hallway hid an under stocked break room and
maintenance closet.

“Morning, Mr. Greenwood,” Georgia, one of the secretaries,
said.

He nodded in acknowledgement, frowning toward the meeting
room. “No one is here yet?”

“Um, no,” Georgia said, an uncomfortable look on her face. The
way she knit her eyebrows together when she was thinking hard was endearing. “I
called Mr. Reddington earlier to—”

“Just send them in when they arrive,” Richard interrupted
impatiently, heading for the more extravagant of the conference rooms.

“But Mr. Greenwood I have a memo—”

“Later,” Richard replied. “Add it to my schedule.”

Richard slid smoothly into the office, taking his seat at
the head of the table. He set his briefcase down and frowned at the projector
mounted into the ceiling. It was turned off.

He’d e-mailed his PowerPoint this morning, which meant they
should have had it loaded and ready. It was that kind of oversight and laziness
he was coming to expect from the staff. If it were up to him, the IT worker responsible
would be fired.

Not that it mattered. Richard could load his own PowerPoint.
Hell, a trained monkey could, which is what made the IT department so sad. They
didn’t even have a difficult job, yet could barely perform it.

Once he’d gotten the computer fired up and the projector
turned on he set about finding the presentation. He navigated to his file,
double clicked it, and waited for it to load.

It didn’t. The projector went blue and the screen flashed an
error. Richard narrowed his eyes and clicked it again. Nothing, just another
error.

He pushed open the door to the conference room: “Georgia?”

She glanced up at him timidly. “Sir?”

“Send in IT.”

“But, sir, everyone is—”

He didn’t let her finish, but let the door swing back
closed. She was probably going to tell him it was their lunchtime, and quite
frankly he didn’t care.

He tried the file again. It still didn’t load.

“If only it were an Apple computer…” he mused.

After a few minutes the door opened and Georgia stepped
lightly into the conference hall. “Sir?”

He scowled. “Where is IT?”

She walked gingerly to his computer and frowned at the
screen. “It’s just the—”

“Georgia whatever is wrong with the—”

“Projector needs to be turned to the right HDMI connector
and—”

“Stupid computer is something you can’t fix and it’s just a
horrible design on Microsoft’s part, because they are a terrible company that—”

“And we just need to…” Georgia tapped a few keys and pressed
a button on the table. The image flashed to life, displaying his presentation.

“Are the others here yet?”

She cringed. “No, sir, they aren’t coming.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that after we got the memo everyone decided to
postpone the meeting. Out of respect.”

“You mean you let me come in here and set everything up and
no one else is even
coming
?”

Panic entered her eyes. “I’m sorry you just seemed—”

He waved his hand and sighed, rubbing his eyes. “When is
later?”

“They’re waiting for you to reschedule,” she said.

“Me? Why?”

“Because of the memo,” she said.

“What memo?”

Her face turned ashen. She rushed back out of the conference
room and snagged something off of her desk. Richard frowned at her, confused,
as she came back in.

She mumbled something and handed him a memo. Then she
disappeared.

He glanced down at the paper and felt the blood drain from
his face.

Richard rubbed absently at the stubble on his jaw, staring
out the windshield at the gathered traffic. Seeing none of it.  His mind was on
autopilot stuck replaying one event nearly thirty years ago over and over
again; a 787 Dreamliner could have landed on the interstate in front of his
Lexus and he wouldn’t have noticed.

“…day at least?”

He blinked and glanced to his side. His wife, Deborah, sat
there in her modest mourning dress. Her skin was still smooth after all of
these years and her eyes still held the same spark, but her hair was starting
to turn gray. She dyed it—the wrong shade, she’d admitted to him (he couldn’t
tell the difference)—and if he’d never seen it during their morning rituals he
wouldn’t have guessed.

The truth was, she appeared ten years younger than her
driver’s license would admit to, which simultaneously made her seem young and
him feel old. He was, after all, ten years her senior and nearing his
fifty-third birthday. Or fifty-fourth. He’d have to ask her to be sure.

She was smiling at him. It was a demure smile, innocent. The
smile he fell in love with and made him want to marry her.

Richard must have looked haggard indeed if she was bringing
that
smile out.

“Hmm?” he replied.

“I was just saying how nice the day was,” Deborah said,
vaguely gesturing out the window.  

He didn’t reply. Idle conversation wasn’t his strong suit on
the best of days. And today was anything but the best.

Richard had known his mother was sick, he just didn’t know
she had progressed so far so fast.

He glanced in the rearview mirror. Sally, his eldest
daughter, was staring out the window and bobbing her head gently from side to
side. Humming. Richard thought to turn the radio on for her, but dismissed the
idea. The noise would just annoy him.

On the other side of the car, directly behind him, was his
son Richard Jr. That was his birth name, though everyone called him by his
middle name, Francis. An enormous book lay sprawled across his lap; probably
his Chemistry textbook. Francis had an incredible memory but almost no common
sense.

He felt Deborah set her hand on his. He smiled at her,
determined to force his anger down deep. Anger with his father. This shouldn’t
have been the first phone call. He should have been told sooner, when he could
have done something about it. He doubted Emily had gotten the best possible
care. Not something his father could have afforded.

But anger wouldn’t do any good: today was a day of mourning,
not digging up old grievances. Today he would bury the hatchet and pretend to
be a real family. A loving family. And if his brother and sister were incapable
of that then, well, Richard and his family just wouldn’t stay long.

“Are you okay?” Deborah asked him.

He shrugged absently. “We don’t have to stay long,” Richard
said, just to say something.

Deborah frowned. He stared back out the front, drumming the
fingers of his left hand on the leather steering wheel.

“We don’t have to rush out either,” she replied. “You
haven’t seen your family in—”

“I’m here for Emily,” he interrupted softly. “Not them.”

A moment passed. Deborah looked down at her lap.

“
We’re
here for Emily,” she said.

He sighed. “You know what I meant,” said Richard. “They made
their choice. I made mine.”

“You still can’t forgive them?”

“There’s nothing to forgive,” he said, pulling his hand free
and setting it on his leg. His tone was final, end of conversation, and they
drove the rest of the way—ten minutes—in silence.

The funeral home was a single floor sprawling complex
designed to handle several large parties simultaneously. Aesthetically it had
the same quality as an old farmhouse. A poor choice, in Richard’s estimation.

Richard brought the Lexus to a stop in a spot near the exit
and let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding.

“The viewing will only last another twenty minutes,” he
explained. “And then the eulogy will begin.”

“The burial is after?” Sally asked. He nodded.

“But we aren’t staying for that,” he said. “Just the
eulogy.”

“Okay,” Sally said, opening her door and slipping outside.
She looked like her mother but had his eyes.

“We should go to the burial with your family,” Deborah said
as the kids headed off.

“The burial isn’t here. It’s at a cemetery up the road,” he
said. “If we make that trip we’ll be stuck in rush hour traffic.”

“Still…”

“The burial isn’t important,” he said.

“It’s the final goodbye,” Deborah countered.

“They didn’t even ask me…” he started to say, and then
trailed off. He’d been about to say:
They didn’t even ask me to be a
pallbearer
and realized how petty it sounded. Of course they didn’t ask
him. He wouldn’t have asked them either, given the choice. He hadn’t even
talked to his mother more than once in the last two years. And it had been
longer than that since he’d visited his brother or sister. He wouldn’t have even
come if Deborah hadn’t talked him into it.
Do it for the kids, if not for
yourself
, she’d said. He had no argument for that.

“No burial,” he said, opening his door. Deborah met his eyes
and nodded.

“No burial,” she agreed, climbing out her side.

They passed under the awning and into the air conditioned
rooms beyond. Scents of rosemary and jasmine wafted in the air, with a hint of
lime and decay. Cheap fluorescent lights danced across a sea of pale faces.
Muttered conversations droned in the background, punctuated by the occasional
echoing cough. The lobby was packed; the parlor was packed; the bathrooms were
packed: a testament to the beloved woman everyone had come to see off.

Holding Deborah’s hand he shouldered his way through the
crowd. His footsteps clipped across the hardwood floor and then hushed as he
passed onto the viewing room’s plush carpet. He angled first to the casket and
then changed course and veered to his right and the back corner. Right now
Bethany and her husband were saying their farewells. He didn’t want to
interrupt them. Or talk to them.

“I’m going to go watch out for the kids,” Deborah said. Richard
nodded, scanning the crowd. He’d been expecting this, but it still shocked him
just how far he’d detached himself from his birth family. He recognized maybe
half the faces gathered in the viewing room.

He milled by the back, eavesdropping various conversations
and waiting. Five minutes passed, and then ten, and still there was a line of
people waiting for their time next to see his mother. So many people he didn’t
know; how many even knew his mother and weren’t the random well-wishers who
knew Emily only in passing? He wanted them to hurry up so the service could get
underway.

“Richard?”

Damn. Jason.

“Yes?” he asked, half turning and nodding to his younger
brother. Jason was a few inches taller than Richard, and also quite a bit
skinnier. Being strung out all those years ago had served his waistline rather
well.

And he still looked the part of a user, Richard decided,
even after all of these years working as a therapist. A trimmed beard adorned
his chin and his hair was long and loose about his shoulders.

Disrespectful to the end, Jason was wearing a colorful
sweater with brown suede pants. He looked more like a professor waiting for a symposium
than a mourner at his mother’s funeral.

No, Richard decided, my brother hasn’t changed at all.

“I wasn’t sure if you would come,” Jason said, offering a
glass of water. Richard sniffed it and took a sip.

“Yeah. Well. I’m here.”

“And your family came too,” Jason said, gesturing over at
them. Richard nodded curtly and took another sip of water. “Boy they are
getting big.”

Richard chose to believe Jason’s comment did not include his
wife.

“They are,” Richard agreed. “Francis will be eleven in a few
months and Sally just turned fourteen.”

“Ah, a fun age. Difficult, but fun.”

“Oh? I didn’t think you’d be an expert on raising children,”
Richard said. Jason’s eyes registered surprise before he composed himself.