Grief

"It's all right, Bruce.  It was a natural thing to consider."

My former elementary school was nearby.  My wife worked there, and I suspected that on that particular evening, since she knew I would be tied up with the kids, had probably decided to remain later than usual and catch up on one thing or another.  She was a bit of a workaholic.  Her SUV was parked in the lot.  Her building was in pretty fair shape, only a bashed in front entry door to suggest anything amiss.  It was dimly lit inside, but still light streamed in from the many windows and skylights generously supplied to each classroom.  I ran directly to her room.  The door was locked.  I checked the bathrooms.  No one.  On a hunch, I returned to her room and through her door window, looked for her light switch visible next to the chalk board.  The switch was flipped up.  She wouldn't have left her lights on unless she was returning.  There were two other places that she might have been, the office or the teachers’ supply room.  I decided that the most likely place was the teachers’ room. 

I held my breath as I opened the door.  Rounding the working table that held the large paper cutter and laminator, I spied all that remained of my Lynn-Eve.  There, on the floor, lay one of her favourite light brown skirts encircling her matching blouse.  What I had called her lacey shoes peeked out from under the pile on each side.   Reaching down, I picked up her blouse and held it in my hands.  This was all that was left of my companion, my best friend, my lover.  What had we said about growing old together?

I had been rather oblivious to my surroundings, so didn't realize that I had company.  I felt a hand on my shoulder.  Panic seized me and I turned to take a swipe at whatever it was, only to find Lise, teary eyed trying to console me.  I softened and allowed her to stretch her arms around me and hold me close.  I could constrain myself no longer.  It was my turn now.   And the tears tumbled out.  As I was about to leave, my eye caught sight of a shiny object on the carpet near the shoes.  I stooped down and retrieved a small round piece of gold metal that Lynn-Eve had worn on her finger, where I had placed it so many years before accompanied by the words “with this ring, I thee wed”.

From home to home we encountered the same story.  If both parents hadn't been at the school, then we found the remains of their clothes or their sibling’s at their house.  One thing that proved useful on this trip to town was stepping into Bruce’s place.  His father, being an avid hunter, had a massive collection of firearms, ammunition and other weapons, a fact  that he had not hidden from Bruce, whom he had personally trained in their use from the time Bruce had been capable of holding them.  In his father’s mind, by sharing his love and respect for his weapons collection and stressing the need for safety, Bruce would not grow up constantly curious about what was locked up in the cabinets stored in his basement.  Indeed, Bruce had his own key to the cabinets, and safety was one of Bruce’s main concerns.  What was even more surprising, considering Bruce’s penchant for talking about himself, he seldom mentioned guns at all.  But then, considering the new climate that had occurred after the attack on the twin towers and the massacres that had occurred at several schools over the years, too much conversation on that topic would probably have ended with Bruce spending time with me, in the office. 

I watched as Bruce seemingly fiddled with a thermostat, as if it could turn on the furnace for it was chilly in the basement.  Suddenly, a wall began to move, opening into a secret vault that Bruce’s father had built, where he stored some illegal, unregistered weapons.  Well, they weren’t illegal anymore and might just come in handy.  Handguns, ammunition, scopes, archery equipment, and there was even equipment for reloading the spent cartridges, including several containers of powder and primers were neatly stashed in this incredibly ingenious location.  I picked up one handgun that had a sight on the back.  I hadn't known that gun manufacturers had made any this way.    

"Be careful with that, sir.  It's loaded."

I immediately placed the handgun back on the shelf.  "It's a fine piece of craftsmanship," I remarked.

"It was one of Dad's favorites," Bruce answered as he retrieved the weapon and placed it in a special suitcase designed to hold several more of its kind.  "If Dad had been home, I expect we would be seeing some of our enemy lying around here, too.  He wouldn't have gone down without a fight.  Mom wasn't into guns."

Although the tire store had a supply of weaponry, theirs didn't match the quality of this stash and best of all; Bruce knew how to use every one of them.  We packed as much as we could into the back of the van and headed out.