Labor's End

Of course, by the time June rolled around, Billy had been dead for months. He could still see the man's face laughing and joking sometimes. Other times it was that thin line of blood that ran from the corner of his blue-grey lips as his lungs filled with blood until it overflowed.

Thing was that when he had run into the young man this morning, it indeed was like stepping back in time. Sure, the younger man's hair was more strawberry blonde than carrot top as Billy's had been. The kid was a bit taller too, perhaps even an inch taller than Mike. He was not as lanky as the man who had sired him either. Perhaps his stepfather's, his father Mike supposed would be more accurate, cooking accounted for that.

Other than those small differences this Billy looked way too much like his friend to be a cousin once removed or was it second cousins, Mike neither knew nor cared. The fact was that the young man was his friend's flesh and blood. But what was he going to do about it?

He was so caught up in those thoughts that he nearly missed the rattle of the old pickup truck until it stopped right in front of the house. Mike was not sure who it could be. Wouldn't Miss Landon have called rather than coming all the way here if something had happened to Mister Clyde?

When the door opened though those fears were allayed, and another set came to the forefront. It was the very woman whom he had been thinking of for most of this day, Brenda Jo Sanders Hall.

She smiled wanely as she pushed open the gate that had long since lost its latch. Mike added another item to his growing list of repairs around the old farm, though he was not sure why he was doing any of it. Other than the fact that it gave him something to do instead of thinking about his ghosts and tired him out enough that he hoped he would sleep without nightmares - at least some of the time.

"What are you doing here?" he asked as the woman climbed the steps. He hated the way it came out and opened his mouth to apologize.

Before he could though, she held up a plastic bag. "We don't usually do deliveries this far out. Honour, Oklahoma ain't no big city after all," he could tell how nervous she was by how she just kept talking 'a mile a minute.' He thought he remembered Missus Lula saying that about the girl, though she was far from the teenager, she had been back then.

"But I figured since you didn't make it in tonight, I'd swing by and see if I could bring you a peace offering." She inhaled and dropped her eyes to the wooden boards at their feet, which Mike had just repaired. "Have a bit of a chat maybe."

Mike wiped his hands on the front of his jeans, "Thank you. That was thoughtful." It seemed the woman was not the only one that was nervous.

"Care to come in? I would offer you something to drink, but I'm afraid water and beer are about all I have," he said as he held open the door.

"That's okay, I brought along a couple of cans of coke just in case," she replied as she walked through the front door and stopped dead cold only a couple of feet inside. "Oh my god," she whispered as her hand covered her mouth.

Mike frowned as she recovered enough to explain, "It's just that I have not been back in this house since..."

She stopped and swallowed. Mike thought perhaps he saw moisture collect in her eyes. They were both silent for a long moment before she spoke again, "Not since Billy's funeral."

He nodded because he did not know what more to say, "We can talk in the kitchen if you like," was the best he could come up with.

She nodded and followed him into it. He pulled out a worn chair with its faded yellow plastic seat and back. There were four of them around the Formica table in the center of the room. She took the seat as he opened the fridge and grabbed a beer. He held it out for her.

"No, thanks. I'm driving," she smiled weakly as he opened it and took a seat across from her. She rummaged in the bag, pulling out Styrofoam containers, plastic ware, and napkins, passing them across the table to him.

Mike opened the lid and was delighted with the Southern-fried steak, mashed potatoes, gravy and green beans that filled the compartments to overflowing. "Wow, it looks as delicious as breakfast," he exclaimed as he dug in without thinking.

"Like I said, Josh could always cook better than most people. It was a damned good thing he was a lineman on the football team back in high school, or he would have never survived the teasing that he got from all the guys," this time when she smiled it was genuine, but then after a moment Mike noticed her eyes were getting misty again. She swiped at them with the back of her hand until Mike passed a napkin across the table to her.

"Sorry, I didn't make it in to the store in town today. Only made it as far as the feed and seed for a bit of lumber and paint. They ain't all that big on things like tissue," he tried to make light of it all. "And the general store for the beer, a man has to have some comforts after all."

She shook her head and laughed as she blew her nose. Mike set one aside and pushed the rest of them across the table towards her. If she insisted on this conversation, and perhaps it was for the best, then he had a feeling she would need them more than he would.

After a long moment, she exhaled slowly and looked back up at him, "I hear you met Billy today?"

He only nodded. He would leave the rest up to her. However much she was comfortable revealing. It was not like he had any right to demand an explanation. Even if he desperately longed for one. To know the truth of why the Halls had never known the existence of their grandson.

"I know you must hate me. Missus Lula always did. Right up until the day she died that woman never forgave me from marrying Josh. At least that is what my mother-in-law tells me," she sighed.

Mike could no longer hold back the only thing that mattered to him, "Why? Why did you never tell them?"

Brenda closed her eyes and dropped her head, "I know you can never understand this, but things are different around here. Even these days. People talk. And they judge you. Hold things against you for a lifetime even. Not just your lifetime either, but your children's too. The word 'bastard' is still more than just a curse word around these parts."

"And my parents," she shook her head as she looked back up. Her eyes were glistening with more unshed tears, "They would have never let me keep the baby. It just wasn't done in their book."

He shook his head, "I don't understand. They would have forced you to have an abortion?"

Her eyes went wide, "Oh, hell, no. That is one thing they did not believe in. But they would have made me give the baby up for adoption. And even as a screwed up seventeen-year-old kid that had no job and knew nothing about raising kids, I knew one thing - that baby was all I had left of Billy. And I could not stand the thought that they would take that away from me."

He nodded though he still could not see why she would not have turned to the Halls, surely they would have taken her and the child in. But for now, he focused on eating the food she had brought and just listening as the rest of the story unfolded.

"I still don't know how I managed it. To hide my pregnancy for so long. I suppose folks just thought that I was eating too much, comfort food sort of thing. That I was putting on weight and letting myself go after Billy's death."

"But somehow I managed to do it with baggy sweat pants and over-sized t-shirts. I made it all the way to graduation without anyone finding out. Or so I thought."

"You see, I had it all figured out. I would graduate and then run away. I had been saving my babysitting money up for two years anyway to buy me a real store-bought wedding dress and not one my Mama made herself."

"I had close to five-hundred dollars, which seemed like a lot of money to a crazy teen," she shook her head as she chuckled at how naïve that seemed now.

"I'd go away to a big city. Dallas. Houston. Maybe even Los Angeles. Wherever my money would take me on the next bus through town. I got to the station early that Saturday night and was waiting on the bench for them to open up so I could buy a ticket when Josh drove up in his old beat-up truck."

Her eyes stared off, looking at something on the wall behind Mike, but he got the feeling she did not see any of it. "First thing he says to me was 'how far along are you.' I was floored. I honestly thought I had everyone fooled. Turns out half the kids at school had been talking for months, but no one had the guts to tell me."

"I broke down crying. Told him the whole damned thing. About sneaking out to meet Billy on Christmas Eve while Mama and Daddy wrapped presents for the little ones."

She reached inside her t-shirt and pulled something out. It took a moment for Mike to recognize what dangled at the end of a thin gold chain, but it should not have. He had been with Billy when he picked it out. Hell, he had even loaned him an extra twenty dollars when it was more than he had managed to save up.

The tiny diamond ring in the plain gold band looked smaller somehow than it had all those years ago. Knowing that she kept it all these years, wore it around her neck still said a lot about her. And about the man who had become her husband.

"You know, no matter what...I have never regretted the Christmas present I gave Billy that night." Tears were flowing unchecked down her cheeks then, "Or especially the unplanned one that he gave me."

Mike nodded, trying to imagine how difficult it all must have been for the young woman. Her fiancé killed, pregnant, unable to turn to her family, frightened and alone. Though he still wondered why she had not turned to the Halls for help, he could at least empathize with her plight.

"Josh knew my folks. Knew what they were like. So he understood why I felt I had to get away. But he had a better plan, he said. He couldn't let me go off on my own, pregnant and all. Not with his best friend's baby."

"He'd been working in the oil fields with his daddy. Had a bit of money saved up. He knew about some jobs down in Beaumont. Offshore stuff where he could make good money, he said."

"We'd get married. Get away from Honour for a while. Just until folks stopped talking, he said. We'd have the baby together and raise it ourselves."

She shook her head, "It all seemed so simple back then. Like an answer to my prayers."

She sighed and looked back at Mike, "Don't get me wrong that man was and still is an answer to any woman's prayers. Not only has he always provided for the kids and me, but he has never raised a hand, won't even spank them when they need it. Don't even raise his voice."

"And love that boy? He has always loved him just as much, sometimes I'd swear more than his own young'uns."

"Thing was that coming back weren't so easy. Missus Lula had never been my biggest fan. I suppose she didn't think I was good enough for Billy. I don't know."

"But I do know that when I showed up for his funeral, the woman never spoke a word to me. Never hugged me or tried to comfort me when I was hurting too. And when Josh and I ran off," she shook her head, "well, let's just say that the beauty parlor had a new favorite topic of conversation for months."

"Of course, my parents totally disowned me. Said they never wanted to speak to me or see me again. Hell, Mama still lives in the same run-down trailer just a couple of miles from the restaurant."

"We been back in town almost a year now and she ain't set foot in the place, called me, or nothing. Even my own sisters won't say nothing when we see one another in town. Hell, my niece goes to high school with my youngest daughter, and she won't talk to her either."

"That's what this place can be like sometimes. Friendly on the outside and bitter to the core. So, we just kept away. Josh's folks would come to visit us in Texas once or twice a year, and we'd hear news of what was happening."

"Then last year, his daddy had a small stroke. He decided then it was high time he gave up the restaurant and retired. They bought an RV and go all over the place now. He begged and pleaded with us to come home. Said the oil fields were too much work for a man Josh's age," she fiddled with the napkins on the table.

"I suppose we knew then we were opening a whole can of worms, but we didn't want to let his folks down. They had been the only ones to stand by us. Then too his daddy was right. Work in the fields was not always reliable and these days the only way to make any real money at it," she shook her head, "Well, after losing Billy over there, I was not letting Josh work there."

Mike took a final bite of the steak. He knew it was much tastier than it seemed at the moment, but he could not seem to focus on food right then.

"Billy joined the Marines right out of high school. We never told him the truth about his father, just that he was named after Josh's cousin that had died in the Gulf War. Honest, we did not mean in the beginning to keep the truth from him. We always thought we would tell him one day...when he was old enough to understand."

"It was just that the moment I heard him call Josh da-da something happened inside me. A part of me screamed 'no' it ain't right, but how can you tell a baby that his daddy is dead. Over the years, they were just so close. Always hunting together on weekends. Josh coaching his Little League teams. It just never seemed the right time somehow. And years just rolled on."

"Then when he met Isabel and they had a baby straight off. I don't know it just seemed like history repeating itself, even though we all love little Josh to pieces," she looked down at her hands crossed neatly in front of her on the table now.

"But when they came into town last week, I could hear it. The silence every time I entered a room. And I knew the rumors were back. At least the older folks, the ones that remember Billy. How can you look at my son and not know? I mean, I know you did the moment you saw him?"

She sighed, "So, what are you going to do about it?"

Mike shook his head, "What do you mean 'what am I going to do about it'? What is there to do about anything? All of that is ancient history. You and Josh seemed to have raised a fine man. Mister Clyde would not even know his grandson now after all these years even if we told him. So what is the point?"

She nodded and smiled, "Thank you. I know it isn't fair, bringing you into this big family secret and all, but like you said...what is the point? And I am sorry. It was rude of me not to ask earlier. How is Mister Clyde?"

Mike shook his head as he closed the lid on the Styrofoam container, "Not good. I did not expect him to recognize me, of course, but neither was I prepared for how just plain wasted away the man has become. All he did all day was sit in a chair and stare out the window."

"I'm sorry, really I am. I liked Mister Clyde. He was always kind to me. If there is anything else, we can do, please let us know. And we mean it, we really do expect you to take your meals with us," she smiled as she stood up.

"Well, breakfast and dinner. I know you'll probably spend most lunchtimes at the nursing home with Mister Clyde. So what you say, friends?" She asked as she held her hand across the table.

Mike did not hesitate to take the woman's hand. As far as he was concerned, she had done the best she could with a less than ideal situation. And from what little he had seen, in the end, the boy had turned out fine.

They chatted for a few more moments about dumb things like the weather and the local football team that both Billy and Josh had once played on. Then Mike saw the woman to the door and watched as she drove away before climbing the stairs for a quick bath and another long night haunted by dreams of soft caramel brown skin and nightmares of guns and bombs, blood, and pain.

***CHAPTER FIVE***

The next few days fell into a sort of pattern for Mike. He got up early, after a lifetime in the Marines it simply seemed impossible for him to sleep in. He would pittle around the farm a bit, doing repairs that were needed, but probably in vain if it were merely to join the rest of the land, they had sold a couple of years before, in becoming further urban sprawl.

Every time he thought about the old farmhouse being demolished to make way for cookie-cutter, shoddily built modern monstrosity. Some part of him ached for things that could never be and questioned again the ways of the universe that had taken his best friend, who so obviously was needed here, and left him, whom no one had wanted, loved, or needed in a very, very long time.

Then he would bath and dress. Eat breakfast at the restaurant. Though they still refused his money at the till, he always left an ample tip at the table, especially since he learned that the young Latina who served him almost every morning was Isabel, Billy's fiancé or little Billy as he thought of him now.

He always engaged her in conversation, as much as her work would allow and came to know the woman quite well and through her his best friend's son. He was pleased to discover that the young man was everything that his father would have wanted him to be. The only cloud for Mike in all of it was knowing that Mister Clyde and Missus Lula had never gotten the chance to know their grandson and now never would.

After breakfast, Mike headed straight to the nursing home, fancy politically correct words aside that was what it was. While it was far from a perfect solution for the patients, because there was never enough staff to go around, Mike trusted that Maude Landon was a woman on a mission, doing her best for people that society and sometimes even their own families forgot.

That was the other cloud in Mike's world at the moment. He had taken the initiative and called Becca Hall-Okadigbo. That conversation had been far, far less than what he had hoped. It seemed that school was just starting back, both for her children and the university at which she and her husband taught. So, she 'could' not take the time to come down to Oklahoma.

Mike had shaken his head as he hung up, not understanding the woman at all. Chicago was only an hour or two flight from Tulsa, which was less than an hour drive from Honour. How could the woman not be bothered to come down...even for the weekend...when her own father was dying?

But that was beside the point, as Mike continued to do all that he could, standing in for the best friend, who could not. In addition to helping out with Mister Clyde's care and feeding, he had taken to volunteering of sorts.

In particular, he would often spend an hour or so playing board games, reading, or simply walking in the gardens with Mary Majors, pretending for a while to be her Joe and as Frank had said 'offering her what comfort and solace' her memories could provide. He had come to know the couple and their youngest daughter, who still lived nearby, reasonably well.

He had also come to know a great deal about another long-dead Marine, First Lieutenant Joseph Battaglia, whom he learned had also been from Boston. His accent had been another reason that Mary had come to associate him with her long-lost first love.

Of course, he always felt a bit uncomfortable with the deception. Especially in terms of the pain, it undoubtedly caused Frank, but the man was stalwart in his support of whatever it took to make his wife happy. That kind of love was not something that Mike could even fathom at times, but something that brought an ache and longing deep in his chest at odds moments as he watched the man care for the woman, who did not remember, let alone return that love.

After visiting hours ended at three, though the staff at Prairie View increasingly fudged such things for him, he would head back to the old farmhouse and spend his evenings doing more meaningless repairs to the old place.