Memorial Day

[This story contains sex, but it isn't just about sex. It contains characters who were in the military, but the story isn't about war. It contains violence, but isn't about violence. Two of the female characters in the story were raped and the story isn't about rape. It is about honor, duty, respect and love. As with all the stories I submit your votes and comments/feedback are welcome.

If you want answers to the questions you might leave, please leave me a way to respond to you personally. I probably won't respond publically to your question(s) especially if you ask them as Anon..]

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One of my most persistent memories of time with my Dad involved Memorial Day Weekend. My Dad was career military. Whatever it was he did on active duty had him in harm's way often and he was gone a lot, but when he was home on Memorial Day Weekend we, he and I, went to the veterans cemetery and put flags in front of the markers for the men he had known.

He had me get dressed up, had me get a fresh haircut the Friday before and my shoes shined like his boots. I carried a backpack full of flags and he planted them and told me about each of the men he honored. It was an important ritual for my Dad and became an important ritual for me. By the time I was twelve I could spit shine my shoes so they shined like his boots. My gig line was always straight, not just when Dad was home, but always.

When I was thirteen Mom and I visited Dad in a military hospital. He'd been shot twice and was healing. We visited him three times while he was in the hospital. Each time Mom cried and begged him to quit the Army. Each time he said, "You knew who I was when you married me. I retire in six more years. Pick a spot where you want us to live. When they release me from here, we'll go house hunting."

She picked Portland Oregon. The three of us went there and Dad bought her the house she wanted. I made new friends, Mom seemed happier for a while and Dad went away again. That time he was gone seven months, back a month and gone for three months.

The summer I turned eighteen he was home all summer with us. We camped, went fishing, took car trips and had a great summer. It wasn't until that summer that I discovered some of what being a career soldier had cost my Dad. Up until that summer I'd never seen him without a shirt. If we went swimming he wore trunks and a t-shirt. That summer, on one of our hikes, when Mom stayed at home, we found a hot springs and Dad wanted to soak for a while.

We stripped down and went in. When Dad took off his shirt I counted eleven scars on his back. Eleven scars from being shot! As we soaked I saw other scars on his chest and legs. I started to ask about them and he said, "They are a price some men have to pay so the people we love can be safe. I can't talk about how I got these scars, so don't ask. The reason I always wear a shirt around your Mom is that the scars upset her."

At the end of that summer Dad shipped out again and I started my senior year of high school. In November we got a letter from Dad telling us he'd be home for Christmas. Mom seemed happy about him being home for Christmas and she seemed sad, too. I asked her about that and she told me that she and Dad had been having problems for a while and she wasn't sure they'd stay together after Dad retired. Over the next two weeks I got Mom to talk more and more about the problems and her concerns. One night she made lasagna for dinner and opened a bottle of wine. She even gave me half a glass. By nine o'clock she had finished the bottle. She told me more than I ever wanted to know about their relationship.

While she was pregnant with me Dad got shot up pretty badly. She stayed on the Army base near the hospital and sat near Dad for three weeks. She saw the raw wounds on his body and the pain Dad was in. By the time I was born she had made some decisions. One was that she couldn't or wouldn't ever have another child with him. Another was that she never wanted to see those scars again.

Dad was away again when I was born. She wrote him about my birth and told him that she had her tubes tied. He offered her a divorce and she said she didn't believe in divorce. She wanted them to stay together, for my sake.

She told me that for five years after I was born they didn't have sex. Then, when they did finally have sex, she made sure it was in the dark. I didn't need or want to know all the details. I finally got her into her bedroom and into her bed. I cleaned up the kitchen and went to my own bed, but I didn't sleep. I thought about them during the times we were all together. She never held his hand. They didn't kiss except when he first got home after a deployment, he got one kiss. I remembered hearing him say "I love you" to her often. Her response was usually, "Yeah, me too."

I thought all night about what I was supposed to do with what Mom had told me.

The next day I was at school and I was called to the office. Mr. Connors, the Principal, took me into his office where I saw two men in Army uniforms: a Captain and a Master Sergeant. I instantly knew Dad was dead.

The Captain told me whatever he told me and they took me home. Mom was in her bedroom crying when I got home. We spent the next three days in a daze, crying, hurting and bewildered. I missed the rest of that week at school. The Army got Dad's body home, but it took two weeks. They never told us where he was when he was killed or what he was doing. We never saw the body, just the casket.

There was a funeral and lots of men and women in uniform attended. Lots of people from the community attended and some strangers as well. Most of them were people I didn't know, but from what the ones who spoke to me said I knew they were Dad's friends. My girl friend, Maria, stood next to me that day. She didn't say much, but for a lot of the day I felt like if she wasn't there I might have collapsed. Mom's brother and sister stayed with us for the three days around the funeral and they stood by her the day of the funeral.

A week later all the military people were gone, Mom's brother was back in Seattle, her sister was back on the family farm in Idaho and my girl friend was still right beside me.

Maria showed up at our house at just before eight in the morning and stayed until almost ten each night. She helped both Mom and me with whatever needed doing and when I sat on the porch swing or the couch she sat with me, held my hand or sat in my lap.

We went back to school where people didn't know what to say to us, so they left us alone. Maria and I were isolated. I'm not sure I even noticed for that first week back. That Friday when we left school Maria said, "Can we stop by my house on the way home?"

I was driving Mom's car and made a left turn at the light as the answer. I parked in her driveway and she said, "Don't move. I'll be right back."

Two minutes later she and a backpack were back in the car and she said, "Let's go home." The backpack had clothes and girl supplies in it. When we got home she took the backpack into my bedroom and bathroom and she moved in. The three of us spent the evening together acting like we were watching TV and studying. At ten that night we both kissed Mom goodnight and went to my room.

As we walked down the hall to my bedroom I asked, "What are you doing?"

She asked, "Do you love me?"

"Yeah. I do."

"Do you like holding my hand? Having me next to you all the time?"

"Yeah, I do."

"Last night I was at home, in my bed and I realized again that where I belong is next to you. So, here I am. I want to sleep next to you. I want to wake up and kiss you."

"Sex?" I asked.

"Tonight I just want to be with you. I want to go to sleep holding you and having you holding me. There's no hurry to have sex. I'm your woman. You'll be as honorable a man as your Dad was, and I'll be right here beside you for the rest of my life."

I wondered why Mom had let us kiss her goodnight and didn't stop us from going to bed together. I didn't wonder enough to go back and ask her.

Two eighteen-year-olds got undressed and into bed for the first time, together, and we didn't have sex. We kissed some and Maria held my penis for a while, while I held her breasts, but we didn't do it.

Saturday morning we woke up together and I was still holding her breast in my hand. She smiled and asked, "Like how that feels?" I nodded.

"My friends tell me they like it when a boy kisses their breasts."

"Oh? Which friends would that be?"

"None of your business. I'd like it if you'd kiss my breasts." I did what she wanted. A few minutes later I switched to her other breast and she moaned. As she moaned the door to my bedroom opened and Mom looked at us.

I looked at Mom with Maria's breast still in my mouth and Mom said, "I made breakfast. When you're through there, it's on the table." She backed out of the room and closed the door.

Maria said, "I had a long talk with your Mom yesterday."

"She saw us naked together and didn't freak!"

"We should go eat the breakfast she made. Then we can come back here and you can have my virginity." We dressed and ate the French toast, eggs, bacon and fruit Mom had made. We didn't see Mom. I couldn't tell you if the food was good or not. My mind was thinking about what Maria had promised me. We cleaned up the kitchen and Maria led us back to bed. In the bedroom she turned on my stereo, stripped and helped me get just as naked.

Maria had been on the swim team for three years as well as the cross-country running team. Her body was in great condition and the single word I would us to describe her would be lithe. She stood there in front of me with her smallish breasts pointing right at me and my body pointed right at her. She giggled and said, "Think that thing will fit inside me?"

"The sex ed teacher at school said that was the design."

"Want to see if she was right?" As she asked she flopped onto my bed and spread her legs. I had my first look at the first pussy of my life seen in person. She had a tuft of curly hair above her slit, but no hair on either side of her slit. When she spread her legs I saw her lips part and a glint of light bounced off the exposed wetness.

"Honey," she said, "I have to be honest with you. Technically, I'm not a virgin. You will be the first man I've ever invited inside me, but a man has been inside me before you." I dropped onto the bed beside her and held her. I asked, "You've been raped?"

"Yes, By my father. But that wasn't love or even caring. That was a drunken old man using me to punish his wife. I want you inside me." She got what she wanted. She got what she wanted more than once and she got something she didn't get from her father. She got cared for and an orgasm. We stayed in my room all day.

The phone rang at about six. I answered. It was Mom. She said, "Get up. Shower. Open all the windows and make dinner. I'll be home by seven." Then she hung up.

We did just as she asked. We laughed, kissed, touched and enjoyed making dinner. Mom came home and we sat down together to eat. She put a brown paper bag on the table as she sat down. She said, "In the bag are condoms, lube and foam. I know I'm a day late giving you these things, but I just hope you two didn't start a baby already."

Maria said, "Thanks and no worries. I brought some condoms with me and we still have two left. I've been on the pill since I was thirteen and my father started using me." I guessed it wasn't news to Mom based on her non-reaction to the news.

Sometime during the meal Mom asked, "Maria, who knows you slept here last night, besides the three of us?"

"My sister, Amy. She messed up my bed last night, so if anyone looks it looks like I was there and left early."

"What will happen if your parents discover you spent the night here?"

"My father will yell and scream. My mother will call me a putah, but it's no big deal. My father will yell and make a big deal because he wants me to himself. My mother will call me a whore, but she already knows my father has raped me. He made her watch! What more can they do?"

The three of us talked for a while about moving her in as a way of protecting her from further abuse. She called home and spoke to her sister. The sister told her both her parents were out of the house and that she didn't think anyone noticed she was gone.

We drove to her house and she got the rest of her clothes and things. I didn't go in their house. Maria told me her sister cried and promised lots of phone calls and Maria promised she could come and visit often.

We got Maria moved in before ten that night. When Mom left us to go to bed she asked that we "keep the noise down." We tried.

Sunday we went shopping. In the market we filled a basket and were in the checkout line when Maria's father walked into the store. One look told me he was a man on a mission. When he saw us I knew his mission was not buying milk for his family. He headed directly for us.

He spoke to Maria in Spanish. He told her she was not allowed to leave home, not allowed to sleep with a gringo, not allowed to abandon her family.

As he took a breath to continue Maria said, "Papa, I don't live with you any more. You have raped me for the last time! I'm not going with you!"

At least twenty people heard her accuse him of rape. I saw the manager pick up the phone. Her father turned and left, clenching and unclenching his fists. We paid for our groceries and left, but not before the police arrived and took statements from a number of people, including us.

Maria's father did not just go home. He went home and then to our house. He parked around the corner and went into the house through the back door. It had been locked but he knew how to open it.

When we entered the house he was waiting for us. He knocked Mom and Maria to the kitchen floor and when I stepped inside he hit me with something and knocked me out. He ripped the clothes of both women and raped both of them. Mom was unconscious while he did his business with her. Maria was knocked out at first and then came to and fought him. He repeatedly hit her as he raped her.

I came to as he was inside Maria. He was verbally abusing her in Spanish and hitting her. I grabbed the big cast iron skillet off the stove and hit him on his right ear as hard as I could. Maria screamed as her father fell off her. I said, "Stay down! The police need to see!"

I got our phone and called the police. They took the information and said they were on their way. I got towels and covered Maria and Mom, saving one towel to catch the blood coming from my head. Mom was still out. I comforted Maria as best I could.

The cops parked on the front lawn. The ambulance parked in the driveway. Mom had a concussion and maybe a cracked skull. She also had some vaginal tearing. I needed three stitches on my head. Maria needed to go to the hospital for the rape and beating. Her father had blunt force trauma to his head. They loaded Maria, Mom and Maria's father in the ambulance. I said I'd clean up and then drive to the hospital.

They didn't get to the hospital. Maria's father regained consciousness and hit the EMT riding in the back. Then he choked Maria. The driver saw what he was doing and slammed on the brakes. The sudden shift forced her father off balance and he snapped Maria's neck. He landed on Mom and broke three ribs.

It was only seconds before the cop following the ambulance opened the back. When Maria's father made a move towards him he fired, killing him.

By the time I got to the hospital Mom was in surgery and both Maria and her father were dead. I sat in the waiting room for hours while Mom was in surgery. When I became aware of my surroundings I saw a younger version of Maria sitting beside me, holding my hand and crying.

I didn't ask who she was. In fact, I didn't speak at all. I assumed she was Amy, Maria's sister. After a while I helped her into my lap and held her while we both cried. She felt a lot like Maria on my lap.

A doctor came into the waiting room and announced my name. He came to us and told us that Mom did well in surgery, but would stay in the hospital for at least three days. He told us to go home.

We walked out to Mom's car and I drove home. She went with me. In the house she followed me up to my bedroom and when I undressed she undressed. I got into bed and she crawled in with me. Ten seconds later we were asleep. We still had not spoken.

When I woke up she was not in bed. I got up, showered and dressed on automatic pilot. I thought I needed to go to the hospital. I went into the kitchen and found her, cleaning. She looked up at me and waited.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"Maria's sister."

"Oh. What are you doing?"

"You brought groceries home, but didn't put them away. I saved what I could and tossed the rest."

"Do you need to go home?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"No one's there. My father killed Momma before he came over here. Now he and Maria are gone, too. You're all I have left."

I opened my arms realizing she and Mom were all I had left, too. We hugged for a long time and then she broke the hug and said, "We need to eat."

She made food for us and we ate. My head started to clear and I started asking questions. "What's your name?"

"Amy. I'm seventeen, a year behind you and Maria."

"You need a place to live. How about here?"

"You're the only family I have left." She said. Her spoon was halfway to her mouth and her eyes were full of tears she was trying not to release. We finished breakfast, cleaned up the kitchen and even made the bed we'd slept in.

When the bed was made I said, "Ok. Let's go to the hospital."

We went and spent most of the day with Mom. When she came to she asked why I wasn't with Maria. We cried when we told her the story. She met Amy and got to know her. The police visited twice during the day. Mom asked about when Amy needed to go home. We told her that Maria's father had killed their Momma before he came to our house. Amy said that she had seen him kill her and had run away.

When the police came the second time Amy asked if she could go home and get the rest of her things. The officer made a call and told us we would be met at the house and supervised to make sure we didn't disturb the crime scene. We could take all of Amy's things. We left the hospital, got Amy's things and took them home.

She moved her things into my bedroom and my bathroom. We had a spare bedroom next to my bedroom and she put some hanging things and shoes in the closet of that bedroom. I wondered about Amy and I sleeping together. We weren't even friends two days before.

Before my brain went into overload I thought, "When Mom comes home she'll sort things out."

We ate on the way back to the hospital. Amy started asking questions as we drove to the hospital. She started with, "Did you love my sister?"

"Yeah, I do." It didn't seem right to put it in the past tense. "I still do."

"Did you both sleep in the bed you and I slept in last night?"

I nodded and said, "Yes, we did."

"She had sex with you?"

"Yes, we had sex. Why are you asking?"

"I feel like I'm taking her place. She's not coming back. I need to know who she was for you and your Mom so I can fit in. I want to fit in, and I don't know how."

"Maybe the best idea is to discuss this when the whole family is together." She nodded and we stayed quiet the rest of the way to the hospital. We got the update on Mom's medical condition when we arrived. She was healing well and the swelling inside her head had gone down. Her ribs were sore, but were also healing.

Mom dove into the subject of Amy before either of us. She asked, "Where did you sleep last night?"

"With Alex." Amy said. She held my hand. Her eyes stayed locked on Mom's.

Mom nodded and asked, "Did the two of you have sex?"