While You Were Sleeping

*******

The fates were smiling down on me; well, I like to think they were smiling down on me rather than at me. In order to get everyone Frank wanted at the funeral, he had to apply to his own boss to hold the funeral later than the church itself recommended. He even had to ask me if I minded. My jaw ached that night and I still don't know how I pulled off the concerned look when I asked if everything was all right.

He blustered, of course, and told me everything was fine. I'm sure I was playing into his hands, and yet all I could see was this giving me more time to complete my own plans. Callum came by and opened his briefcase, and for the next hour we did the "sign here" dance. He now had power of attorney for the house, and it was already rented out. My first instinct was to sell. My brother pointed out that a for-sale sign on the front lawn would tip my hand about what I was planning.

By seven that evening, I had everything I wanted: the new owners had even come by late that afternoon to measure up and see what furniture I was leaving them as a welcome to your new home gift. I couldn't help myself. I put a bow around the television and gave it to them as a welcome to your new home present. They noticed that what I was taking with me had a yellow sticker on it.

The happy couple smiled when they realized that over three quarters of the house came furnished. They were gone within the hour, so smiles all around. They were a nice couple; my brother met our newest member of the Sheriff's department at the courthouse.

They had just moved into the area and were still living at the hotel at the edge of town until they could find something they could afford. The light bulb in my brother's head came on and flashed. That's when Callum sat him down and told him he might have something he and his wife could handle. Since money wasn't an obstacle, Callum pitched a deal, the deputy phoned his wife and placed her on speaker while they talked.

Callum knew that putting the new deputy into his brother's house would keep it safe from any retribution my father-in-law might want to take. The part of the conversation that made me smile for the first time since all this started was when my brother told me that he had initiated a child penalty clause into their lease. At the moment they were newlyweds, the ink dried on the marriage license six months ago, and they looked at this new job as a way of breaking away from their own overbearing parents.

Their rental contract stated that if they had a child, then ten percent of the required rent would be deducted from the monthly rent and the new lease would automatically show the decrease in rent. Callum smiled and told both husband and wife that the same deal would apply to the next three children, as well, if they wished to have a big family. He reminded them that it was a big house and deserved to have a loving family live in it and look after it.

Deputy Adams just kept looking at my brother, his mouth hung open as more and more details of the house and the financial incentives became apparent. He left Callum with the words that he would think on it, then walked across the street to the office of the DA and checked with the lawyers there, on the honesty of Callum Thompson. It seems my brother got rave reviews from his counterparts at the DA's office. Deputy Adams went back to the hotel and shared everything he had found out with his wife.

The Minister wouldn't bother them; Deputy Adams and his wife were Jewish.

The funeral might have well have been written in the stars. Mom and Dad were sitting with Joan, I found my seat, two pews further back from the mourning mothers and spineless father. The vacant seat even had a little name card on it. Wanna guess whose? Frank looked rather dashing in his frock, and once he spotted me sitting two seats behind the families, he started the funeral. Songs were sung, speeches were made and more and more people wondered why I hadn't gone to the front and said anything.

Then came the final curtain call: Frank's speech. I listened and kept my own thoughts to myself, as one by one he used every key word and phrase that would warm the congregation to him, almost to the point of canonization.

It was then he used the phrase that "God needed his daughter by his side."

That's when I gave up all hope, stood, buttoned my suit jacket and left the church that I called my second home for the last twenty years. My eyes were on the door, the congregation's eyes and anger were on me as I left them to it. The only person who didn't even break stride was Frank, as he claimed to have had a vison the very night before, of God holding Judith's hand.

I almost made it to the church doors when Frank made his one final attempt to verbally slap me down. He told the congregation that for the first time in three years, his daughter was finally at peace.

There is a saying, that you can't fight City Hall. It felt like I was going up against God and his representative on Earth.

*******

I still had less than a week to finish all the legal work. The silent treatment started from the morning after the funeral. I'm sure what these people thought they were doing was what Frank wanted. I didn't give a shit.

I walked across the street to old Martha Harris's place and asked if I could borrow her two boys for the afternoon. I slipped her two hundred and she practically threw them both into the street in her enthusiasm to help me move what I was taking and place it into the U-Haul parked on the drive. Her boys worked well, and I paid them each what I gave Martha. Her boys went home happy and twenty minutes later, Martha knocked on the still open door and let herself in. She hugged me later that afternoon for what to us, felt like the last time and even tried to hand me the money I gave her back, I was having none of it.

We did sit in the kitchen and talk. "I remember Frank as a little boy; he was an arrogant little bastard then, he's only got worse it seems, going by what you've said about the service for your wife that turned into a eulogy for his daughter."

The doorbell rang. Martha looked on that as her cue to leave, more so when Callum filled the doorframe. Martha got a kiss on each cheek from us both; she left with a smile on her lips and rosy cheeks.

My brother was fresh from his law firm, so still looking very nice in a suit. He pulled another handful of "sign here" forms from his briefcase. He stayed for coffee and then got ready to leave. I held up my hand to stop him, went to my office and handed him an envelope. The confused look was new to him.

"It's the poem that Frank wanted, Callum. Have a read and then make sure you sit your good lady down before you let her read it."

That got a guy shrug from him, and he placed it into his briefcase before he left.

The banging on the front door came a couple of hours later. I opened the door and Tessa leapt into my arms. Good thing my brother was with her. It took a while, but I managed to get her to the kitchen isle without dropping her.

"You bastard, I knew it was going to be tough when Callum walked up to me and handed me a box of tissues before handing me the envelope. My God, love just poured from every word, four fucking pages of a man giving his soul to his partner."

Tessa had to get up, then sat on my lap and hugged me again. My brother just sat watching with a smile on his face. Callum was always the practical one: football at school, still did the odd half marathon as well. Me, well I was the "old romantic" of the two. We never looked on the other and thought to change, this was us growing up and it was how he got Tessa, just as how I got to be with Judy for three loving years.

"You can't give it to Frank; that man will find a way to twist every word. Martin, you have to get a copyright on that poem. Let me give it to a friend of mine. Her field is more show business and publishing. Let me get her to copyright this for you; she will lead you through the minefield of publishing after that, but please Martin, this has to see the light of day."

I didn't even hesitate. This was Tessa. I trusted her as much as I did my late wife. They left soon after Tessa extracted a promise from me to keep in touch, or she promised to hunt me down herself if I didn't. I left the house for the last time the next morning, Deputy Adams and his wife came by just as I was locking up. I handed them the keys, told them to have a great life and the house will always welcome the love they generated. He smiled and she blushed.

*******

The next week or so was long hours and sleepless nights, I needed some renovations done to the new house. I got no work done while the workmen swung hammers and drilled at the new back porch. When they were done, I handed them a hefty bonus and asked the contractor if I could keep his number. He was still smiling as he waved his bonus at me. I took that as a yes.

I was no sooner rid of the noise and had the house all to myself, when more banging came from the front door.

A woman whom I could best describe as not looking out of place if she was the headmistress of the local high school stood staring at me.

"You Thompson?"

Her words only carried the threat of me not being him lightly. I thought it best to just nod my head.

"You gunna let me in?"

I stared for a while and then said, "I'm not sure."

Somehow, she took that as a yes. She took a step forward, tilted her shoulder slightly and forced her way into my house, and over time it seems, my life.

By the time I caught up with her she was placing the file she had under her arm onto the kitchen table.

"I should be pissed at you. You brought every woman in my office to tears and no one is getting any work done." Her hand then dived into the file and came out with a brown envelope. "And all because of this."

I now recognized the brown envelope.

"My name's Carol Channing. I own Stanton Publishing. I hate your sister-in-law, and yet right now I also place her amongst my best of friends."

Her hand once again went to the envelope and she waved it at me.

"And all because of this. I own the fucking company and yet I'm under orders from every female in the building not to come back to my own fucking building without your signature."

This time I stood and told Carol that I did my best thinking with a coffee in my hand. The only reply I got from her was, "Black and no sugar."

With coffee in hand, my new friend went into detail, reminding me that Tessa had given her a head start with some background. She could get the poem copyrighted by the end of the week. In that time, she planned to dedicate two of her staff to not only publishing it in its entirety, but to section off specific parts of the poem to be words of love, some inside of gift cards. The poem lent itself to being words of hope, as well as condolence.

It was then she gave me a ball park figure on what I could earn from the poem in the first year, and then once its reputation had become more common knowledge, Carol believed the second year would dwarf its own first year's success.

That was when I fell off my kitchen stool. Literally.

Carol looked over the kitchen isle and down at me. "Did you break anything?"

It's just not possible to look dignified when you're trying to get up off the floor, made even worse when all my guest did was watch and smirk. I suppose she looked at all this as retribution for being ganged up on by her own staff. Which to me meant this little incident would be circulated around the office several times and with little need to embellish anything.

Callum was my next port of call, and I put him on speaker. Instantly, Carol's attitude changed and she went all business on us both. My brother retaliated, and to me, they might as well have spoken in Dutch. By the end of that meeting, I was Carol Channing's newest signing, subject to a few more "sign here" forms in a week at her office.

At the "sign here" meeting with my brother right beside me, it was decided that I needed a name change. More so when Carol found out I had a book on my computer that was all but finished. She wanted dibs on that, since I was now signed to her, so I walked into the office as Martin Thompson and left with the pen name of R. J. Johnson. When my brother looked at me wanting to know where that came from, I just shrugged my shoulders and told him I didn't have a clue.

Although I continued to hold out an olive branch to my folks, deep down I knew they wouldn't change. I still held out hope, though, right up to Mom phoning me and screaming down the phone that I had lied to her. The poem had hit the card stands and took off like a rocket; Mom got a look at a copy and remembered where she had read it. She connected the dots really quickly and spent time calling me a liar for telling her that Judy had it.

That conversation was the final nail in the coffin I called hope: hope that there was even a chance that my family could be whole, ever again.

With a sinking feeling in my heart and a realization that, other than my brother and his family, I needed to kiss these people goodbye if I was going to live a full life ever again.

I sucked it up and said, "Well, Mom, since you and Pops decided to sell your soul to the devil, I figured I may as well do it, too."

She gasped, and it was the last thing I heard as I switched the phone off, pulled the card out and dropped that into the wastepaper basket.

*******

The next two years were a blur.

My brother and his wife came to stay for a long weekend every few months. The poem pushed Stanton Publishing's name and reputation through the roof, causing Carol to moan about giving her more work to do. The story was pulled out of my computer, dusted off and finished, then sent to Carol to look at. It came back with more red marks on it than the ink I put on the pages.

It was a wake-up call that if I wanted to be an author, I needed to get with the program. Three re-writes later, and the story about Fairies living on a mountain was published in the children's section. Although, within three months and a reprint later, the book went onto the general reading section, since the adults were reading the book to their children. Word of mouth amongst the school moms meant that they wanted to read it as well.

I would hear people mow the next door's lawn on occasion. They were a local contract company. In return for the contract for mowing my lawn and keeping the flowerbeds alive, Al Henderson told me that he had the contract for the empty house for the next five years. He also went a little pale, and for as big a man as Al was, I found that really interesting.

When she was still alive, Grandma Gates had called him and asked him to come over the next morning. They settled on a time and Al turned up five minutes early. Grandma Gates sat him down and handed him a contract for the lawns and flowerbeds, the contract was for the next ten years.

"I asked Grandma Gates if I could take it to my lawyer," he said, "this wasn't anything like the normal contract I offered and it worried me some."

Feeling just a little curious, I just had to ask what was so special about the contract.

"All the monies for the ten-year contract were moved to her lawyer. I get paid by him at the end of every month. If I fold the company, then it's my responsibility to find another firm to do the lawns. Failure to do so will mean her lawyer will sue me."

Feeling that something was off about this conversation just kept me asking questions. I wasn't even sure that the request from Grandma Gates could even be deemed legal. After all, she was dead.

"I asked the same question to my lawyer, and he asked me if I planned to fold the company. My answer was that there was a reason I had Henderson & Sons, on the side of the truck."

His lawyer simply shrugged and told him to sign it. Turns out, Al was the last man, other than the Sherriff who found her body, to see Grandma Gates alive. She died in her sleep two days after Al signed on the line.

"When I asked the sheriff what he wanted me to do, all he said was that I signed a contract and my signature was my bond. Not only that, Grandma Gates chose me for a reason."

His arm waved over towards my fence and the house next door.

"Every month I do the lawns, pretty up the flowerbeds on time, and I get paid to do it."

Al shrugged and left me standing in the middle of my lawn, watching the house across the fence, just like I always seemed to do, but I still couldn't figure out why. From public records and town gossip, the sheriff lasted another year before he died. A couple of his family had lived here over the years, yet none settled. Finally, seeing a pay day, they all got together and voted to sell.

*******

Two things pissed Carol off: everything and me not making any inroads into my second novel. She offered to send down my editor and between us we could fix this writer's block I seemed to be going through. I didn't want to play the prima donna card since I was just starting out as a writer, but in my phone call to Carol, I did ask her to give me time. I was writing down ideas and a plot, so it wasn't as if I had come to a total stop.

After sitting with a coffee in hand and watching the screen finally give up and go to screen saver mode. Judy smiled back at me. I knew I had to give myself a break. The story was there, it played in my head along with differing scenarios every time I reached for my cup. I sighed and decided to clean out the attic.

I stood and my body did a sudden 180. Where the hell had cleaning out the attic come from?

It was the only motivation I needed, though, and so with clothes on that I didn't mind getting covered in dust, I started at one end of the attic and started organizing all the boxes that were stored there, from Christmas decorations, both indoors and out, to boxed clothes and framed pictures of past inhabitance of the house.

The pile of "keep this one" slowly started to increase, yet by the end of the day the pile of "take this to the town dump" had finally caught up with the others. When I pulled one big box aside, it revealed it was hiding a smaller box behind it, I reached for that one because it was going to start getting dark soon, and I didn't want to be up there much longer, regardless of a good lighting system, here in the attic.

Sheriff Townsend kept diaries. Once I realized what the box contained, I just wanted to close it up and leave it be. The man might be dead, but that still didn't give me the right to stick my nose into his life while he lived it. The strangest thing was, when I let it be, I couldn't leave the attic. As I went to walk away, my chest tightened to the point I really did feel I was on the verge of a heart attack. The pain eased and left again when I walked back to the box.

The logical part of my mind told me I was just being stupid and I had spent all day in a dust filled attic. The twenty-plus years of my life going to church told me something different. I picked the box up and took it down stairs with me. In total, there were six books in the box. The dates on the front were not yearly, when the sheriff filled the book he simply dated it and started another one.

*******

The first book was dated in the middle of the sixties. Sheriff Townsend went away and served in the Vietnam War. Reading first-hand accounts of a man who served there, rather than the history books, kept me glued to my sofa the rest of the afternoon. This diary described in great detail what went on for Lieutenant Andrew Townsend and his men, from boot camp to the plane journey. I think the only thing missing from the airport when they got there, was a banner saying, "Welcome to hell," because Lieutenant Townsend and his men sure lived and died in it.