DISCLAIMER: They're not mine.
He'd never realised before how many lies people told at funerals.
Person after person, speaker after speaker - all they talked about was what a wonderful man his father had been. How hard working, how dedicated to his job. How respected he was in the American legal community. All the wonderful things he'd done for Texas and Dallas and his country.
There was a murmur of approval in the large church after every speaker, every hymn. His father wasn't even religious. He went to the local Episcopal church on important occasions, and to keep up appearances. That was about it. The whole thing was a farce.
As the minister announced yet another speaker - the chief judge of the Texas Supreme Court, this time - Nick clenched his hands together in front of him. He wasn't entirely sure what he was doing there. It was his father's funeral, yes, but he hadn't seen his father in years. And if what he was feeling was grief, it was a grief he'd never felt before.
Sara's hand landed on top of his. Her touch was light, soft, gentler than usual as she separated his hands and took hold of one. He squeezed her hand, gratefully, and looked at her. Their eyes met for an instant, but neither smiled. Not here. Not at a funeral.
Nick looked around him. The front rows were filled with family. His mother, staring straight ahead - she wouldn't show emotion in public. Not even at her husband's funeral. She'd cried when Nick had arrived in Texas and he'd held her, awkwardly, wondering when his mother got so small and fragile. He regretted then that he'd seen so little of his mother over the last few years, and not that he'd seen even less of his father.
Aside from his family, he recognised barely anyone. There were a few faces he remembered from his childhood, but most of the people here were strangers to him, with their stiff backs and fancy hats.
They were probably grieving for his father more than he was.
If he could have run, he would have done when his brother got up to speak. Daniel took the same line as everyone else did: how wonderful Michael Stokes had been. How much they'd all miss him.
Daniel didn't mention the father who was so busy at work he was never home. Or the father who made such a fuss about his seven children in public, but only remembered their birthdays when his wife reminded him. Not to mention that same father who did his damned best - when he was actually home - to force his children into a mold of his own choosing, standing over them, glaring with disapproval when they stepped over the line.
No one talked about things like that at funerals.
You don't speak ill of the dead, but in Nick's job, the dead were often revealed to have their secrets. Not publicly, not at their funerals, but sometimes it seemed so obvious to him that people have skeletons in their closets that he couldn't help wondering just how many people were expecting to hear something real about his father.
But no one said anything real.
Because that wasn't what you did at funerals. Not in the Stokes family, anyway. Not in the world in which his father inhabited.
He was a pall-bearer. Nick, Daniel, his sisters' husbands, all of them carrying his father's coffin out of the church, regimented. Like an army. Emotionless in the public eye - this would be in the papers tomorrow. A Texas Supreme Court judge, dying of a heart attack. Big news in Dallas.
He doesn't feel like himself until they get back to their hotel room after it's all over. The funeral, the burial, everyone standing round at the mayor's house drinking tea and eating cake and acting formal. So many people he didn't know came up to give him their condolences, to tell him what a great man his father was. Usually they introduced themselves, but after the first few Nick began to forget, to mix names and faces in his memory. He knew no one would mind. It was the day of his father's funeral, after all.
They should be staying with his mother. She offered, but Nick booked the hotel, unable to face staying with her in the house where he grew up. And then he hated himself for it. He said something about Sara, about how it would be easier for her not staying with strangers, and was glad he couldn't see his mother's face over the phone.
He doesn't usually like hotel rooms, but as he's not going to home in Vegas until tomorrow this will have to do as a refuge. An escape.
There's no talking for a while. Nick, as he gets rid of his shoes and tie and jacket, in what seems like one desperate move, finds himself wondering what Sara's thinking. After all, his father's just died suddenly, they've just had the funeral, and he's acting totally heartless. It's not that he doesn't care. It's just that his way of caring is completely inappropriate for the situation. He lies on the bed and watches Sara change out of her dress, and tries to think of something to say.
Eventually what he says is, "Sorry." By this time she's had a shower, and she's standing in the corner of their room in her pajamas using the hairdryer, and so she turns and looks at him, still lying there almost fully clothed, and says, "Honey?" He catches the note of anxiety in her voice, and it seems like the first bit of real emotion he's come in contact with all day.
He shrugs, as best he can lying on his back. "I don't know." It's the sort of tone that his father would have hated, the one that always made his father say he wasn't raising his children to be brats.
"No," she says, turning off the hairdryer. "Neither do I." She comes over and lies down with him, her hair still damp against his cheek. "I don't know what to say."
"Neither do I," he whispers, unconsciously echoing her words. "He was my father, Sara. I should be crying. But I can't."
"You don't have to," she says, shifting onto her side, resting her head against his shoulder.
"Maybe." He puts his arms around her, breathes in the smell of soap and shampoo. "Feel like such a fraud."
"You aren't," she says, firmly, automatically.
"Always have been."
"Nicky..."
"That's how he made me feel, you know? Like I had to be everything he wanted. Football team, all the right girlfriends, good job, house and a wife and three kids and... like not being that was wrong. Like I wasn't who I should be. That was what he thought, you know. That I was wasting my life."
She says nothing, just rubs his chest with her hand. He's not sure if she's waiting for him to continue, but he goes on anyway. "He didn't make any of us happy, Sara. Not even my mom. We all loved him, but we all stopped trying to please him. None of us could be what he wanted... like we were all just a bunch of failures."
All his life he's been trying to get over his father. He ran from Texas to Vegas - to a town of which he knew his father would disapprove - in a gesture of defiance. Even after all those years he catches himself seeking respect, looking for approval. Anything to negate his father's influence.
He's not sure what he's even doing in Dallas, really. Hasn't been a proper part of the family for years, and had little to do with his father even before that. They got the worst of it, Daniel and Nick, as the only boys, both failing so drastically. Daniel could cope, living in Texas. Nick couldn't. By going to Vegas he cut those family ties.
"Sometimes I think he just wanted to keep having children till he got the right one. The perfect one. But then he got me and he just gave up."
"Nick!" Sara's voice is alarmed.
"I know, I know. It's probably not what he was thinking. After all, he didn't know I was going to be a total failure till I was nine or ten." He's trying to be funny, to brush it all off, but it doesn't work. He's not fooling Sara and he's certainly not fooling himself.
"You're not a failure," she says, her voice wobbling despite the firmness she's trying to display. Between the two of them they've got a terrible track record when it comes to families. Maybe that's why they cling so tightly to each other.
"I loved him, you know. I wanted to please him. I wanted to be who he thought I should be. Thought he knew best. Worked hard at school, at college. Played football, just because it was what he wanted. I never managed it. It would have been nice, you know, if he'd told me he was proud of me. Just once."
"Yeah."
"That funeral. It was all lies, Sara. Nothing about who he really was."
"They talked about the man they knew."
"Not Daniel. Dan was one of his kids too. We're all still failures, even at his funeral, because none of us know how to grieve for our father. I can't even see him as human. I just remember this - this man, like a giant."
"I - I don't know what to say, Nicky. But - you're not a failure. You've solved hundreds of cases, got justice for so many people. What you've done - it's important."
He runs his hand through her hair. It's cold and damp, but somehow comforting. "At least I've got you, huh?"
She looks up and meets his eyes. "Love you."
"I love you, too."
That night he dreams he's child-Nick again. In the dream he's an adult, trapped in his child body, and his father is a menacing figure looming over him. He has the knowledge of adult-Nick, but his father can still make him feel wrong, make him feel useless.
When he wakes up the next morning he cries in Sara's arms, and knows he's grieving for the father he'd always wished he had.
THE END