I feel like I should say something about this story instead of just dropping it like a normal commission. It doesn't seem like it's been over a year since I finished RITY and coming back to it was nice, sort of like visiting with an old friend. I did have the idea to eventually write a few oneshots set in the RITY-universe. I don't know if I ever will, but it's certainly possible.
Lyrics to I'm Like a Bird by Nelly Furtado (2000)
Christmas was usually one of Alex's favorite holidays, what with the sweets, the presents, the sweets, the peace and goodwill to man, and especially the sweets, but this year, it was different. Her father, one of the most important people in her life, was dying and her mother might as well have been too. In the space of a few short months, Dad had withered to a barely mobile husk with sunken eyes, hollow cheeks, and sallow flesh, and Mom wasn't' far behind. Her eyes were always red-rimmed and red from lack of sleep and her hair, jet black up until this year, was rapidly turning gray. Every time Alex came over to the house on Cleveland Street - home even though she hadn't lived there for nearly fifteen years - Mom shuffled absently around like a zombie rumpled bathrobe and slippers, her eyes wide and staring. She barely slept anymore, and the combination of not sleeping and watching the man she had loved since she was a little girl fade into the night led to random bouts of sobbing. She'd be seemingly fine one minute and crying the next.
Alex loved both of her parents, but coming over to the house she had grown up in was a chore. The dark, funeral atmosphere weighed heavy on her shoulders, and seeing her parents this way made her sick with foreboding. Even so, she went two or three times a day and spent the weekends there so that Mom could sleep easy knowing Dad was taken care of.
If he needed it.
At the beginning of December, Dad weighed just under 105 pounds and looked like he was eighty-five instead of fifty-five. He was weak, gaunt, and could barely walk, but he forced himself to get up and do things for himself. In her ten years in the medical field, Alex had seen old people in far better shape than him peeing in diapers and needing to be lifted out of bed by two CNAs, but not Dad. Even sick (Alex rarely thought of him as anything but sick, because it wasn't as final and cutting as dyingi), Dad was the toughest and strongest man in the world. When Alex tried to help him, he would wave her off and pull himself up on his walker with a weary grunt. Make like a library and book, he'd say, I don't need your charity. He sounded sour when he said that, bitter even, but he had always sounded that way, and the boyish twinkle in his eye, dim but not gone, betrayed his gravity.
You're gonna break your hip, old man, Alex would say, trying her best to sound like her light, happy self and largely failing.
If Charlie couldn't do it, blood cancer can't either. Now go away and let me piss in peace. He'd make his way to the bathroom with agonizing slowness and take a good twenty minutes total, but he did it. Mom told her once that Dad was afraid of being a burden and would rather die outright than make her wash him or wipe his butt, and Alex believed her without question because that was the most Lincoln-like thing she had ever heard.
She was trained and willing to step in at any moment, but she didn't want to. Oh, she could do it, even though wiping your own father's butt is kind of weird, but she knew it would kill his pride and dignity. So...it's not that she didn't want to, she just didn't want him to be in that position.
Mom and Dad had told her and Jessy that Dad was dying months ago, and then the rest of the family in September, but Alex still had trouble really coming to terms with it. She knew it was going to happen, but she never let herself dwell on it, and like a desert mirage, it was always on the horizon, getting farther and farther away as she approached it.
Then she'd look, really look, at her father, and the realization that it wasn't getting farther away but closer would crash down around her. Deep depression would follow, and for a day or two, she'd be bluer than that bongo group in Vegas. Then, to save itself from being overwhelmed, her mind would push thoughts of Dad's impending death to the back and she would slowly start forgetting again. Dad was just sick, never dying. She didn't allow herself to build false hopes, but she also didn't go out of her way to confront the harsh reality of Dad's sickness. Nope. Uh-uh. Not me. I like to be happy and not think about bad stuff.
And that, she reflected, was maybe kind of a problem. Alejandra Carmen Loud had lived a relatively charmed life and she knew it. Her parents were solidly middle class, she had no terrible deformities or deficits, she was pretty and popular and painfully cool even in her thirties (God, I'm getting old), and she had never gone hungry, lost a limb, or been someone's victim. She married a good man who loved and supported her and never complained when she drank milk straight from the carton or left the toilet seat up (sorry, babe). She didn't know it growing up, but she was practically rich. And spoiled too. God, she and Jess were sooo spoiled. They had everything handed to them, from Ataris to cars, and Mom and Dad never made them pay for anything. A lot of parents get uptight and go "Once you turn eighteen, you're out of my house, hur dur dur." Mom and Dad didn't do that. Compared to a lot of other parents - to most other parents, even - they were really lax. Maybe even a little too lax.
Nah.
Anyway, Alex had never faced adversity in life. She didn't know what it was like to struggle, she didn't know how it felt to want. Because of that, she didn't know how to deal with something like this. She didn't know how to process it, how to manage it. Some people are so accustomed to suffering that they build a hard outer shell, and after a while, nothing fazes them. Can't make this month's car payment? Oh well. Can't afford groceries? C'est la vie. A loved one is dying? Well, that sucks, but it happens.
Not her. Alex was soft and pink and had the emotional pain threshold of a little baby. She was like her father in many ways, but that was not one of them. He was a tough SOB because he suffered. He built up his tolerance in Vietnam, and now nothing fazed him. If it did, he didn't show it. Alex wasn't as practiced in hiding her emotions. If she was sad or mad or anything else, you knew it, and she was sad and mad and everything else pretty often because she was all soft white underbelly. That wasn't necessarily a good thing. It's okay to have emotions and to show them from time to time, but you can't function as a normal human being if you let them control you. Someone who's governed by their emotions is weak because emotions are unreasonable. Anger and grief cloud your judgement and lead to mistakes and irrational thinking.
While she knew this, that was like saying you know getting shot hurts. Sure, you might know that...but it doesn't stop you from bleeding out if you take a round to the guts. Her emotional rollercoaster wasn't quite as bad as her mother's, but it was bad enough. In late November, the city put up its Christmas decorations - wreaths on every lamppost up and down Main Street, a HAPPY HOLIDAYS banner over the corner of Main and Pine - and instead of inspiring warmth and excitement in Alex's breast the way they had since she was a child, they only brought home the fact that this would probably be her father's last Christmas. Every other year, she would play Christmas music on the stereo and and sing along, driving Tim, Blake, and even Zoey up the wall, but this go around, she didn't feel much like singing. Or baking. Or even watching the epic twenty four hour marathon of A Christmas Story on TBS, and that was a cornerstone of her Yule celebration.
She felt like skipping Christmas entirely, but she soldiered through for Blake and Zoey. Santa couldn't slack and he wouldn't, no matter how much he wanted to curl up in bed and be a wet blanket.
In late November, Mom told her that she wanted to have the whole family over for Christmas. And by that, she meant the whole family. Bobby Jr., Lola, Stephaine, Val, Jessy, Mark, Allison, Lana, Jeb, Justin, Josh, Joy, Kathy, Lynn Jr., Lynn III, Lynn IV: Maddie Edition, Ritchie, Lori, Bobby. Was that everyone? Alex counted again and again and couldn't come up with anyone else, so it had to be. Add her, Tim, Blake, and Zoey to the mix, and that was twenty-three people. Twenty-five if you count Mom and Dad. Shoot. Luan and Fred. She forgot Luan and Fred. She always forgot Luan and Fred. So twenty-seven. Twenty-seven family members. Bobby JrLola, and their kids would probably stay with Lori and Bobby; Jessy, Mark, and Allison could crash here at Chez Alex; the rest would probably stay in a motel. The last time everyone got together (last year? The year before?), they rented a banquet room at the community center. Mom was thinking of doing the same thing again but didn't want to "cart your father around in the cold." Dad hadn't left the house in months and Mom was really nervous about bringing him outside. Alex kind of was too - in his state, a simple cold germ could cause a lot of damage - so she was in favor of having Christmas at Mom and Dad's. It would be cramped, but oh well. Suck it up, buttercup.
On December 10 - as cold and blustery a day as there ever was in good old Royal Woods - Alex left Mennonite Hospital and drove the twenty miles to Mom and Dad's house. Dirty flakes of ashen snow drifted from the churning white sky and full pine trees pressing against the highway's gravel shoulders shook in a frigid breeze. A pinprick of pain smoldered above Alex's left eye and her stomach roiled just as hard as the sky above. Music whispered from the radio, but Alex didn't sing along.
I'm like a bird
I'll only fly away
I don't know where my soul is
I don't know where my home is
And baby all I need for you to know is
I'm like a bird
Alex turned the radio off.
There.
Better.
It was still snowing (and beginning to stick) when she pulled into the driveway of the Cleveland Street house fifteen minutes later. She parked behind Mom's car, cut the engine, and got out into a blast of wind. Brrrr. Alex hated the cold a little more every year. She was definitely moving to Florida one day.
She went up the steps, snow sticking in her hair and on the shoulders of her jacket. She fished her keys out of her pocket, unlocked the door, and went inside.
A most unexpected sight greeted her.
Dressed in a pair of plaid lounge pants and a gray sweater, Dad sat in his chair, his gnarled hands resting on the padded arms and his head thrown back. His reading glasses were askew and a magazine lay open in his lap. Probably something about guns. Warm lamplight bathed his haggard face, shading the deep lines crisscrossing his cheeks in shadows. Liverspots salted his forehead and his sparse white hair clung to his shrunken head like tufts of cemetery grass. A vise grip of dread closed around Alex's chest and for a moment she just stood there, cold air blowing around her.
She had to fight really hard to keep from running away.
Instead, she closed the door as quietly as she could and tiptoed across the living room to keep from waking him. "I hear you," he muttered.
Darn.
"And this is why I never tried to sneak out as a kid," Alex said.
"I bet you snuck Tim in once or twice," Dad said. He flopped his head forward and squinted against the glare. His eyes were rheumy and tired, and looking into them hurt Alex's heart.
She went over, bent, and kissed him on the forehead. "No, actually, I never did. Jess snuck Mark in once"
Dad fixed her with a blank stare. "No she didn't."
"Honestly, she did," Alex said and dropped onto the sofa.
"I'd believe in Bigfoot before I'd believe in that."
Ugh. Seriously, Mom and Dad thought Jessy never did anything wrong. To be fair, she never did, but she did sneak Mark in one time. But only because Alex literally told him Go to her window with a mix tape, bear your heart...and then make sweet, sweet love to her.
Mark, normally unflappable, blushed when she said that. If she wants me to, I will, but I'm not sure if -
Oh, she does, trust me.
Though he had Asperger's and couldn't read social cues anymore than Alex could read prosy 19th-century literature, Mark knew her well enough to say I can't help thinking you might be misleading me.
"Whatever. How do you feel?"
Dad tilted his head to one side and took a mental inventory of himself. "Okay. I feel a little lightheaded but that's all."
"Good," Alex said. "You gotta build your strength up, it's starting to snow and that driveway won't shovel itself."
"That's why God made neighbor kids. Throw the little bastards a five dollar bill and they'll have it cleared in no time."
Alex rolled her eyes. How could she accept that her father was dying when he was the same old kidder he'd always been? "It's 2001, old man, those are 1960 prices."
"The kids never turn it down, though."
Well...maybe that was true.
"You're a cheapskate."
Getting up, Alex went into the kitchen. Mom stood at the stove in her bathrobe and warmed a pot of Campbell's soup on the stove. "Hey, mama," Alex said and pecked her cheek.
"Hi."
"Everything good here?"
Mom hesitated. No, everything was not good and hadn't been in months. "Yes. Everything's fine. Thank you for coming by."
"What are daughters for?"
Before she left the house, Mom stopped her. "I talked to everyone. They'll start coming in the day before Christmas Eve."
"Okay," Alex said. She hugged her mother and didn't let go for a long time.
Mom needed all the hugs she could get.
"There's something I have to tell you," Mom said.
Now Alex needed all the hugs she could get.
Mom must have felt her tense. "It's nothing to do with your father. Not his health."
"What is it?" Alex asked.
Dad was in bed by now and they were alone in the living room save for Judge Judy on Fox. Her shrill voice cut through Alex's brain meat like nails on a chalkboard. Mom released her and ran her fingers nervously through her own hair. "I talked to Jessy and she…" she trailed off and took a deep breath. "She wants to bring her father."
Okay, that doesn't make any sense because -
Oh.
Right.
Her "father." The commie guy who blew up a courthouse and spent the first twenty years of Jessy's life rotting in prison. Well, he and Auntie Luan blew up a courthouse. Auntie Luan was a grown woman when it happened, not much younger than Alex was now, and she didn't deserve to escape blame. She kind of did to Dad, though. Luan was his sister and he forgave her for what she did. Jessy's father, Ted, was nothing to Dad, and though it wasn't entirely fair, he blamed Ted for getting Auntie Luan involved with leftist terrorism.
"Why?" Alex asked.
"He wants to meet your father."
Buddy, you are barking up the wrong tree. Dad might not be in the best shape, but he could still pull a trigger, and probably would. "I don't think that's such a good idea."
Mom sighed. "I know, but it's really important to Jess and…" her lips started to quiver and she sucked them into her mouth. She turned her head away but not before Alex saw the water pooling in her eyes. Her fist flew to her mouth and she squeezed her eyes closed. Alex's heart sank like it always did when her mother cried and she laid a steadying hand on her shoulder. "I couldn't say no," Mom said. Her voice came out as a broken whisper, and Alex understood instinctively why she couldn't say no.
For whatever reason, it was important to Jessy that her father meet, well, her father, and there wasn't very much time for that to happen.
A lump of raw emotion formed in her throat and she swallowed it down. Mom took a deep breath and got a hold of herself. "I haven't told your father yet."
"I don't know if you should," Alex said.
"I can't not tell him," Mom said. She drew a burdened sigh and forced a smile. "Anyway, give the kids kisses for me."
Alex pulled her mother into a tight hug. "I will," she promised.
December 24
Long, long ago, Mark and Jessy moved out to what dad called The Left Coast so that Mark could work for Bill Gates. He made good money and was given the honor of heading the team that developed the Xbox, though instead of being a huge accomplishment, to him, it was just another day at the office, one mess of wires and microchips being very much like another. He did not understand his contribution to the rich history of video gaming, and he probably wouldn't have cared if he had.
Being virtually rich and famous was awesome for his and Jessy's bank account, but it also came with one major downside: Mark worked super long hours, and sometimes, Bill Gates would call him in at the last minute to work his days off. Goddamn it, Duchamp, Alex could imagine Gates saying and he brought his fist down on his desk, I want pictures of Spider-Man on my desk by five'o'clock or it's the bread line for you!
Mark, Jessy, and Allison were supposed to come in on the afternoon of the 23rd, but Bill Gates yanked Mark's leash and made him come in to "take care of a few things" (was Alex a perv for imagining Bill Gates making Mark, uh, service him?). They booked a flight for Christmas Eve, which is one of the worst days ever to travel, and got in just past noon. Alex was off and picked them up from the airport in Detroit. It had only been three months since she had seen her little sister, but a lot had changed in that time. In September, Jessy was a few months along and already big. When she waddled off the bridge-thingie connecting the airplane to the terminal, she was big as a house. Jessy had always been tiny so each time she got pregnant, she was all baby. Jessy lumbered toward her, and Alex couldn't help timing her steps to the sound of a tuba. Buh-bum, buh-bum. Mark came up behind, a bag slung over his arm, and Allison clutched his hand, looking super cute in a skirt, cardigan sweater vest, and white leggings. Her brown hair just covered her ears and a white clip pinned it back from her forehead. She looked around the terminal with child-like wonder...then shoved her finger in her nose. Yuck.
Alex walked over and gave Jessy a hug. "You're so fat I didn't recognize you," Alex said.
"I feel even fatter than I look."
Without asking permission, because they were sisters and she didn't have to, Alex put her hands on Jessy's stomach and shook it lightly. "Ho, ho, ho. How's my new nephew doing?"
"He's very active today," Jessy said with a long-suffering inflection. "He's been kicking up a storm."
Mark and Allison arrived on the scene, and Alex knelt down to Allison-level. "You look very cute today," she said.
"Thank you," Allison said shyly.
"Don't be shy-shy," Alex said, "you know me. I'm your Auntie Alex and...I love you." She attacked Allison's stomach with a playful tickle, and the little girl cringed and giggled. Alex scooped her up and got to her feet, Allison squirming and kicking in a futile attempt to get away. "You're not going anywhere," Alex said. She looked around and frowned. "Where's your mom and Fred?" she asked Jessy.
"She had to use the bathroom," Jessy said.
As if on cue, Fred and Auntie Luan came into the terminal lugging a carry on. She wore a heavy green coat and a toboggan, a plaid scarf wrapped around her neck. "What about your dad?" Alex asked.
"He flew in yesterday," Jessy said.
Alex wanted to say something more, but dropped it...for now.
After hugs and hi-how-are-yas all around, they claimed their baggage from the carousel and drove back to Royal Woods, Fred, Jessy, and Auntie Luan sitting in back with Alison and Mark in the passenger seat. Making an executive decision, Alex left the interstate five exits early and swung by McDonald's. Mainly for Allison's sake. Seriously. Every cute little kid deserves a Happy Meal, no matter how much their mother protests, and Jessy did protest. "Oh, Alex, it's not healthy. Oh, Alex, it's fattening."
"Do you want a Happy Meal?" Alex asked her niece in the rearview mirror.
Allison's face lit up and she kicked her legs. "Sorry, Jess, but in my car, the kid's the boss."
That wasn't entirely true, but whatever.
Auntie Luan wanted to stay with Mom and Dad so they stopped there and visited for a while. Dad was sitting up in his chair when they came in, and Alex could sense Jessy's alarm at his appearance. He fixed Jessy with his sickly eyes, and before she could even greet him, he said, "Alex told me you snuck Mark in here when you were a kid. Is that true?"
The color drained from Jessy's face and she shot Alex a hurt look. Why did you tell?
Whoops.
"N-No," Jessy said, the lie so obvious even Stevie Wonder could see it. "She's lying."
Dad narrowed his eyes and studied her face for a moment.
Then, missing what was right in front of him (probably because he wanted to), he said, "That's what I thought. Every time her mouth moves, a lie comes out."
Well then.
Glad to know where I stand.
After Mom and Dad got their fill of Allison - which took a long time because both were gluttons for their grandkids - Alex, Jessy, Mark, and Allison hit the road. Twenty minutes later, Marsh Run, the trailer park Alex had lived in for, like, ten years, sprouted up in the distance like Cibola (bumpty-bumpty-bump). Alex had been thinking really carefully about what she was going to say and how to phrase it so that it didn't come out wrong. "Do you really think Dad is ready to meet your father?" she asked Jessy. "Like...he's going through enough as it is and then this? Seems kind of...wrong to drop it in his lap like that."
In the rearview mirror, Jessy sighed and darted her eyes scoldedly to her lap. "I know," she said heavily. 'But...my father really wants to talk to him."
Alex exhaled through her nose. Part of her - the part she no doubt got from her mother - wanted to push the matter, but the better, logical part that she got from herself told her to drop it. Jessy obviously understood that this wasn't the best arrangement in the world. Bitching her out wouldn't accomplish anything, it'd only make her and Alex both feel worse. That would suck any other time of the year, but on Christmas Eve of all times, it would suck Even Harder.
"Alright," she said and turned into the entrance, "just make sure he's wearing a bulletproof vest."
Jessy looked nervous and Alex laughed. "I'm joking," she said.
"I hope."
That night, every single Loud and all of the most important Loud-adjacent people on earth packed into Mom and Dad's little house on Cleveland Street. Fred, Bobby, and Bobby Jr. trimmed the roof line with flashing Christmas lights and Val, Stephaine, and Maddie set up plastic candy canes along the walkway leading from the drive to the front porch. Lynn Jr. "supervised" from the couch. Alex had to wonder if her uncle had gotten the memo that the seventies were over. From his ugly plaid sports coat, she worried that he hadn't. Therefore, she took it upon herself to inform him. "Hey, fatso, 1978 called. It wants its jacket back."
Dad laughed until he coughed and Uncle Lynn just looked at her and nodded to himself, visibly trying and failing to come up with a witty retort. "I don't know who you're calling fatso, fatso."
"I'm not fat," Alex said, "there's just more of me to go around."
"I know five fat people," Uncle Lynn said, "and you're three of them."
Ouch.
"Go back to Arizona.'
She went off in search of Lynn III and found her by the dining room table in a black skirt and blazer, a cup of eggnog in her hand. "Jock sniffer," Alex said.
"Taco sucker," Lynn III shot back.
"Baseball reject."
"Merry cone."
They hugged. "I missed you," Alex said.
"You too," Lynn III said. "How's the hospital business?"
"Eh," Alex said, "not much changes. People get sick, do dumb stuff and get hurt, you know, the usual. How's the selling supar used cars business."
Lynn III glared. "My stock isn't subpar, jerk. I'm not my father. I don't push lemons on people."
"Only beaters, huh?"
Lynn punched her in the arm, and Alex punched her arm in retaliation. "Bitch."
"Loser."
"Conwoman."
"Shitty nurse."
Alex gasped. "Take that back."
They were so engrossed in their interplay that neither one of them heard the knock on the door or saw Jessy open it. Lynn was the first one to notice the newcomer. "Who's that?" she asked. Alex followed her light of sight. A tall man with a graying beard and glasses stood next to Jessy, looking uncomfortable in a green sweater and slacks. On his own, Alex wouldn't have known him from Adam but standing next to Jessy, the resemblance, though passing, was unmistakable. "Oh," Alex said, "uh...that's Jessy's father."
Lynn III looked confused. "Oh, the guy who blew that building up?"
"Well...he and Auntie Luan did it together...but yeah."
"Wow."
"I know."
Across the room, Ted Harris leaned close to Jessy's ear to be heard over the noise. "That's him?" he asked.
Lincoln Loud, in a short sleeve plaid shirt and brown slacks, sat in a kitchen chair against the living room wall and leaned heavily on a cane. The last - and only - time Ted had met him, Lincoln was twenty-one and fresh from eight months as a POW in a Vietcong prison camp. He was shaky, pale, emaciated, and covered in bruises, but he looked a whole lot better than he did now.
"That's him," Jessy said muttered. She sounded worried.
Before he talked to Lincoln, Jessy brought her mother over. Ted hadn't laid eyes on Luan Loud in thirty years, and even though he knew she must have aged, he half expected her to still be the pretty and passionate girl she was in 1970. Instead, lines had formed around the corners of her mouth and eyes and her rusty hair had lost most of its luster and begun to gray. They awkwardly faced each other, after so many years, neither looking the other full in the face. "You look good," Luan said.
"So do you," Ted said.
"How are things?"
Ted shoved his hands nervously into his pockets and studied Luan's dress shoes as though they were the most interesting things he'd ever seen. "Good. Finally getting settled and used to life again."
"It's a big adjustment," Luan agreed.
Taking a deep breath, Ted finally lifted his head and looked her in the eyes. "I'm sorry. You know...for everything. I was young and stupid and...I dragged you into something you never should have been involved with."
Luan's gaze faltered and she issued a pent-up exhalation. "I could have said no, but I didn't. I...I thought we were doing the right thing."
"So did I," Ted said, "but I still deserve most of them blame."
"It's the past," Luan said. "We can't change what we were. We can only change what we become."
They shared a friendly hug, then Luan went off to talk to a blonde woman Ted took to be Lola. Taking a fortifying sip of eggnog, he turned his attention to Lincoln, and was a little disheartened to find the old man - Ted couldn't think of him as anything else - glaring at him. Lincoln's body was frail and weak, but the intensity of his gaze gave Ted pause. Like the old saying went: If looks could kill…
He couldn't back down, no matter how much hate Lincoln Loud exuded. He came all this way to see him and come what may, he was going to say what he journeyed here to say.
Several months ago, Jessy called him on the phone, crying. It took Ted a while to find out what was happening: Lincoln was sick and wasn't going to make it. "You're my father," Jessy said, "but he'll always be my Daddy." That stung Ted deeply, but what could he do? Lincoln was the only father she knew for the first twenty years of her life. That wasn't Jessy's fault, and it wasn't Lincoln's, it was his. And whether he wanted to admit it or not, Lincoln was and would always be more important to her than he was. He meant the world to her, and it was only since she found out that he was dying that Ted fully understood that.
Sitting his drink on an end table, Ted took a deep breath and crossed the room. Lincoln watched him come, his gnarled hands tightening on the cane until thin blue veins stood out from his sallow flesh. Ronnie Anne saw what was coming - who was coming - and laid a staying hand on his shoulder. Lynn Jr. stood next to his brother like a flabby bodyguard and crossed his arms over his ample chest. Ted stood before Lincoln like a condemned man before a judge. He extended his hand and said, "Hi, Mr. Loud, I'm -"
"I know who you are," Lincoln said.
Ted let his hand fall to his side. "I just -"
Lincoln spat in his face.
Well...so far, it was going about as he expected. Ted wiped his face with the sleeve of his sweat and continued despite the humiliation coloring the back of his neck. "I wanted to thank you for everything you and your wife have done for Jessy." He fought to keep from breakin from Lincoln's hateful gaze. "You were there for her when I couldn't be...because of my own actions..and I'm grateful for that. You have every right to hate me and to throw me out of your home. I deserve that. I just wanted you to know that I appreciate what you did."
With that, Ted turned and walked away. Before he left, he gave Jessy and Allison both a kiss and made plans to meet them the next day.
When he was gone, Lincoln relaxed and drew a tired sigh. "You alright?" Ronnie Anne asked and rubbed his back.
"I'm fine," he croaked. The noise, the activity, and finally confronting that loser Ted Harris had taken a lot out of him and all he wanted to do was lie down. Instead, he forced himself to stay up. Tiring though it was, it was nice to see everybody again, especially Stephaine. Last summer, she tried to kill herself and Lincoln worried about her. Lola said she had something called Bipolar Disorder, and when she told him the symptoms, he choked. That sounds just like Ronnie.
Ronnie Anne didn't think that was funny.
Through the evening, everyone came over to see him, most one at a time because Ronnie Anne probably told them oh, he's weak, don't overwhelm him. She still didn't realize she was married to a true American hero. Then again, a prophet is never accepted as such in his hometown. He'll always be that Jesus kid who used to steal my mail.
Oh well.
These people didn't appreciate him for his heroism, but he loved them anyway.
For all of them, even those with whom he shared no blood, were family.
And say what you want about Lincoln Loud, but he had always been a family man.
February 2002
Ronnie Anne Loud sat at her husband's bedside and softly stroked his hand. Tears brimmed in her eyes and pain festered like gangrene in her heart. The brightly lit room was silent save for the low rush of air in the vents and the soft beeps and boops of a dozen machines Ronnie Anne couldn't even begin to name. A confusion of tubes and wires connected them to Lincoln, who looked too small beneath the blankets. His thin, grayish skin pulled tight across his skull and his mouth hung open. He had been in and out of consciousness for most of the evening and the doctor informed her in the quiet, dignified tone of a funeral director that he probably wouldn't last the night.
Lincoln had been in the hospital for close to a week and Ronnie Anne had been with him almost every moment, leaving only to go home, shower, and change her clothes. She hadn't slept in days because she was afraid she would wake up and his bed would be empty, the love of her life carted off like garbage, but she was just as afraid of being awake and watching him take his last breath.
Fresh tears filled her eyes and she wiped them away. Despite the wool blanket draping her shoulders, she was cold and didn't think she would ever be warm again.
She had known this day was coming for months and she tried to prepare herself for it, but how can you prepare for losing the man you've loved since you were a little girl? So many things had changed over the past forty-four years - Royal Woods hardly looked the same and neither, for that matter, did she - but the one thing that remained the same was Lincoln and her love for him. Years came and went, people came and went, but Lincoln was steady and unchanging, her rock and the center of her world. She couldn't remember a time without him and her soul rebelled at even trying. He was a part of her as surely was her heart. How could she go on without him?
Ronnie Anne was so lost in her grief that she didn't realize Lincoln was awake until he laid his shaky hand on the metal rail. His arm was so thin it looked like it would snap off, and his fingers were twisted and gnarled. He offered her a weak smile and she didn't even try to return it. "Hey," he said. His voice was low and scratchy, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down with the effort it took to speak.
"Hey," Ronnie Anne said in a breaking whisper. She took Lincoln's hand in hers and brushed her thumbs lovingly over his knuckles. "I don't want you to go," she said.
"I know," Lincoln said. "I don't want to either."
She pressed his hand to her wet cheek and pressed her lips tightly together to keep from breaking down.
"The girls need you," he said, "so do the kids."
Ronnie Anne clamped her lower lip between her teeth and nodded. Jessy, Alex, Blake, Zoe, Allison, and Jessy's baby, who would be born any time, would need her...and she would need them.
"Please be strong," he said. "For them."
"I'll try," she said.
"I'll be watching," he said, "so you better. And when you're ready to come home, I'll be there waiting."
Ronnie Anne didn't know how she was going to make it without her other half, but she would find a way. She had to.
Lincoln scooted over and patted the spot next to him. "Room for one more," he said. His eye twinkled and Ronnie Anne smiled through her tears. Despite everything he'd been through in life, despite all his tough talk and tough actions, deep inside, he was still the cute little boy she fell in love with way back in 1957.
Getting up, Ronnie Anne came around the foot of the bed, pulled down the railing, and climbed in, being careful to avoid the many tubes and wires connected to him. She curled up beside him and he put his arm around her shoulders. "Did you ever think...when you first saw me...that'd come this far?" Lincoln asked.
"No," Ronnie Anne admitted and dabbed her eyes.
"I just wanted to hold your hand," Lincoln said and grinned, "and maybe kiss you."
"You did a lot more than that," Ronnie Anne said.
"I built the perfect life with you," he said and turned his head to face her. "Thank you for letting me take you to that dance."
Ronnie Anne squeezed his hand. "Thank you for asking me."
"I love you."
"I love you too, Lincoln Loud. More than you'll ever know."
"Not as much as I love you."
"More."
"No."
"Yes."
For a time, Lincoln was silent, and when Ronnie Anne looked up, he was asleep again. She snuggled closer and held him in his arms as if by doing so, she could keep the Reaper from taking him. Her breathing was shallow and labored, his chest hardly rising and hardly falling. He would breathe, pause, breathe, pause, and each time, the pause became a little longer, the breaths a little more phlegmy. Ronnie Anne's grip tightened; she could sense it was the end and her heart slammed so hard against her ribs that it hurt. She wasn't ready for this...she couldn't let him go. Not yet. She needed him. There was so much love yet to make, life to live, cuddles to share.
Lincoln's throat rattled, and the pattern broke.
Now it was all pause.
The heart monitor flatlined with an ear-piercing tone, and Ronnie Anne began to sob.
The funeral was held on Wednesday, February 9 at the First United Methodist Church in Royal Woods. Ronnie Anne chose it because it was where Rita's funeral took place seven years before, and that small measure of familiarity comforted her.
Beginning the previous Thursday, far-flung family members drifted in one-by-one until they were all here. Each one offered words of condolence but Ronnie Anne was deaf to them all. Since Lincoln died the previous week, she had been shrouded in a haze of numb grief. Alex handled most of the funeral arrangements because she couldn't do it herself. She hardly ate, hardly slept, and spent most of her time curled up in Lincoln's chair like a cat waiting for its beloved master to return. She dreamed of him every night and woke either laughing or crying.
The church was a small, clapboard building with a steeple. It should have been more than enough room, but on the appointed morning, the parking lot was packed. Inside, a confusion of people crammed the nave. The first ones she met were a middle-aged white man with graying stubble and a fat Hispanic man stuffed into a cheap suit. The white man introduced himself as Dave Henderson. "Your husband and I were POWs together," he said. "I'm really sorry about what happened. He was a great guy."
"Tony Hernandez," the Hispanic said and shook her hand, "me and your husband were in basic training together."
Next, a man whose face she knew in an instant came respectfully up and took a deep breath. "I'm very sorry for your loss," John McCain said, "your husband was a wonderful man."
Across the room, Fred and Luan stood with a black man and a white woman. From what little Ronnie Anne overheard, Luan and the black man knew each other.
There were others, a blur of names and faces that she could hardly keep straight on a good day, much less now, burying her husband. She knew some of them. Lily, who worked at Flip's and had Ronnie Anne's class, was there, and Father Jack too. There were many men and women, young and old, all of whom had been touched in some way by Lincoln. It was emotional and overwhelming.
When the service began, she sat between Alex and Jessy in the front pew. Jessy held a squirming bundle in her arms. It was a boy and she named it Lincoln. "After the most important man in my life."
Lori sat with Lynn and Luan in the second row back. Six Loud kids began this journey called life, now, sixty-one years after the first one's birth, only three remained.
Later, after the service and after the wake, they crowded around the table in Lori's kitchen, all in dress clothes and all looking dour. Lynn opened a bottle of beer, looked at it, and blinked away a sudden rush of tears. He didn't see his little brother very often, but he loved him, and knowing that they'd never spar or insult each other again made him want to cry. "So it's just us," he said.
"Yeah," Lori said. "Just us."
"I can't believe he's gone," Luan said. "I couldn't believe it when it was Luna and Leni."
Lori sighed. "Neither could I." She let out a humorless laugh. "I'm sick of losing siblings."
In thirty years, Lori had watched two of her sisters and one of her brothers die. Luna went suddenly, but Lincoln and Leni lingered. She knew what was coming ahead of time and that made it worse than the gut punch of Luna's death. With Luna, it was like ripping off a Band-Aid, with Lincoln and Lincoln it was like pulling a Band-Aid off slowly, painfully. In her life, she had seen three people she loved waste away. Lincoln, Leni, and her mother. Each time death passed close to her, she was reminded of the fragility of life.
Worse even than the deaths of her mother and siblings was Stephanie's suicide attempt over the summer. Even now just thinking out it knocked the breath from her lungs. Since it happened, she called Bobby and Lola three times a day to make sure her granddaughter was okay. She never said that she was calling for that reason, but Bobby and Lola knew, and probably Stephanie too.
Just a few short months ago, Lincoln was okay. Now he was gone. It happened so quickly.
And one day, she knew, it would happen to her or Bobby.
"So am I," Lynn said and took a drink of beer. "You remember that time Lincoln got so mad because I took his transistor radio that he kicked me in the nuts?" Lynn let out a deep belly laugh and shook his head. "He had a helluva right hook too. This one time, I saw him punch a guy so hard I thought he killed him. And when we used to wrestle, I never told him, but almost beat me every time."
He trailed off and his warm smile fell a little at the realization that Lincoln was gone.
"If I had a dollar for every time he threatened to fire me," Luan said, "I'd be rich. He'd point at a table and say, You missed a spot, dummy."
That made Lynn laugh again. "Yeah, that was Lincoln. He has the best fat jokes." He didn't realize that he'd spoken of his brother in the present tense, as though he were still alive and would come through the front door at any moment. "I think he sent away for them or something. Had to. The little runt wasn't that smart."
"One time, Alex was misbehaving," Lori said and smiled at the memory, "and he comes over at, like, ten o clock at night. I open the door and he shoves a John Saul book into my hand. Here, Merry Christmas. I still have it on the shelf. Alex saw it and tried to take it back but I told I'd hadn't read it yet." She took a sip of coffee.
"The war changed him," Luan said.
"Made him tougher," Lynn agreed.
"He wasn't the same person when he came back. He was Lincoln...but different."
Lori nodded. She had noticed that too. When he left for boot camp in the summer of 1966, he was still a boy with a baby face and a doe-like look in his eyes. When he came home in February 1968, he was harder, leaner, no longer the soft little kid he was a year and a half before. He and those other POWs were the only Americans to escape from Vietcong custody during the whole war and their story had been written about many times. A few years ago, she saw it on The History Channel. They said Lincoln shot four people at point blank range, one in the back of the head. Lori was horrified. God, what did he have to do over there? No wonder Ronnie Anne said he had nightmares. Twenty-one might not be a child per se, but at sixty-one, it certainly was to Lori; Lincoln was a child and so were so many of the other boys who fought in Vietnam.
It made her sick thinking of them cold, alone, and afraid in a godforsaken jungle, waiting to die and praying they got to see their families again. Every time she thought of them, she saw Val and Bobby Jr.
"That war changed everyone," Lori said.
Luan opened her mouth to say something but closed it again. Lincoln was the reason she became involved with the protest movement, and the reason Luna became addicted to cocaine. I was so bummed, man, and I just needed to cope, Luna told her during one of her final visits to see Luan in prison. Luan had never said this because she didn't want to sound like she was blaming him. It wasn't his fault, but if it weren't for the situation, who knows? She may have finished college and Luna might be alive today.
Things happened the way they did, though, and she supposed that for better or worse, they were meant to happen that way. Everything happens for a reason, they say. Luan never knew if she believed that before, but now, contemplating the life of her brother - a life inextricably woven with hers like two strands of thread - she figured they were right. Nothing happens by chance. She made a terrible mistake, but something beautiful came out of it: Jessy.
Why did Luna have to die? She didn't know. Maybe there was a person out there who needed to see the Luna Loud tragedy unfold to realize that drugs were dangerous. Maybe she had saved countless people from following the same dead end path she had.
Luan couldn't say, she wasn't as smart as she once thought, but everything had to happen for a reason. And for whatever reason, she was blessed with a brother like Lincoln.
Across town, Ronnie Anne sat on the couch between Alex and Jessy, a photo album in her lap. Allison, Zoe, Blake, and Jordan played on the floor, and once again the sound of children's laughter rang through the house. Ronnie Anne smiled at a photo of her and Lincoln with toddler Alex and toddler Jessy. Lincoln's smile warmed her but hurt her as well. She looked around at her daughters and her grandchildren and took heart. Lincoln was right, they had built the perfect life together, and though right now she was hurting, she wouldn't trade it for the world.
She brushed her thumb over picture-Lincoln's face and smiled. I love you, Lincoln, she thought, and I always will. Alex laid her hand on Ronnie Anne's shoulder, and Jessy did the same. Ronnie Anne put her arms around each one and drew them close.
Life would go on.
And, for the Louds, it did. Some married, some served their country, some fell in love, and some died. The story of life is written one chapter at a time, and while characters come and go, the story continues. It repeats itself again and again and again as new characters jump in and drop off, but it will never stop as long as there remains an author to write it.
The Loud family had produced many authors and would produce many more in the decades and generations to come. Their stories wouldn't be so different from those of their forefathers, for while times, language, and culture may change, human nature does not. We all love, we all know sorrow and joy. We always have…
...and God willing, we always will.