I'll admit this story I'm writing is slow. I know very little about the police force and I get sidetracked from the show because of shows I watched online.

Justin's POV

I read another book I was interested in called Girl on a Train. It took me only two days to complete the book. According to what I heard a movie of the book was made only two years after the book was published, but its not as good as the book. A thing I will always remember is a movie is mostly never as good as the book its based on. I await the time seeing a movie based on a book is better than a book if I ever think a movie is worth the price to day.

Reading this book made me want to go swimming again. I was afraid though remembering that explosion would cause me to scream underwater or pulled a leg when swimming. Being an adult the only kind of swimming I could do was doing the stroke across one part of the water to the other side.

All I know is this waiting to get back into duty was as boring as that time my parents tried renting a cottage for two weeks, and we only made it through one week before we called it quits and went back home. At least we have a Thirsty Thursday—it's where you go to someone's house for two hours enjoying crackers with all kinds of meats on them and a bunch of drinking.

"Justin, can you come outside and help me with this new mattress." Mom called me.

I was alleviated from the boredom from running outside and grabbing that mattress. In the back of Mom's chairs were two old furnished chairs painted white. I knew why Mom bought those things, it was to help her with her back.

She reminded me about her circumstances when we carried the mattress into the house.

"I hear monks sleep on hard places like this and it helps their back become strong as a rhino's body. Maybe I'll take up yoga or get in the lotus position like those monks do?"

"Only if you promise you'll shave your head first and only eat vegetables, Mommy." I laughed.

What a predicament that would be if she did the first things I asked her before using her furniture to help with her posture. We set the mattress down in the hall outside the room where she and Dad sleep and I moved the old mattress out of the room.

"Thank you, sweetie." She said before waiting for me to come back and lift the mattress with her.

The mattress was set on the bed. All that was left was replacing the sheets of the old mattress and putting them on the new solid mattress. We did, and it took an exhausting twenty minutes to do it. Something that should be so simple to do was actually the biggest challenge I had all day.

She and I moved one of the chairs out of the van on the porch.

"There's no rush for another job I promised your grandfather we'd do, but we need to move more of these chairs to your great uncle Baxter. He just lost a friend from lung cancer and wants to grieve him in the chairs he made for your grandfather."

That sounded like a man who's had a complicated life. As a police officer who lost a friend of my own, I could only imagine how morbid my uncle must see things right now. By the time, I got the second chair out of the van, Dad was sitting in one of the chairs and looking so relaxed and happy.

"Son," he said, "if your uncle asks tell him we never got the chairs."

Dad laughed in that weird way he does when he think's something he said is funny. He was really silly that way and kind of came off as a jerk sometimes. He went too far telling us how he hated some people, telling us some bad people should be hanged even though as a cop I take offense to him saying how criminals should be dealt with, and we had to remind him he shouldn't hit our dog because it was animal abuse and he could be charged by it.

Despite his unevolved mindset on how the world should be…he was nice to our family, a hard worker, and never takes any shit from anyone or has ever been taken advantage of.

After helping Mom move those chairs I went inside to read Magpie Murders a book by Anthony Horowitz. It's funny, the book doesn't have his name in capital letters. Mom and Dad were outside eating crackers with different meats and drinking wine. To them every Thursday was Thirsty Thursdays.

"Justin, you have got to see this."

I closed my book, a little mad I had to because I was at the part it was getting interesting, and I walked outside to see my parents sitting on a chair with that cheap lawn chair we had for years Dad refused to get rid of.

"Have a seat son. Would you like a glass of wine?" Dad asked.

"I'm recovering Dad. I'm not allowed to have alcoholic drinks because it impedes with my recovery." I said.

"Suit yourself. Your mother and I want you to come look at the sky. The black clouds in the right indicate a thunderstorm but look on what's on the left."

I widened my eyes and stared as hard as I could at whatever my father wanted me to see. I saw a pink cloud which kind of showed an animal I know wasn't really there but the cloud was so beautiful it made me believe something was inside there.

"You won't get to have any leisure like this or see many beautiful things like this when your back on the force." Mom's joy turned into lamination seeing the prolong sigh I exhaled. "I'm sorry about your friend. From what you told us he sounded like a good person with a good sense of humor. But as time moves on things get better and memories don't hurt so much."

"Try to remember what your mother says when you go back into the force two days from now. There won't be anyone who will love you more than us Justin."

I knew in my heart they were telling the truth. If there was one thing I was glad for it was no harm would ever come between them.