The War Back Home by Alex Cage

Author:Alex Cage [Cage, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781950156146
Published: 2022-05-16T16:00:00+00:00

Arthur C. Tucker

Lived a life.

Tucker sat on a nearby headstone and read the utterly strange pseudo epitaph on his father’s grave as questions bounced around in his head like ping-pong balls. Lived a life? Right. Everyone lives a life. Suddenly, he got angry. Why didn’t anyone write about the life he lived? Why did he get protection just because he was dead? Everyone remembered him as a good man who couldn’t handle the guilt of killing a man accidentally. But nobody knew that he was drunk when his carelessness killed the sole breadwinner of a family and drove the wife into a depression that led to her death. Nobody knew that he was a father who beat his own son savagely. And after all that, he still got an epitaph that was shrouded in mystery. A mystery that protected him.

Raging, Tucker kicked the gravestone and felt pain strike his foot. He ignored the discomfort and stormed out of the cemetery. When he made it out, he started running. He knew running was the only thing that could keep the voices in his head away, so he ran until he couldn’t think anymore. By the time he got back to the cottage, his muscles quivered and perspiration dripped off him like drops of rain.

“I wondered where you ran off to,” his grandfather said, seated by the door.

Tucker went to his room without saying a word. He then stripped and had a quick shower before throwing on a change of clothes and walking back to where his grandfather sat.

“It’s about him, isn’t it?” Pops asked.

“What is?” Tucker asked as he sat.

“The rage I see in your eyes, the emptiness in your soul, the tiredness in your flesh. It’s all because of him.”

Tucker said nothing.

“Son, no one could tell what kind of man your father was.”

Tucker’s head went up at that.

“I know you think you know, and that’s fine. He, unfortunately, showed you a very terrible part of him, and as his parent, I apologize.”

“Grandpa, nothing he did was your fault.”

“Boy, everything he did was my fault.” The old man paused, swallowed, then continued. “I’m about to tell you some things you never knew about your father. Listen carefully. Growing up, Arthur was a boy who saw me as his role model. A natural tendency, perhaps, but one I was fatally unaware of. He took all I did as the right way to behave, and he never questioned anything I did.”

His grandfather paused and glanced down for a moment. When the old man looked back up, his eyes were wet. Tucker winced at the sight and continued listening.

“All that changed the day I sent your grandmother away. For the first time in his life, he stood up to me and challenged me. What was my response to it? I slapped him,” Pops said while holding Tucker’s gaze.

“I slapped him that day, and I lost my son forever. I threatened to send him away too, but he did that for me by moving out.

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