Too Late to Say Goodbye by Mark Atley

Author:Mark Atley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: 4 Horsemen Publications, Inc.
Published: 2022-02-23T01:29:44+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:

IRIS KING

IRIS FINISHES TALKING WITH A GROUP OF people and takes her place at the side of the stage to greet the newcomers who ascend the steps. But this is becoming too much, even for her, with flowers everywhere and people milling about washed in colognes and perfumes. Every smell is some sort of battlement to fight off the stench of death, which makes the large room smell like a box of potpourri. It’s all too much. All this … pomp.

That’s what her late husband would call it. He’d say this is too much. Look at this place. No wonder people go into the church business. What other type of business could afford a place like this? God, look at this building. How much does rent for a place like this cost?

Clyde never understood church. He said he never had religion growing up, and he didn’t plan on changing that with dying. Then, he’d say, “How’d they pay for a place like this?”

She’d say, “They probably bought it with cash.”

But she knows how the church paid for a building like this.

Golf—

—and ten percent to God.

Iris watches the group move over to Eli, stationed at the exit staircase. He greets them with open hands, glad-handing the people, doing the politician handshake, grasping the tallest man’s hand, who is dark headed with dark eyes; the man looks like a politician. Eli uses his other hand to grip the guy’s forearm. The man looks familiar.

To Iris, it’s like everything’s happening to her and happening around her so much so that she’s not a part of the events. Another out-of-body experience just like when the Cortez woman made the notification as if she’s just a figure in a tragic story watching everything where nothing seems to go right, but she’s just walking through it all in a fog, doing nothing to change the story.

A crack of Eli’s booming voice followed by a loud laugh returns her to the moment, and she realizes that, although she may not be alone, she feels alone. That’s what this is. This funeral. Full of people from all over the state, and here she is alone on stage. No one’s here for her. They’re here for Clyde. Scratch that, Renaldo’s here; he’s sitting just off the stage staring at her, wearing his brown leather jacket, with a navy shirt, dressed nicely, pleasing to the eye. He’s always dressed nicely though, and sometimes it’s too nice. It makes her feel like she has to constantly compensate for his appearance. Renaldo being here isn’t comforting. He shouldn’t even be here. It’s more like pouring acid into the wound. He’s the reason Clyde is dead.

But she is alone and tired.

Is this grief?

If this is grief, then maybe that explains the irritableness permeating throughout her body. because if she has to listen to another person tell her they’re sorry for her loss, she doesn’t know what she’s going to do. She keeps standing here, shaking their hand, fake-smiling into their face when all she wants to do is cry, but she doesn’t cry, not in front of anybody.

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