It Should Have Been You by Murphy Michael

Author:Murphy, Michael [Murphy, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2013-07-27T16:00:00+00:00

22

AFTER he’d finished his drink and used the bathroom, Patrick resumed his walking. As before, he didn’t have a particular destination. Instead, what he had was an amount of time to fill. He couldn’t get into the shelter until 10:00 p.m., so that gave him a lot of time to fill. He went to his favorite library, but found that due to budget cuts it had eliminated Sunday hours, so that option was out. Fortunately, the day was sunny and not totally frigid.

As he walked, an alarming thought hit him. How was he supposed to do his homework if he didn’t have a desk or a place to sit and read or do math problems or whatever his assignments were? Of course, he suddenly realized, there was no guarantee he would be able to stay in school without a home. Eventually, his clothes were going to get filthy, and he was going to start to stink. No one would want him around if he smelled bad.

Patrick suddenly had a destination in mind. He knew it wouldn’t do any good, but he thought it might make him feel a little better to talk with the one person he’d always been able to talk to. It was a long walk to the cemetery, but once there he easily found his brother’s grave. A marker had been added since he’d last been there on the day David was buried.

Hesitantly, Patrick touched his brother’s name on the new marker, carefully running his fingers over each letter of his name and each character and digit of his birth and death dates. He looked around to be sure no one could see him, and then he sat down on the ground—not on top of the grave but to one side. Sitting on top of the grave just seemed wrong.

He was there, but he didn’t know how to start. He sat quietly for a moment, gently rocking back and forth, hugging his knees to his body.

“David, everything’s such a mess without you here. I wish you were still here. I miss you.” Suddenly and unexpectedly, Patrick was crying. With all the chaos in their lives over the last few months, he suddenly realized he’d never had time to mourn the loss of his brother. Several months late, but still necessary, that day Patrick mourned.

Over the following hour, until he was too cold from sitting on the ground, Patrick poured out his heart to the one person who would have understood. Even though he knew David couldn’t and wouldn’t answer him, it still somehow felt comforting to speak his fears and concerns and worries aloud to the one person he loved and trusted.

Why did the world have to take you? he wondered. He’d never heard from his parents what happened to the guy who killed David. He wanted to know if they’d found the guy, caught the guy, sent the guy to jail. Somehow he wanted to find out. He needed to know to be able to have some closure to the whole sad event.

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