Until We Meet Again

Sitting in his chair he was shaking suddenly freezing wishing he had said something better that day at the cemetery feeling his brother had to be disappointed with how he left but the wind was picking up and the rain drops began falling soaking him as the tornado sirens frightened him reminding him of the night in prison when an inmate attacked two guards stabbing one of them with a fork he smuggled out of the lunch room running for his freedom as he made his escape the sirens going off the entire prison on lock down all the inmates yelling, wanting him to get free run to the edge of the world and never be caught again.  He curled up under his blankets the noise too much for him, he cried even when the noise stopped an hour later word being spread that the inmate was shot dead attempting to steal a car.  The inmates went to sleep waiting for another moment of inspiration to strike.  His teeth are chattering, his fingers numb, and a slow song is playing.  It is one of his wife’s favorites, All I Want is You as the guests paired off and held each other close his wife walking around the dance floor scouring the reception hall looking for him but he was frozen unable to move in the darkness wanting to get up and take her hand but the cold gripped him now as she continued to look.

An employee at the cemetery drove out to where he was standing pleading with him to leave informing him that the tornado was headed this direction but he insisted he was not ready to leave yet pushing the man away needing to be alone a bit longer.  He had to tell his brother about his daughter and what a tremendous student she was and how hard it is to be a father having to deal with being told “I hate you” one minute when he refused to let her go to a rock concert telling her she was too young or grounding her for drinking all the alcohol in their house one weekend when the parents were away trusting her to behave, but instead throwing a party inviting dozens of her friends over and trashing the house leaving holes in the walls and cigarette burns in the carpeting those three words breaking his heart because he loved her so much but she always had been able to put his mind at ease by hugging him for no apparent reason or giving him a kiss on the cheek goodnight whispering “I love you daddy” doing this all through high school when kids grow out of that taking him back to when she was a little girl and he would have to be careful not to trip over her because she constantly followed him around clinging to his leg while he made dinner or trimmed the bushes or watched football.  To this day he looks at her and looks at his wife never sure how this reality came to be.  These were things that he should be sharing with his brother by bothering him with phone calls late at night to talk about how things were going and how his job was stressing him out.