Page 12 of In Cold Blood

“We should get together. It’s been a while.”

“That it has,” Noah replied, hugging him.

“Well, I should make sure dad’s okay,” Ray said, excusing himself. His exit opened a window for Luke’s wife to approach. Noah’s back was turned. She touched his arm.

“Noah.”

He turned. “Oh, hey Kerri.”

Kerri was a petite woman, five foot four with short dark hair.

Noah imagined she was about to ask why he arrived late but instead, she wanted to introduce her kids to him again. They’d seen photos but it was another thing to see him in the flesh onthe day of their father’s funeral. “Willow, Austin, say hello to your uncle, Noah.”

They muttered a few words.

Willow had long blonde hair and large eyes, she was tall like her dad. Austin was a stringy fellow with a demeanor that reminded him of a tortoise waiting to crawl back inside its shell. He wore a white shirt with a black tie that looked one size too big for him.

On any other day, they might have been all smiles and hugs but instead, they just gave strained smiles, stared, and clung to their mother as if she might disappear at any second. At the same time, the kids couldn’t tear their eyes away from him, as if they were seeing their father. “I’m sorry for your loss,” Noah said to Kerri but it was meant to be a blanket statement to the family. No doubt they would hear it a few hundred times. By the end of the day, it would carry little meaning. Still, he meant it. He couldn’t imagine the sense of loss, the days of confusion, or the anger and tears that would follow.

“Will you be staying with your father?” Kerri asked.

“I haven’t made any arrangements yet.”

“You are welcome to stay at our place.”

“I appreciate it. But I wouldn’t wish to put any strain on you.”

“It wouldn’t be a strain. I think…” Before she could say any more, Willow began crying. “I’m sorry,” Kerri said.

“No need to apologize?—”

“We’ll speak later,” she replied, carting the two of them away and grabbing a handful of tissues from a nearby table.

“Maybe this wasn’t a good idea coming,” Noah said to Madeline, assuming he would have the same effect on others. The grief was hard enough as it was, but looking at someone that was the spitting image couldn’t have been easy. The only difference between the two of them was the way they wore their hair. Luke had kept his short and spiked, while he’d grown his outslightly longer and would often flip it to one side, a habit left over from when he was a kid, done so that others could distinguish between the two of them.

“Don’t be silly. You can’t help the way you look, any more than Luke could,” Madeline said, pushing a strand of auburn hair behind one ear and glancing off and smiling at a few people who offered their condolences. A stream of strangers and friends approached them on their way out to shake hands.

That began the flow of remarks.

“Don’t you look like him?”

“Wow, the resemblance is uncanny.”

“When I saw you come in, I thought I had seen a ghost.”

“Great to see you back. It’s been too long.”

“Ah, it warms my heart to see you. Your brother was a good friend of mine and…”

Eventually, every interaction just became noise. Noah smiled. Nodded. He was polite. Thankful. He did what anyone else in his shoes might. All the while his eyes drifted across the crowd, searching for someone besides his immediate family to anchor him at that moment.

“I feel like a fish out of water. I hardly remember any of these people.”

“Well, you might have, had you stayed,” a familiar voice said. Noah turned to see his Aunt Gretchen. Late sixties, silver hair, she was a full-bodied woman, always had a smile on her face, and welcomed everyone she met as if they were her blood. Her husband, Patrick, had passed in his sleep twenty years ago. It was something heart-related. The two of them had been a godsend to him in his years growing up. Whereas he felt like he was walking on eggshells with his father, his mother’s sister had been the complete opposite. She was always first to tell their father if he was being too hard on them.Let them be, Hugh, she would say.They’re just kids.

Patrick had taken Noah under his wing. Taken him out hunting. Taught him how to fire a rifle. The stuff Hugh should have done but didn’t.

A military vet, Patrick had been the one to instill an interest in going into the military, a desire that his father had vehemently opposed. In his mind, service to the country could be done in many ways, not just as a soldier. It wasn’t that Hugh was ungrateful to those who served. No, he esteemed them highly, but to him, time away from the law was just another distraction from the path he had in mind for his offspring. He never enlisted nor had his father or grandfather before him, why should Noah? As what was good for them was good for him. The rest was just more regurgitating tradition. The unfortunate side to it was Patrick never got to see Noah achieve that dream of becoming a Marine or a cop later in life.