Chapter 4
They said if you wanted to make God laugh, then all you had to do was tell him your plan. Aberlour had a feeling God was pissing himself with laughter now. The old adage had been proven, in a way that blindsided him.
They never made it to West Virginia for Christmas. Aberlour’s parents died in November, two weeks before Thanksgiving.
The rocking chair was empty. It sat all alone on a worn and faded braided rug.
The same rug his mother had made from old scraps of fabric to stop his father from ruining her hardwood floors.
It was his father’s rocking chair, but it now sat empty in the corner of the room.
It was odd how everything changed, and yet so much stood still.
His parent’s house was the same as it had always been.
A simple colonial style house, sitting on a hill, overlooking the valley below.
It sat, like all the other nearby houses did, on the edge of the woods where he’d grown up.
Everywhere Aberlour looked—he found them waiting.
Pieces of his parents lingering about. From the wilted flowers on the coffee table—a disgrace to his mother’s green thumb—to the empty crystal bowl she’d usually filled with salted caramels.
Flowers and caramels. She’d had simple needs, his mother.
Easily pleased. Easily loved. Together, his parents had kept a simple house, sitting on a simple hill, and made it into a formidable home, and now all that was gone.
Because a simple house is a home, but an empty one is just a memory.
“What’re you gonna do with all this stuff?” Marcus asked, his voice soft with understanding.
Aberlour shrugged.
“Donate it, I suppose,” he replied, wondering if that was the right answer.
“Could sell some of it, turn a profit,” JD reasoned, speaking around the sandwich he’d stuffed into his mouth. He’d wandered in from the kitchen where most of the guys were busy polishing off the leftovers from food the neighbors had brought over.
The whole team had attended the funeral and while Aberlour was grateful to them, he was also slowly losing his mind. He needed—he wasn’t sure what, but it wasn’t chatter.
“Dude,” Marcus said, sharply elbowing JD.
“What?” JD asked with his usual lack of tact.
“Don’t need the money,” Abe answered before their squabble could turn into a wrestling match.
“You could keep it,” Oliver suggested quietly.
Aberlour turned to glance at him. He was still wearing the same nice button-down shirt that he’d worn for the funeral.
Aberlour had asked that they dress in something other than their dress blues.
His parents hadn’t loved his dedication to the military, and he saw no reason to disrespect their wishes now.
“I’d never be here,” Abe replied, shaking his head.
“Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep it. It’s paid off, right? Keep it as a cottage. Some place to come back to,” Oliver reasoned, with one of those barely there sweet smiles that Aberlour loved, the sight of it warming his heart.
“You could rent it when you’re not here. Even turn a profit,” JD suggested, still stuck on the idea of Aberlour making money.
“Would you stop with the money shit, for fuck’s sake!” Marcus complained loudly.
Aberlour heard his footsteps approach right before a heavy hand came down on his left shoulder.
“It’s a beautiful house, Abe. No reason you shouldn’t hold onto it. It’s still home, right?”
Was it? Aberlour looked around at the empty rocking chair, the crystal bowl, the fireplace. He saw all those things but couldn’t see home anymore. There was just a distant memory of it.
His eyes fell on his truck parked outside, and the urge to climb in and just hit the road was overwhelming. He forced himself to stay and stand his ground.
Aberlour shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest.
“I’ll sell it,” he said resolutely. “Some nice family in the area could use it.”
“I’m sure your folks would approve,” Ghost remarked.
As the quietest member of their little squad, they rarely heard him voice an opinion on personal matters.
His given name was Dave, but they’d nicknamed him Ghost early on.
Not because he was pale, since he was quite the opposite with his skin almost as dark as Marcus’, but because he barely spoke above a whisper.
Abe shot him a smile, as he always did when Ghost expressed an opinion. It was gift, hearing Ghost share his thoughts. He wouldn’t squander it.
“You guys all packed up?” Abe asked, abruptly changing the subject, turning to face his team. They looked far less intimidating in button ups and jeans than they did in their BDUs, but he could see the raw strength they possessed from the way they stood united even in Aberlour’s childhood home.
He felt honoured in that moment. To have them all here, standing before him, waiting for him to call out orders. Home, he thought. They were his home now, he supposed. His world had changed, and there was no going back.
Perhaps they had been his home since he’d entered the Marines, but now they took center stage.
“Yeah. We’re on our way out, ‘cause we gotta hit the road if we want to get back before sundown,” JD said, wiping the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.
“You sure you don’t want to ride with us?
” he asked, showing some concern for the first time that weekend.
JD wasn’t a very touchy-feely type of guy.
Things usually flew right over his head. Aberlour actually liked that about him.
“Nah, I’m good,” he said, throat tight with something that he couldn’t shake. He’d been swallowing against the rise of his grief all weekend. It was getting harder and harder to keep it under control.
“You guys drive safe, though. One car crash is enough—” he broke off, the weight of his words hanging in the air. He waved towards the road, wishing he could take back his words.
“I’ll ride back with you, Abe,” Oliver spoke up quickly, saving him from having to finish his sentence.
Abe turned towards him in surprise.
“You sure, O? You hate driving,” JD said, brow furrowed in confusion.
“Abe’ll drive while I’m relaxing and listening to his shit music choices. Anything not to be in a car for six hours with you after you’ve been eating egg salad,” Oliver said, which earned him a chuckle and a wave of complaints from everyone involved. Aberlour even managed to crack a smile.
“Right then,” Marcus said. “Off we go!”
Aberlour saw his men off with a few bro hugs and jokes about not dying of asphyxiation by keeping all the windows rolled down all the way home.
Then it was just Oli and Aberlour, standing in Abe’s childhood home, the silence weighing heavily on him.
It had been just Oli and Aberlour when the police had called to notify him of his parents’ death.
A drunk driver, they’d said. His father had swerved to avoid hitting him, but the maneuver had sent them colliding head-on with a tree.
It had been just Oli and Aberlour when Aberlour had asked the name of the driver, intent on doing the only thing that would tame the anger in his gut, and then it had been just Oli who had witnessed Aberlour crumble as he’d been told the driver was already dead.
Killed on impact as his car rolled over in a ditch.
He wasn’t sure how to explain why the anger he felt over the failure to avenge their deaths burned even hotter than the overwhelming grief of losing them, but Oli had remained silently supportive.
Just like now. He’d sat in silence and waited—waited for something Aberlour seemed incapable of giving him.
Aberlour wandered to the corner of the den where the old record player sat.
He chose a record from the pile, the vinyl feeling familiar and heavy in his hands.
Abe lifted the lid and needle of the player and quickly placed the record on the turntable.
With a flip of the switch, the old record player came alive.
First came the trumpets and the strings, then a woman’s voice. Her accent heavy with vowels and syllables of old. Aberlour turned and walked back to the couch where Oliver was already sitting, Edith Piaf’s voice drowning out the sound of his footsteps.
Non, rien de rien. Non, je ne regrette rien.
Ni le bien, qu'on m'a fait. Ni le mal, tout ca m'est bien égal.
“I don’t know this one,” Oliver said, softly. He was playing with the fraying couch cushion.
“No reason you should,” Abe said roughly, shrugging. “She was a French singer from the 40’s. Probably never graced the radio stations in old ‘Bama.”
Oliver chuckled in agreement.
“What is she saying?” he asked, as usual.
It was no surprise to anyone that Aberlour listened to old French music, but Oliver was the only one who’d ever been interested in the translation.
To Aberlour’s amazement, Oliver even knew a few French songs.
Piaf even. La vie en rose, if Aberlour remembered correctly.
He’d never asked where Oli had heard of it.
Avec mes souvenirs, j'ai allumé le feu. Mes chagrins, mes plaisirs, je n'ai plus besoin d'eux.
“She’s singing about regrets,” he said, shutting his eyes for a moment. There were no tears. He wouldn’t let there be tears.
“What about ‘em?”
“She has none.”
Oliver only hummed in reply.
It had been his mother’s favourite song. Aberlour had never asked why, content to just watch her smile as she’d hummed along to the melody.
Non, rien de rien. Non, je ne regrette rien.
Ni le bien qu’on m’a fait. Ni le mal, tout ca m’est bien égal.
“Come here,” Oliver said, pulling on Aberlour’s shirt to encourage him to lie down with his head in Oliver’s lap.
It felt—intimate. It felt—wrong wasn’t the word, because there was nothing wrong with it, but there was a weird feeling deep in his bones.
Aberlour shouldn’t have been lying down on his mother’s couch, his head in another man’s lap, letting his eyes fill slowly with tears as a French singer serenaded them both.
Surely, this wasn’t in the manly man’s playbook, and yet, he couldn’t find it in him to care.
Her voice was too beautiful, Oli’s lap was too comfortable, and his hand in Abe’s hair felt like something he didn’t dare name.
“Do you have any?” Oli asked, barely whispering. Maybe he was afraid to ask. Maybe he didn’t want Abe to answer.
“No,” Aberlour answered honestly. He didn’t believe in regrets. Didn’t believe in looking back and changing his aim. Aberlour had perfect aim. He’d gotten exactly what he’d wanted, whether he’d known the price he’d have to pay or not seemed irrelevant in the scheme of things.
“She would have liked you,” Abe said, after a moment, his eyes focused on the empty crystal bowl. “My mother,” he added after a second.
“Then I regret not meeting her,” Oliver said, and Aberlour could hear the smile in his voice.
“You’re an idiot,” Abe said, with no heat behind it. Oliver’s low chuckle made his head buzz with something that eased his pain, and as the song came to an end, Abe felt Oliver’s lips on the top of his head.
“Nah, that’s you. Darling and Dumber, remember?
” he whispered close to Abe’s ear, his voice husky, soft and full of light.
There was one more kiss. Gentle and quick.
A reassurance. A kind of hope. Then they both listened quietly as the song came to an end, Edith Piaf’s voice elegant and strong.
As unwavering and breathtaking as his mother had been.
Non, rien de rien, non je ne regrette rien. Car ma vie, car mes joies, aujourd’hui, ca commence avec toi.