Labor's End

This death was so very different from all the others that Mike had witnessed. Not only had Mister Clyde lived his life, but on those really bad days when he became so violent that they had no choice but to restrain him to the bed or chair, on those days, death seemed almost merciful. More a blessing than an existence that was nothing more than breathing. But still, Mike did not think this decision was one he could make on his own.

All of this weighed upon his mind that afternoon as he left the nursing home. In fact, he was so focused upon his own thoughts that had Frank Majors not approached him for help carrying some boxes to his car; Mike might have missed the opportunity to say farewell to the man, who had become a friend and compatriot of sorts in this battle against dementia. He was glad that the man had sought him out, though.

Mike was surprised at how little there was, only three small boxes that contained all the mementos and photographs of a whole lifetime. Mike had insisted on carrying all of them himself, no need to burden this elderly man with that as well as everything else he had been and still was going through. As he loaded the last box into the trunk of the man's car, he had turned back to notice tears streaming down the man's weathered cheek as he ran his fingers across a sealed plastic bag.

Mike instantly recognized its contents. The neatly folded triangle of red, white, and blue material could be only one thing. His throat tightened as he thought of the meaning behind that flag and compared it to the one, he had placed in Senora Hernandez's shaking hands only weeks ago. He knew that soon he too would be bringing another of them home, though he doubted very much that Billy's sister would want the damned thing. She had been barely ten when her brother was killed.

As if his mind too was on the same wave-length, Frank picked the bag up out of the box and held it reverently, "What do I do with this?" he spoke aloud the question that was plaguing Mike himself.

The man shook his head as tears fell onto the thick plastic that would protect its contents from even this. "I know all of this might seem strange to you, but I knew going into our marriage that he would always hold some special place in her heart. That there was some part of the woman, I loved that was his alone, that I could never touch."

He looked up at Mike through those tears, "And I never tried. I never pushed her for more than the love she had to give me. I know you cannot understand, but even then there was always so much love in that woman that it was more than enough. Never once did I feel jealous of him."

"You know she was a teacher. Right up until two years ago when dementia got so bad that they forced her to retire. She taught English and drama in the local high school. She had once been a B-list starlet. She was in a couple of old seventies horror movies, you know." He smiled as he shook his head, "That woman could scream."

"They were an odd pair. The flower power hippie actress and the Marine officer. But she always said it was love at first sight."

He sighed, "It wasn't like that with us, though. I was simply the science teacher down the hall that she shared a sandwich with over lunch." He chuckled, "My granddaughter said she had 'friend-zoned' me whatever that is."

"But over time, our lunches turned into movies on Friday nights and the occasional bowling game. It's not like there is a whole lot to do around Prairie View. They weren't even dates really, just two friends with nothing more to do, hanging out together."

"Well, at least that's how she saw them. Me...that was another matter. I fell and fell hard for that woman from the moment I saw her. Of course, I figured what chance did a bachelor science teacher have with a Hollywood star. I consigned myself to simply looking and never touching,"

"Over time though, I'm not even sure how, but over the next couple of years, we just always seemed to be together. Until everyone in town just sort of assumed we were a couple. Even though I had never even kissed her."

"She was the one that changed that. Under the mistletoe at the Christmas dance one year. Things just sort of happened from there. We were married less than a year later when she discovered that despite our best efforts, she was pregnant with our older daughter. She was brutally honest with me then. When I proposed to her, she told me that she loved me, but that she was not 'in love' with me."

The man shook his head, "English teachers and their damned semantics. What's the difference anyway?"

"Forty years? Probably almost as long as you've been alive, young fellow. Forty mostly wonderful years, three beautiful daughters just like their mother and ten grandchildren, more than a nerdy science teacher could ever dream of, let me tell you."

He shook his head, "I just don't know what to do now." He was silent for a long moment as his fingers brushed over the plastic.

"It's not like I resent the man. Like I said, I never have. It's just that somehow I feel like this would never mean as much to me or the girls, as it did to her. As it honestly should to someone. What do I do with it?" he asked as he looked up at Mike.

He thought for a long moment. Mike wondered about other flags. How many ended up like this one? Without a place of honor, simply forgotten over time, like the men themselves who had died. It did not seem right somehow. It wasn't right.

He sighed as he reached for it, "Did he have any family you know of? Anyone that might want it?"

Frank nodded, "Yes, somewhere in Boston. Mary did not talk about them much. They had never really approved of her, being as she was neither Italian nor Catholic."

"By the time we met, I don't think they even exchanged Christmas cards anymore. I guess I could go through the things at the house and see if I can find a name or address somewhere. It's just that..." The man sighed, "Just that I've kinda been putting that off. Guess, I feel that if I leave her stuff lying around, untouched then she isn't really gone, you know."

Mike nodded sympathetically. What would it be? One more duty? Another mission, of sorts? To another fallen comrade. Even though he had never met the man, who was likely dead when he was still in diapers, he felt connected to him somehow. This time it was more than merely the brotherhood of the Corps. After all, for a while at least, he had been the man, at least in the eyes of the woman, who had loved him and never forgotten him.

For a split second, Mike was jealous of the dead man. What would that feel like? To love and be loved so deeply that not even death could extinguish you from a woman's heart. It was not something he would ever know that was for sure.

Maybe he owed this much to Mary as much as he did the Marine he had never known. To see this final memento of a life sacrificed in honor of its country safely into the hands of someone, who would value it as she had all these years. Or that was his hope as he took the folded flag from the other man's hands.

It weighed far more than he would have thought. More than he remembered the one he had handed to Senora Hernandez weighing. But then too this one was from another era, perhaps it was made from another type of material, heavier. Or maybe he just felt the weight of the burden he was accepting more. Perhaps he knew that this would be his final mission. The last thing he did before he...

But that was the future. Or what future Mike had anyway. There were many other missions to complete before that day would come — many more miles to cover. Old friends and comrades to visit. Right now, though, he had this one to finish.

"I'm going back to Boston at some point. If you want, I'll take it with me. I give you my word I'll take care of it like it should be until I can locate some of Joe's family, who will."

Mike promised as he exchanged contact information and extracted the man's promise that he would go through Mary's things, see if there was anything more to go on than merely the man's name and rank, though Mike figured if worse came to worse, he still had a few friends who might be able to get all he needed from that alone. He hated to put their jobs at risk by asking if Frank could provide the information he needed.

The men said their farewells. This time Mike found himself wrapped in a real hug rather than the half embraces he rarely gave his friends. As Frank pulled back, there were tears in the elderly man's eyes once more.

"Thank you. Thank you for this and especially thank you for the compassion that you showed my Mary by pretending to be him for a bit. You don't know how much that meant to her. What closure it gave her that this time, Joe came back for her."

"There are no words to explain how much that means to me, son. You're a damned fine man. Taking on things like that and the man in there that ain't even your father. The world would be a better place if there were more people like you in it."

There was nothing and no way that Mike could respond to that. If this man knew. If he only knew how many people, how often he had failed his friends. How much blood stained his hands. How the ghosts came more vividly for him every damned night. If he knew, then Mike was confident he would never say such a thing.

Mike just nodded, "Take care of yourself, Frank. And I promise I will handle this for you...and for Mary."

Frank smiled as Mike walked away. The man stayed by that open car trunk as he started the Harley and put on his helmet. The last thing that Mike saw as he rode away was the man waving after him. If he only knew the truth...

***CHAPTER SEVEN***

Mike plopped onto the sofa in the living room. He did not have the energy for anything more. Ten days. Even after he and Becca Hall-Okadigbo had talked and made the decision, it had taken Mister Clyde ten days to die. Long, agonizing days and nights.

Once the decision was made though, Maude and the staff had been wonderfully supportive. Visiting hours no longer mattered, he came and went as he pleased, mostly stayed, day and night. In those ten days, Mike had slept in the chair next to Mister Clyde's bed all except that first night, when he had not known that they would allow him. Maybe they thought it odd that he should hold such a vigil for a man, who was not even technically related to him, but no one said anything.

At first, he had tried eating the food they gave the patients, but that was impossible. MREs tasted better and had more substance. By the third morning, he had given up and taken a shower. He needed 'real' food, and since Mister Clyde was sleeping more anyway, he would sneak out for a bit and get something quick to eat. Perhaps even bring it back and eat it at his bedside. He had meant only to grab some greasy fast food; after all, food was food. But when he sat astride Esther at the edge of the parking lot, he found himself turning towards Honour.

By the time, he got to the restaurant; it was almost empty, the early morning breakfast crowd had dispersed to jobs and farms. Around here, the day got started early. The moment he had walked in he had been practically ambushed. Brenda Hall had thrown herself at him like a grenade, enveloping him in a hug and peppering him with a mag of machine-gun fire questions.

The best he could make out, she was worried about him and Mister Clyde because she had been coming by the farm, morning and night with food, but no one was around. She had been afraid that he had even left without saying good-bye. It felt strange to notice tears in the woman's eyes as Josh physically pulled his wife off him.

Mike apologized as he took a seat in his favorite booth and the woman poured him a cup of strong, black coffee that smelled like what he imagined heaven would, not that he would ever find out. If there was such a place at all. She had sat with him, keeping his cup full of the stuff.

There was no need to place an order even, within five minutes, Josh himself had brought a plate piled high with scrambled eggs, and more meat than some families had in a whole week. Another smaller plate held pancakes. The other man had just nodded as he placed the offering before him and slipped back into the kitchen.

Mike had known that he was hungry, needed to eat more than institutional mush that only masqueraded as food, but until his first bite of those eggs, he had not known just how hungry he was. Brenda had waited patiently as he answered her questions to the best of his ability between bites of breakfast and sips of heaven. She had frowned and nodded as he explained the latest developments. He heard how genuine she was when she told him that they were real sorry about Mister Clyde too.

After that, Mike had not even needed to leave Prairie View for his meals. Just as the woman had delivered his meals to the farm on those evenings when he had lost track of time and missed the dinner rush, so too had she begun to bring food to the nursing home. Not just for him either, there was always extra for the staff as well. The woman used the excuse that they were just helping them by getting rid of leftovers. The nurses and Mike certainly were not going to argue.

A couple of times in the late mornings between the breakfast and lunch crowds, the woman had even stayed for a bit, sitting by the bedside, holding Mister Clyde's hand and talking about Billy. Mike had slipped discretely from the room, feeling like an intruder, like he was eavesdropping on their private conversation.

But he would not forget the way the woman's voice cracked as she spoke about her first love, the man who had once been his best friend. The stories she told of their adventures, hers, Billy's and even Josh's, made Mike smile as he listened by the doorway. He learned things about his friend that he had never known. It was almost as if the woman brought some piece of the man back to him.

Of course, one good thing about sleeping in that hard chair by Mister Clyde's bed was that his sleep never really got deep enough for the dreams. More like naps, an hour here, two there, throughout the night. But then again, Mike had long since learned to live without a great deal of sleep. Since Boot Camp, it had become more of a luxury than a necessity.

The last three days of his life, Mister Clyde had slipped quietly into a coma. And death when it finally did come for the man in the early pre-dawn hours of that morning had been starkly different from the ones that Mike had witnessed before. Two deep breaths, more like sighs, then nothing. At first, he had waited, thinking that the man would inhale at any moment, but he had not. His chest never rose again.

It was prophetic almost, a final exhalation after the job was done. The kind that you might give as you surveyed your labors at the end of a hard task. That was it, and the man was gone. No blood, no grey brain matter, no gaping holes. Just two little breaths as if to say...job well done.

Of course, Mike's was not. Nor was Maude's. After years of reports and debriefings, that before computers had needed to be filed in triplicate even, Mike should not have been surprised at the paperwork that the government required even for the act of dying. Though they had been expecting the man's death for days, the coroner still had to be called. Had to pronounce the man dead. Then it was a matter of calling the funeral home and awaiting the mortician.

There was little Mike had to do or arrange for that at least. All of those arrangements had been made and paid for on that fateful leave, the one time that he had met the grown-up version of the strawberry blonde pixie that had always followed her big brother about the farm anytime they were back on leave. Before taking a still somewhat cognizant Mister Clyde to the nursing home, they had seen an attorney to make a will and gone to the local funeral home to make final arrangements.

But still, all of that had fallen on Mike's broad shoulders alone to oversee. It was almost late afternoon before he had been able to leave Prairie View. Unlike Mary Majors, Mike had taken all of Mister Clyde's things with him when he left that evening. What was the point in delaying it? He knew that there was a waiting list for beds, people and families that needed the intense level of care that could only be found in places like this one. Why keep them waiting?

It had taken Mike only an hour or so to pack it all up. Some of the stuff like toothbrushes, soaps, and stuff could just be tossed in the trash. Others like Mister Clyde's pajamas could be donated to others. Mike had been shocked by the total lack of care that he had witnessed over those almost eight weeks.

Of course, the facility made sure that all its patients had three meals a day...if you could call them that. They also provided most of the basics like soap, deodorant, and toothpaste as well as way too many adult diapers. He cringed at the thought, and for the moment, was relieved that his future would never contain such things. But other things like pajamas, slippers, and the like was up to the family to keep in stock. And whether it was finances or simply neglect, Mike had seen way too many threadbare and torn ones to suit him.

One thing he could hand Becca Hall-Okadigbo was that she made certain Mister Clyde did not lack for such items, putting money regularly into his personal account through which Maude and the others could make certain he had anything he needed.

It was one thing at least that Mike could not fault the woman for. Even if she still had not come, even when Maude informed her that her father's death was imminent. According to the woman, Becca had asked if he would know she was there and when told 'no' had said there was no point then.

Mike ran his fingers through his hair that had grown longer than it had been in close to twenty-five years. He just could not understand the woman. How could she simply put Mister Clyde in the nursing home and forget him? How could any of the families? He supposed that was one blessing of dying young; you never faced such an ignominious end.

For a single heartbeat, Mike thought of the only relation he had ever had - his maternal grandmother. Of course, the woman would have never faced such a fate. No one on Beacon Hill would. Still, he wondered if it had been a lonely one. Had her 'blue book' friends abandoned her as she grew sicker and frailer? Had her long-time staff at that posh brownstone been as dedicated to her care as the ones at Prairie View?

Maybe he was no better than Becca Hall-Okadigbo? After all, he had ignored the old woman's one attempt to reach out to him since the day she had turned her back on that frightened little boy and the social worker. Sometimes the woman's cold words mingled with others in his dreams, "That boy is his child, bad seed. I will not have it in my home."

'It.' A seven-year-old boy, who had just lost his mother and unborn sister, watched his father...

Mike stopped. He knew he was way too fucking tired when his mind went down those ancient streets. It was not like the man did not have enough ghosts. He certainly did not need to dredge up the boy's.

He sighed. Not as heavily or with the finality that Mister Clyde had, but then again his labors were not ending, merely transforming. One life had ended, and another with missions and duties of its own was just beginning. Be that for weeks, months or maybe even a couple of years; he did not know.

But he did know that tomorrow was another day. Likely another big one as the Southern tradition of 'receiving friends' as the mortician called it would be tomorrow night. Mike knew that he would know next to no one that would come, but that did not matter.

It was an opportunity for others, old friends, and distant relations to 'pay their respects,' or so the morticians informed him. Why those people could not have 'paid their respects' while the man was alive was beyond Mike. It seemed to him that would have meant a lot more to Mister Clyde, to have the occasional visitor while he could still remember some things than a huge shindig when he was cold and stiff in an expensive box.