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Never Not Together

The Locket

By Jackson HowlPublished 3 years ago Updated 3 years ago 9 min read
4
Never Not Together
Photo by Jen Theodore on Unsplash

Jake had remained calm and kept his frustration from getting the better of him for months but every day that was becoming increasingly more difficult. The more opposition he ran into the more he wanted to lash out and make people listen.

“You didn’t even look,” he said to the old man sitting across the table.

“I ain’t gotta look to know I can’t help,” the old man replied.

“How do you know if you won’t look?” Jake held the silver heart-shaped locket out in the palm of his hand. “Please,” he begged. “They came this way on a supply caravan but they didn’t make it to the next stop. Now I know a lot of people come through here, and so do a lot of supplies but chances are if my wife and daughter are still alive, they did too.”

“With all the faces I see, just how the hell do you expect me to remember some ordinary woman and her ordinary kid?”

It took every ounce of patience Jake had to not reach across the table, grab the old man by the throat and squeeze the answers out of him, but he knew that would just lead to more trouble.

“Please.” Jake had no intention of just giving up but he knew he was running out of options. “If anyone here knows anything it’s you. I know information isn’t free. I have money I can pay you, or supplies I can trade you. We can work something out just look at the damn picture.”

Jake slammed the locket down on the table in front of the old man, his anger inside reaching the boiling point.

“I can’t hel— ”

“He ain’t gonna help ya Hun.” A voice from the corner cut the old man off. “Huh Sully? At least have the decency to tell the man why.”

Jake looked back across the table at Sully who looked visibly shaken now. He wondered if the old man’s jaw had been quivering like that the entire time and he just hadn’t noticed it. He looked like he wanted to speak, like he had something to say but just couldn’t find the words.

“Why won’t you help me?” Jake pleaded.

“Because I can’t. I can’t help nobody.” His voice began to crack, “Not you, not you,” he pointed to the shadowed corner table before looking back down at the locket, “and especially not them.” Sully paused and Jake could hear a defeated surrender in his voice. “I’m a useless old man. I’m broken, I’m beaten down and I can’t help you. I can’t save nobody, I couldn’t even save myself.”

Sully used the table to push himself to a standing position. He hands shaky, his stance wobbly. He had a hunch in his back from what Jake suspected to be years of hard work. He reached over and grabbed a broken makeshift crutch and as he hobbled away Jake could see the nub where he had lost his right leg, just below the knee.

He got to the back door and turned, “If ya know what’s good you’ll stop chasin’ ghosts before the ghosts end up catching ya.” Sully disappeared through the back door and into the darkness before Jake could reply.

“It’s not you, it’s him,” Jake heard the voice from the corner say.

He scooped the locket up from the table, looked at the picture and smiled. He always smiled when he saw their faces. He clicked it closed, squeezed it tight in his hand and walked over to the table in the corner to get a better look at the stranger. Sitting at the table was a tiny woman whom he would have taken her for a kid if not for the silver hair and ragged, tired voice.

“May I?” He asked motioning to the chair.

The old woman didn’t respond, she just reached up for the bottle on the table, poured two glasses and pushed one across. Jake took a seat and downed the shot. It was like fire in his gut but you don’t refuse a peace offering.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Can I be completely honest with you Hun?” She asked.

“Uhhh- ok,” he stammered, unsure where this was going.

“You look like yesterday’s slop.” She laughed and poured another shot for them both. Jake didn’t protest, to the second drink or her words. He knew she was telling the truth. “How long has it been since you had a good night’s rest?”

He hesitated to answer, the lump in his throat getting bigger. He threw back the second shot and exhaled a long sigh before answering, “Two years.”

“May I see, Hun?” She asked holding out her hand.

Jake placed the locket in her palm and pointed to the bottle, “Another one?”

“Help yourself. I’m Martha by the way, Martha Sullivan but everybody around here just calls me Mama M. The old cranky pants is my husband, Sully. Now, who might you be?”

“Jake, uh, Jake— Jakob Newton.”

“Well it’s a pleasure to meet you Jake uh Jake Jakob Newton.” Martha’s gaze never left the locket, studying every detail. “Such a beautiful happy family.”

“Yes ma’am, we were— Are? Were? I do—”

“It’s okay Hun. What’re their names?”

“That’s my wife Daisy and our daughter Caroline. That was taken on Mother’s Day just a few months before— Before…” Jake paused, unable to find the proper words because no one knew exactly what had happened. “That locket was the last thing I gave her.”

“How old is little Caroline?” She asked. “She can’t be anymore than five or six here.”

“Yes ma’am, she was five there, turned six a couple weeks after that picture was taken.”

“How did you three get separated?”

“I was out of town that weekend. We were running drills in the mountains.”

“Military?”

“Yes Ma’am, Marines. Just after Caroline was born I transferred from active duty to reserves. I wanted to be there as she grew up." Talking about it was still just as painful today as it had been two years ago. "I can’t remember every detail from that day but I remember it was September 5th, a Friday. I remember kissing them both goodbye and I remember that Caroline wouldn’t let me leave until I promised to take her to the fair when I got home.” Remembering the way she would block the door when he had to leave made him smile.

“What happened when you got back?”

“Well, it took me two weeks to push my way through checkpoints to get back, by the time I did they were already gone.”

“No sign of where they went? Maybe they’re somewhere with family.”

“The house was ransacked from top to bottom. I mean, just… completely destroyed. Anything useful had been taken, everything else was smashed to pieces. There was no sign of them anywhere. The necklace was in a lock box hidden under the basement floor with my 9mm that she had bought me for Father’s Day. This note was in the lock box with it.” He took a folded up piece of paper from his pocket and slid it across the table to Mama M.

Martha unfolded the note and read aloud, “We are never not together, Love D and C.” She folded the note back up neatly, placed it in his hand and cupped her hands around his. “Hun, there are two kinds of love in this world; There’s the kind that most people find and then there’s this.” She gave his hand a squeeze. “You don’t get to be my age and not recognize it when you see it.”

“Yes Ma’am. Those two are my world so if there is anything you can tell me… Please.”

“I’m sorry Jake, I haven’t seen them and wouldn’t even know where to begin to look, but… maybe I can help you understand some things.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a photo. Jake took it and looked at it closely. It was Mama M and Sully sitting on a couch, smiling and laughing. There was a little girl sitting in the floor opening birthday presents.

“That precious little angel is our grand daughter Ariel. When everything went to hell she went missing with her mother, just like your Daisy and Caroline.”

Jake was beginning to put the pieces together but he still wasn’t clear on the big picture.

“Sully and Bruce, that was our boy, Bruce. Well he and Sully searched day and night. They tracked their movement and thought they had pinpointed the girls location but they got ambushed by a patrol. We found Sully a week or so later on an embankment where they had dumped him into the river and left him for dead. His leg was chopped off at the knee and he had lost a lot of blood but he had somehow managed to save Ariel’s body. I ain’t seen my Brucie since though and Sully won’t talk any more about it.”

Jake wasn’t sure how to respond, an expression of awe on his face. He saw her reach up and wipe tears away and a deep twist of sadness and embarrassment hit him at once like a train. He realized that he had felt so sorry for himself this entire time that it never even registered with him that others had experienced the same thing.

“I’m so sorry Martha. I’ve been just wallowin— “

“You hush now Hun.” Martha said cutting him off. “You got just as much right to wallow as anyone. Just don’t drown in it.”

“Yes Ma’am.”

“Sully feels like he failed Bruce, he feels like he failed Ariel and her mother, but more than anything he feels like he failed me.”

“But they were outnumbered, were they not?”

“Exactly,” she replied. “He was one man against an army, just like you would be. Now I realize I’m just some crazy old lady but at least tell me I’m makin’ a little sense.”

Jake knew she was right. He closed his eyes and let out another long ragged sigh, “Yes Ma’am”

“Look around Hun, this is the end of the line. This is where everybody lookin’ for somebody ends up. Everybody here has lost somebody.”

Jake looked around at the room of scattered patrons. By this time they were all staring at him and Mama M, listening.

“No,” he shook his head. “No, not me, I’m not giving up Mama M, I can’t.”

“Hun, I never said anything about givin’ up. Look around again.” For a brief moment Jake could have sworn he heard a twinge of hope in Mama M’s voice. “What I’m sayin’ is maybe you don’t have to be just one man against an army anymore.”

***

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Fantasy
4

About the Creator

Jackson Howl

Writer of Fiction, Suspense, Thriller. I have enjoyed writing and creating new worlds since I was young.

Twitter - @HowlJackson

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