Bloodlines - Part 2

This was far from the first time that I had gone back to the town that I was born in. I'd been there every year, with one set of grandparents or the other, sometimes both, for twenty-one years. This was, however, the first time that I had gone back by myself. We had been here for my birthday; a tradition that my grandmother on my father's side had thought up. They had never hidden from me that my parents had died before I was old enough to remember them. We came here on my birthday so that I could, in some strange way, spend time with them.

I had never gotten to be alone with them though. We always went to the Five Hills Cemetery as a group. Looking down at their grave markers now, I could scarcely think of why I was here. I felt like I should say something, but I didn't know what. I knew about them, knew that they had been young and in love. I had seen old videos that my mother had put up ages ago before I was born. I'd even played 'spot the hidden Jorge' like people had done all that time ago. Once or twice, I even tried my hand at making videos like she did. I was never particularly good at it, but some of her old fans said they recognized where my humor had come from. That was good enough for me.

Oddly, my mother was the one that I knew the most about. Apparently, in front of a camera, she had never actually been playing a character. She had just been a slightly more amusing version of herself. My father was the one that I didn't know much about. I knew he'd been a dentist. I knew he had been smart from seeing old test scores and papers of his. Only the third member of his mother's family, and the second of his father's, to go to college. He'd been quiet, shy, kind of a mousy sort really – but he had show moments of strength.

One of my mother's old videos, a serious one, had been about when the two of them were on a date and got jumped. Some guy tried to mug them with a knife. My father had grabbed the lid off an old metal trashcan and fought back. The fight ended abruptly when my mother grabbed that same trashcan and brought it down over the guy. While he was distracted, dad kicked him in the balls. He went down and didn't get back up. At least, not while they were around. They'd run once he dropped to his knees and fell over.

Sitting on the grass over their graves, legs crossed Indian-style, I stayed quiet. The wind blew softly, rustling the grass and the trees as I slowly shut my eyes. I must have stayed that way for a few minutes before a thought entered my mind. I knew that my parents had died when I was a baby, but I didn't know-how. I hadn't even really paid a lot of attention to the dates of death on their grave markers. I could remember thinking that something about their deaths was strange, though; the dates.

Opening my eyes once more, I looked at their dates of death. Dad had died in November. Mom hadn't died until the following September; less than a month after she had me. It was odd. My father died around the time I was conceived, and then my mother died not long after I was born. Nobody had ever told me how or why, and I suddenly had this urge to find out. It was an unanswered question regarding not only them, but my own origins.

Standing, I elected to learn what had happened to them. Any time I had asked before now, the subject was changed. It was high time I got to learn why. Of course, that would have to wait for a couple of days. I had come back here to manage the old house. My parents had bought it outright for about twenty grand. It wasn't a big place. Single story, two bedrooms, two baths, kitchen, dining room, basement, and a garage for the car. Little place, but it should have been home. That would be where I was headed next. Had to be. After all, I wasn't just here to visit this time. I was moving to Five Hills.

What had remained of the money my mother's fans had sent in had stayed in an account with my name on it. One I couldn't touch until this year. My grandparents and a few other family members had chipped in along the way, putting money into the account here and there so I'd have a nice little nest egg when I got older. Over the last twenty years, a little over forty grand had been put in there, all in all, and I was pretty well off – for a twenty-one-year-old college student, anyway. That money, combined with scholarships I hadn't completely used up, was more than enough to get me by.

Taking a last look at my parents' graves, I smiled a little. I was going to find out what had happened to them. Solve my personal mystery, and make sense of things somehow. Kind of a silly thought, maybe even cheesy, but in my mind, it was a nice one. When I turned to head back to the truck, I sighed as I looked at it. It was a little Dodge Dakota from way back in the '90s. Twice as old as I was, and it was what I'd been driving since I'd learned. It had been my mom's before she and my father moved up here, and she'd left it with her parents. Nice little truck, really, but after ten years of abuse by young adult drivers – five years by my mother, and five years by me – it looked a little beat up.

The pain was starting to chip away here and there, and there were small rust spots where it had been gone for a decent length of time. Despite that, it was a trusty little truck with a small block V8 and automatic transmission. Couldn't haul a whole hell of a lot, but it was good enough for moving; as could be told by the things in the bed that were tied down, and the small trailer that was hitched to it. A small bookshelf, a dresser, and numerous boxes with things I might need were in the back, and the rest of my things were secured on the trailer. I was fairly sure that most people would be curious as to why I had stopped at the cemetery first, of all places, and decided that I would hurry up and leave before anyone had the chance to ask.

The drive to the home was short. Five Hills being a town of about five thousand people meant that it wasn't very large. Everything people wanted or needed was in the center of town, with housing around it, and the larger tracts of land farther out. The house my parents had bought all those years ago was only about ten minutes from the center of town by car. Along the way, I passed Five Hills High School. The campus surprised me with how tidy it looked. Out front there was a bell with a bronze statue atop it – a Falcon, which made sense since, painted on the school building as part of a mural was 'home of the Five Hills Falcons.'

Before long, I pulled up at the house, up into the driveway. The green paint was faded a bit and needed to be redone. Other than that it looked fine. No broken windows, no damage to doors, not even a layer of dust – at least not on the outside. I suspected that the interior would be where that little problem lay. Shifting into park, killing the engine, and engaging the emergency brake, I got out and headed to the front door. The lock was smooth, though when I opened the door, I paused. The air was stale, and there was a foreboding feeling about entering this place. After all, my mother had died in this house. I had every right to feel a little uneasy about going inside, didn't I?

“Howdy neighbor!” The booming voice, despite how jovial it was, made me jump – and I ended up pushing my back up against the wall. I looked over to the neighbor's yard, where a man in a fishing hat stood, looking dumbfounded at my reaction. “Sorry, didn't mean to startle you.” He said in a softer voice, setting down the gardening sheers he had been trimming his hedges with.

“It's alright.” I said as my heart rate began to normalize, “I was just lost in my own little world. That's all.”

The man nodded, “Gotcha.” he glanced at the house, and then at me. “You just buy the place?” He tilted his head the slightest bit. “Look a bit young for that.”

I shook my head. “No, no, didn't buy it.” I looked toward the open door again, then back to him. “My parents bought it a long time ago. I'm just moving in.”

“Your parents...” He trailed off, looking at the house. Then, as if he realized what that meant, he snapped his head to look at me, “You're Jorge and Nat's boy?”

I nodded, smiling, “Yeah, I am. My grandparents never sold the house, so I decided I'd move up here. I'll probably be taking some online classes until I can get enrolled in a college up this way.”

“Ah.” He nodded, “Name's Thomas, by the way. Thomas Primm. You can call me Tom; everyone around here does.” He said, sticking his arm over the short fence. A small grin came to my lips and I stepped over, taking his hand and shaking firmly.

“Jorge Jacobson.”

“Oh? Nat's last name?”

I nodded. “They were still fiancés when my father died.”

“Shame.” He sighed, picking up his sheers again and starting to trim his hedges once more. “I always liked those two. Your parents were good people.” He said, nodding a bit, “Day they moved in, your dad helped me put together that porch swing.” He tilted his head toward the porch, and my eyes followed, seeing the hanging bench. “Good with his hands. Made up for me. I couldn't hardly get anything done. Your mother kept making me laugh.” A warm smile came to his lips as he stopped his work, thinking back, “She had this book of jokes and puns. Most of them were just so ridiculous I couldn't help but laugh at them; even the bad ones.”

I couldn't help but smile while I listened. Before now, I rarely heard anyone outside my family, and my mother's old fans, talk about my parents. So, this was kind of a treat for me – especially seeing that porch swing. I'd seen my father's schoolwork, but it was nice to see something he had helped build. “Sounds like you got along with them pretty well.”

“Sure did!” He smiled big at that, “My wife, Martha, and I used to have dinner with them whenever we had a chance. We'd all go to this little Italian place in town; Michelangelo’s. Great food. The best thing to get around lunch is their pizza, but their pasta is amazing too.” He waved a hand a bit, “But that's not the point. Point is, we were around one another quite a bit, right up until the morning...”

When he stopped, I looked at him curiously, and he looked over toward the front door. I glanced that way too, then back to him. It was as if he were seeing something all over again. He shook his head then, but stayed quiet – so I spoke. “What morning?”

Tom took a breath and then blew it out slowly, letting the sheers rest on the hedges. “I went over when the movers showed up. When she wouldn't answer the door, we got together and opened up the garage, and I went in through the door in there. I-” He paused for a moment, growing quiet. “I'm the one that found her that morning on the bedroom floor.”

I could practically feel myself go numb as I heard those words. “You are?” I croaked out.

He nodded. “I am.” He said, then went silent for a moment, “I still can't figure out what happened for the life of me, though. When I first looked at her, she didn't seem like she was hurt.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of me.

“I mean that she didn't look like she had been injured. There were no indicators at all that she had done anything to herself, or that anyone else had done anything to her. The only really noticeable thing was that she looked incredibly pale.” Tom shrugged, then shook his head, “But that's in the past.”

If only he had known that's exactly what I wanted to get information about. Yet, I decided against pushing for more information. I had just met the guy, after all, and it didn't seem like he wanted to be taking a stroll down the darker side of memory lane. Perhaps another time, but until then, I would simply try to be cordial. We spoke for a few minutes more, and I even relayed to him my hesitation at going inside. He understood, but by the time we were done talking he had convinced me that, yes, my mother had died there – but that was in no way recent. The house was, after all, just a house.

When I stepped away to let him continue trimming his hedges, I made a B-line for the front door and walked right through it. Immediately, I felt a shiver down my spine. What the hell was I thinking? She had died in this house! Yeah, people died in lots of places, but this was practically holy ground for me at the moment. Before I could freak out any more than I already was, I stopped myself and took a deep breath. Tom was right. A house was just a house. Yeah, she had died here – people didn't stop living in homes just because someone died there. I was being foolish.

Letting out that breath, I stretched a bit and decided to relax. Then I steeled myself once more and headed for the master bedroom. Pushing open the door, I stepped inside the room and suddenly felt calm – surprisingly so, considering how I'd felt only moments ago. The thought about this being where she died left me in an instant. Replaced by that was the thought that this room had been my parents' bedroom. And the other room in the house? That would have been my room, had things gone as they had intended.

I shut my eyes and stood there for a moment, and somehow I felt close to them both for just a brief period. I took a small breath and let it out, then opened my eyes. There was no reason to fear this place. Yes, something terrible had happened here, but this was my home. My real home. The home that my parents had intended to raise me in. Here, I was safe.