Alone

Trevor glanced up at the arrivals and departures board to see that his flight from LAX to DEN had been delayed for the second time that evening. His mother’s wake was in the morning and it didn’t look like he would make it.

He found out about her death three days ago, but waited until the last minute to book the flight. Another way to sabotage himself that he could blame on circumstances beyond his control, perhaps. If he was completely honest with himself, he would be devastated if he didn’t get to say goodbye, but pushing emotions deep down was a family tradition and who was he to mess with that?

Even with his maternal relationship being as wrought as it tended to be, he actually left their last conversation on a happy, loving note. It was almost as if she knew what was coming around the corner.

That’s obviously not possible; how could she have conceivably seen the head on collision that was going to take her life a few days after their last chat. But ever since they had gotten off the phone, he had this nagging feeling that something wasn’t right.

His mother was not what you would call upbeat, so their last conversation had thrown him off. She didn’t dote on her children just because she could, she wasn’t in the habit of smiling unnecessarily, and she certainly didn’t see the point in babbling on with strangers to observe some sort of social ritual. Trevor had inherited this from her along with her sandy blonde hair, short stature, and olive skin.

Taking a deep breath, Trevor started toward the ticket counter just as a stranger with an unfortunately crooked smile and strangely disheveled hair approached him with more ease than you would think a man on crutches could manage. The man was younger than him, but looked vaguely familiar to Trevor.

“Hey, man,” muttered the man as he made his way closer than Trevor would have preferred.

“Hey,” Trevor said as he broke eye contact and sidled inconspicuously in the opposite direction.

The man held out a hand while saying, “I’m Thomas. Is your flight delayed too?”

Not wanting to seem needlessly rude, Trevor hesitantly shook the guys hand while mentioning, “My dad’s name is Thomas.”

Clearly not having answered the question posed to him, he tried to make a break for it by cautiously holding up a hand and mumbling about how he had a flight to catch.

“Look, I know your flight is delayed,” Thomas alleged with a forced patience he obviously didn’t possess. “I think we can help each other out if you’re so inclined.”

Trevor didn’t feel inclined in the slightest, but he sensed he wasn’t going to get out of this conversation as easily as he first thought. He decided to play along until he could think of a better plan.

“Alright, how can we help each other out?”

“It’s quite simple, my friend. Let’s get a rental and drive to Denver. It’s not that long of a drive if we take turns and only stop for bathroom breaks.”

Something still felt off, but what could he do? The choice was between staying in the airport and hoping the flight would make it for his mother’s funeral or sit for 15 hours in a car with this weirdo. He’d have to take up the guy on his offer, as strange as it was.

“We have a deal,” sighed Trevor. He shifted his bag to his right shoulder and began walking toward the transportation area to get a car. Thomas followed, able to keep up with no problem, despite his crutches.

They made it to the Enterprise counter and were settled in a Hyundai Elantra within 20 minutes. Thomas agreed to drive for the first stint, so Trevor settled in the passenger seat and quickly fell asleep.

He woke up three hours later and it took him a few seconds to get his bearings and remember where he was. He glanced over at Thomas who was staring straight ahead murmuring to himself.

“I gotta pee when you get a chance to pull over,” stated Trevor as he moved the seat lever up to get out of the reclining position.

In a trancelike state and without taking his eyes off the road, Thomas quickly jerked the wheel to the right and pulled the car onto the shoulder of the road. He stared at Trevor for a few seconds before speaking in a deeper voice than he used before.

“Go home,” he rasped. “Go home where you’re most needed.” He jogged quickly around the car and into the woods off the main road.

Trevor, assuming Thomas also needed to relieve himself, went to the edge, unzipped his pants, and peed into the underbrush of the forest. He then waited about 10 minutes for Thomas to come back. When he finally made it back to the car, his face was scratched and he looked more harried than before.

Suddenly, Thomas’ form slowly started to waver as the headlight’s beams flashed right through him. As the car passed, he was gone. Trevor began to wonder if his grief was playing tricks on him. Was that a possibility? Maybe a stage of grief people just didn’t talk about was hallucination.

He got back in the car, deciding to carry on with the road trip and agreeing in his head not to tell anyone about this incident. He was clearly exhausted and squashing his emotions must have gotten to him. They say that’s how you get cancer, but in his case he would probably just go slowly insane.

The rest of the trip was long, but without further incident. Trevor pulled up to the funeral home that was taking care of his mother’s affairs about half an hour before the wake was scheduled to start. When he pulled up, his Aunt Sarah came rushing toward his car with tears streaming down her face. She was his dad’s sister and wasn’t very fond of his mother, so what the waterworks were all about he wasn’t sure.

As he stepped out of the car, Aunt Sarah flung herself at him, sobbing uncontrollably and hiccoughing out words he couldn’t understand.

“Woah, slow down. Tell me what the hell is going on.”

Aunt Sarah took a few deep breaths and was able to make herself coherent enough to understand. “Your father has died too. Last night he was hit by a car on the side of the highway as he was coming into town pay his respects to Alice. I’m so sorry baby,” she whispered as she patted his cheek with a hand that clutched a damp tissue.

Trevor’s eyesight began to blur and he sat back down in the driver’s seat of his rented car. He stared down at his lap when he noticed that Thomas had dropped a business card on the floor and the corner was poking out from under the seat.

He reached down to grab it and noticed it was a typed business card in the front with handwriting on the back. Thinking this might be his only proof that Thomas existed, he looked at it for a few minutes. The typed part read:

Thomas E. Stellar

Attorney At Law

Stellar, Stellar, & Associates

He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. This was his dad’s business card. On the back was written:

Leaving you a piece of me

Trevor looked under the seat to see if anything else was left. What he found was a little black notebook with a faded cover. He recognized it as one that was always on his dad’s desk. He quickly grabbed it and ripped it open to see what was written inside. The first line of the notebook had SON written in shaky handwriting, but the rest of the pages were blank. About a third of the way through there was what looked like a thin paper bookmark just barely visible. He pulled it out far enough to realize it was a business check from Stellar, Stellar, & Associates and in the memo line it read For My Son in the Unlikely Event of my Death. The amount was for $20,000.

Trevor looked up at his Aunt, looked back at the check, and silently got in the car and drove away.