First Class Farewell by Aj Harmon

didn’t want to say anything
to cause her pain as she remembered the unfortunate events of her childhood.
    “I’m sorry,” he stuttered. “I didn’t mean to…”
    “It’s okay,” she smiled. “I think after years and years of
therapy I have come to terms with my past. I can talk about it.  Well, most of it. It’s almost like I’m talking about someone else…like all the terrible
things that happened…that they happened to someone else…not me. I’m
trying not to be that scared little girl anymore.”
    “Do you think about it?”
    “Sometimes,” she shrugged. “As crazy as it sounds, I think
that maybe it all happened the way it was supposed to.”
    “How?” Adam was shocked. “Why would you think that?”
    Shelby sat on the sofa and got comfortable. “My mom was a
drug addict. Drugs were always more important than I was. Her boyfriends were
usually men that supplied her the drugs. Basically, she sold herself to anyone
who could enable her addiction. If it wasn’t for…for what happened to me, I
would never have been brought to the Emergency Room that day and I would have
never met Katy. Then where would I be?”
    “But rape is never…I mean, you shouldn’t wish…you can’t mean
that…”
    “No,” Shelby answered his question. “No child should be
assaulted as I was. That’s still really hard for me to think about. And the
nightmares are still all too real. But look where I am now? Look what I’ve done
with my life? I thank God every day that I met Katy, and then Mark, and
then…you.”
    “Me, too,” he whispered.
    The shrieks of laughter erupted outside as water from the
pool splashed everywhere.
    “POOL PARTY!” Mark screamed and cannon-balled into the deep
end.
    “Time to go swimming,” Shelby grinned, and walked back to the
house to get changed.
    Adam watched her leave. No. He hated that her mother’s
boyfriend had raped her over and over again. He hated that she’d been beaten to
a pulp. But he was glad he’d met her. He was very glad she was a part of
his life.
    *****
    The last time Matt and Janie had been in their vacation
home, just a few months before when they’d escaped the miserable winter weather
in Manhattan, Ray had been with them. He’d sat on the beach with them and built
sand castles. Ray had dug out buckets and buckets of sand and made a speed boat
with a steering wheel and seats and he and the children had played for hours as
they’d each taken a turn at driving the boat. Matt sat on the balcony
outside the master bedroom and gazed at the sand…the very sand they’d all played
in just last year. It seemed like yesterday and at the same time, it seemed
like a lifetime ago.
    It had been over four weeks since Ray had left them and it
hadn’t gotten any easier. Matt often found himself reaching for the phone to
call him, or thinking he heard his voice in a crowd. He missed his friend.
Terribly.
    “Kids are all asleep,” Janie smiled, as she stepped onto the
balcony and sat next to her husband. “After the flight and playing all
afternoon, they’re wiped out.”
    “Me, too,” he replied.
    “Have you thought about how you want to do this?” she asked.
    Matt closed his eyes and sighed. “I don’t want to do it. I
don’t want him to be gone. I want him to walk through the door and say hello. I
don’t want to say goodbye. I’m not sure I can.”
    Janie stood and slid onto his lap, wrapping her arms around
his neck and pulling him to her breast. If there was something she could do to
take the pain away from him, she’d do it in a heartbeat. But she felt the same
pain. Ray had been the big brother she’d never had. She loved him and missed
him. Terribly.
    Somehow they’d get through it. Together.
    *****
    “I think I’m old enough to have outgrown the kids’ table,”
Alex scowled at his mother. Sophia nodded and he happily headed outside to eat
his lunch with Ben.
    Most of the women were in the kitchen arranging the kids and
trying to get them to