Part Six

It had been another ordinary day, as ordinary as could be. Mason James was an only child and he was okay with that. He liked the solitude and the quiet. His mother, Carey James, worked as a nurse at Yorkdare Medical. She was a beautiful woman, even if she looked tired most of the time. She worked shifts and Mason learned long ago how to look after himself.

Mason’s father, Jude James, was rarely home and his deployment lasted months at a time. Jude James was a marine in the army and they lived a moderate life, comfortable even. Mason thought his father was the greatest man alive, brave and strong, fighting for what was right.

Mason picked up the ringing phone and leaned against the kitchen wall. “Hello.”

“Good morning. Is Mrs Carey James available?”

“Just a minute.” Mason pressed the phone against his chest and turned towards the hall. “Mom! Phone!”

Mason put the receiver down on the counter and headed back upstairs to his room. He still had to get dressed for school. Mason was fourteen and he had the sinking feeling that his father’s leave had been cancelled again.

They had plans for the summer holidays, they were going to the beach but now he was sure that they wouldn’t be going. He hadn’t seen his father in seven months and he’d already missed his birthday. Mason got dressed quickly and froze at the top of the stairs.

It was eerily quiet but he could see his mother on the floor, sitting with her back against the wall in the kitchen. Her head was lowered and her hands covered her face. His feet moved without a conscious thought of walking and he knelt down next to his mother.

“Oh, Mason.” Her shoulders shook as she lifted her face and tears streaked down her cheeks. Mason pulled her toward him.

“What’s wrong Mom?” His mother never cried and it tugged at his heart to see her like that.

“It’s your dad … there was an accident …”

“Dad?”

“He’s dead, Mason, he’s dead.”

The world stopped turning on its axis, the air shifted in a stifling silence and Mason’s blood stopped flowing in his veins. Everything was upside down, everything was wrong. His ears buzzed and his limbs felt heavy.

It couldn’t be true.

Blood rushed back through his veins and his mother’s sobs sliced through the silence. The world started turning again and he felt the slight breeze on his bare arms. He blinked and looked at his mother, her arms now wrapped around him.

“I’m so sorry, baby …” Had she been speaking to him the whole time?

“How?”

“I don’t know … they’re sending him home in two days.”

Carey’s heart was shattered into a thousand pieces as they sat on the kitchen floor and cried for Jude James. There wasn’t anyone else to call. Jude James had been an orphan and Carey James’s parents had died when she was nineteen, she had been an only child too.

The morning that they had to drive to the airfield, Mason reluctantly got out of bed. He dressed in his Sunday suit because the funeral would also be held that day. It wouldn’t be lavish or even be attended by a lot of people but Mason tied his tie just like his father had taught him.

“Ready to go?” Carey looked strikingly pale in her black dress and low heeled shoes that shone. Mason could see her reflection as he looked in the mirror.

“Yes.”

They drove to the airfield in silence, the hour drive going by too fast. Mason’s breath hitched in his throat as a plane landed on the tarmac a few hundred yards in front of where Carey parked the car. That plane held his father’s body.

Mason held his mother’s hand tightly as they walked through a large warehouse type structure and onto the tarmac. The plane was being unloaded and a man in a crisp military uniform walked towards them.

“Ma’am, I’m Private First Class Owens. I’m very sorry for your loss.” The man stood at attention and Mason stared at him.

“Did you know my dad?”

The man relaxed his stance and looked down at Mason. “He was a good man, Mason. He talked about you all the time.”

Mason smiled sadly, nodding his head as Carey’s arm circled his shoulder. Another man, also in uniform, informed them that they would be transporting Sergeant Jude James’s body to the cemetery and that they could follow the hearse.

A single tear escaped and made its way down Mason’s cheek as two men wheeled the coffin down from the plane’s hatch and covered it with a flag. Private Owen’s hand squeezed his shoulder and in that moment he took comfort from the man that had known his father.

Carey was crying so much that Sergeant Owens took the keys from her hand and led them both back to their car. He helped Carey into the passenger seat and slipped the safety belt around her sobbing form. Mason obeyed without words and buckled up in the back seat as Owens took charge of the situation.

The cemetery had a separate part for soldiers and war heroes and Mason and Carey followed Owens through the graves to where chairs stood next to an open grave. Mason swallowed thickly as the emotions pushed upwards.

It was true. His father really was dead.

Four men in uniform stood behind the hearse and pulled the coffin out. They lifted it easily, their expressions stoic as they marched in time towards the gravesite. Mason couldn’t look and felt his mother’s hand tighten around his own.

Owens stood slightly behind Carey, as if waiting for her to crumble and ready to catch her when she fell. Carey wouldn’t crumble though because now Mason only had her. She had no choice but to stand strong through all of this.

Mason stood looking at his father’s coffin as the pastor talked about Jude, he had known him of course, having grown up together and them attending church regularly. The four uniformed men remained standing at attention throughout the whole service.

At the end as Pastor Mulligan finished his prayer, Mason noticed the rifles for the first time. Private First Class Owens now stood in front of them. “Aim.” The four men lifted their rifles into the air. “Fire.” Four shots rang out almost as one and Carey jumped.

“Aim. Fire.”

“Aim. Fire.”

Mason would never forget the sound of those gunshots for the rest of his life. It signified the end of his father’s life and then Owens appeared in front of them, a folded flag in his hands, Jude’s coffin now bare except for a wreath of flowers that adorned it.

Carey’s hands shook as she clutched the folded flag and pressed it against her chest. More tears made their way down her cheeks and Mason felt numb. He didn’t feel the shining sun or hear the chirping birds in the tree to their left. There was just nothing.

Owens saluted them and Mason found himself standing up just a little straighter. This man had spent time with his father, knew him, knew his name. Mason wanted to know why and how because his father had been taken from him and he wanted to know everything.

The service was short and before Mason knew it, the coffin was being lowered into the ground. He trailed behind his mother as Owens led her back to the car, one hand on her elbow. Mason stared out of the window as Owens drove them home.

Carey seemed almost catatonic and Mason had to give Owens directions to their house. Mason unlocked the front door and Owens followed him with Carey in his arms. She wasn’t sobbing loudly or making a scene, instead, the tears just flowed down her cheeks.

“She just needs some time.”

Mason looked up from where he sat at the kitchen table as Owens took his military jacket off and hung it over the back of the chair. “Yeah … time.”

“You’ll be okay too, Mason.”

“It doesn’t matter, my dad’s dead and nothing’s going to bring him back. It doesn’t matter if I cry or if I miss him or not. It’s just over.”

Owens pulled the chair opposite Mason out and sat down. “Sometimes crying helps to get the feelings out there.”

Mason’s jaw clenched. “Marines don’t cry.”

“You’re not a marine.”

“What happened to my dad, Private Owens?”

“Call me Jesse, your father did. We were on a routine check just outside the town borders. We got intel that a group of rogue soldiers were hiding out in the mountains and we were sent to retrieve them. It was an ambush, we hit a landmine and I got thrown out of the vehicle with Jude. He pulled two other guys off the road and behind the vehicle for cover. We called it in and they said that the chopper would only reach us in fifteen minutes. We were stranded and alone, two of our guys already dead. Jude was the highest ranking officer and he took charge of the situation. We took fire, returned fire and it was basically an exchange of shots. We ran out of ammo and your father pushed his pistol into my hands and then he ran towards the enemy. He pulled the pin on a grenade and flung himself in the middle of their group, killing them all and saving us.”

“So he died a hero?” Mason’s eyes were empty and his voice hollow.

“He did. He was a hero and one of the best men I ever had the honour of knowing.”

“He was stupid! He could’ve waited for the chopper! He didn’t have to die!”

Mason’s anger reverberated through the kitchen and Jesse held his gaze, Mason’s anger reflecting in his own eyes. “Probably. It’s different when you’re under fire, in the midst of a war. There aren’t many choices when you’re trained to run towards the danger and not away from it.”

“Saving you was more important than coming home to us.” Mason’s tone was bitter and Jesse could taste it in his own mouth.

“It’s hard to come to grips with, but I’m not leaving Yorkdare Bay.” Jesse Owens slid a piece of paper over the table towards Mason. “That’s my number. You can call me anytime, I mean it, Mason, anytime at all.”

Jesse Owens walked out of the house and Mason remained sitting at the kitchen table. The sun set and the room darkened, the moonlight filtering through the open window. Mason had no concept of time as he sat there, only that his world would never be the same again.

“Mason?”

Carey gently shook Mason awake, where he lay on his arms at the kitchen table, having fallen asleep right there the previous night.

“Are you going to leave me too?”

Carey’s heart ached as she looked at her son. “No, Mason, I’ll never willingly leave you.”

Mason stayed home for the rest of that week, not doing much, not even getting out of bed until Carey dragged him out by his ankle and pushed him in the shower with a stern look. Downstairs he halted in his steps when he saw Jesse Owens sitting at the kitchen table.

“What’s he doing here?”

Carey’s mouth opened but before she could say anything, Jesse stood up and hovered over Mason. “I’ll meet you outside in five.”

Jesse walked past him to the kitchen door and outside to the backyard. Mason looked at his mother but she only shrugged and Mason rolled his eyes before following Jesse outside.

“I know it hurts, Mason, it hurts a lot. You have two choices as I see it, you can either wallow in your despair or use your pain to heal.”

“What?”

Jesse handed him a pair of boxing gloves, helping him to pull them on and lacing them up. “Use your pain, let it out of your system, all the anger, all the hate, use it on me.”

Mason’s first punch was a bit sloppy and the glove glanced off of Jesse’s stomach. They spent two hours in the backyard, Jesse correcting Mason’s stance and taking every punch that Mason gave him. By the end of those two hours, Mason cried for the first time since the funeral.

A month after Jude James’s funeral, Carey received a notice that Jude had been put on trial post-mortem and dismissed for failure to follow a direct order. He’d been told to stand down and take cover, to wait for air support.

That meant that Carey did not qualify to receive Jude James’s benefits like any other army wife who had lost her husband. Jude James had died for his fellow men and for his country and then stripped of his rank and benefits.

Moving into the lower district of Yorkdare Bay had nearly broken her but Mason seemed to take it in his stride. He helped out more around the house and they lived in a three bedroom house with their middle class furniture because the rent was cheap.

It was all Carey could afford on a single salary and keep Mason clothed and fed. She worked more shifts leaving Mason to his own devices although he spent a lot of time with Jesse Owens in those first two years after his father died.