With a smile Fiske thought of Sara, gratefully, even with all the complexities that came with the woman. Fifty, sixty, maybe seventy years old? Why not give himself the benefit of the doubt? He had a life to live. Potentially a very satisfying one. Particularly when it included Sara. Then he tilted his head up and smelled the wet air, caught the scent of leaves burning somewhere. The air also carried to him an infant’s cry, followed by the silence of the dead around him. Growing more comfortable, he squatted back on his haunches, easing himself more firmly into the embrace of the ground, the cool touch of the dirt now welcome somehow.
Finally, with difficulty, he thought of his brother. He was so tired of grudges held. He now focused on reality. On the truth. On his baby brother, a person he would have done anything for. He recalled the pride he shared with his mother and father for the exceptional human being they had jointly raised. For the good man Mike Fiske had grown into, graceful faults and all, just like the rest of them. A brother who had shown, through his actions, that he respected John Fiske, cared about him. Loved him. Through the half dozen feet of dirt, past the bound flowers on top, inside the bronze coffin, he could clearly see his brother’s face, the dark suit he had been buried in, the hair parted on the side, the hands folded across the chest, the eyes closed. At rest. At peace. The limbs stilled much too early. The exceptional mind shut down far from its potential.
It did not take long for the tremors to start. The two-year void that John Fiske had artificially forced upon the pair was nothing compared to the one he was suddenly stricken with now. It was as though Billy Hawkins had just walked through the door and told him that Mike, the other half of his life growing up, was dead. Only he wouldn’t have to identify the body. He wouldn’t have to search for and falsely share grief with his father. He wouldn’t have to watch as his mother called him by another’s name. He would not have to risk his life to find his brother’s killers. But he would have to do something else. The one task left was the hardest of all.
He felt the burn in his chest, but it was not the underbelly of his scar come calling. This pain was not capable of killing him, but it was worse by legions than that inflicted on him by the two bullets. The things he had found out about his brother lately only highlighted how unfair Fiske had been in shutting him out. But if he had tried, Fiske would have realized all those things while Mike was still alive. Now his brother was dead. John Fiske was kneeling in front of his grave. Mike was not coming back. He had lost him. He had to say good-bye and he didn’t want to. He desperately wanted his brother back. He had so much he wanted to do with him, suddenly so much love he wanted to convey. He felt his heart would burst if he didn’t get it out.
“Oh God,” he said with an outward breath. He couldn’t do this. He felt his body start to give on him. The tears suddenly poured with such force he thought his nose was bleeding. He started to go down, but a strong hand grasped him, easily held him up; Fiske’s body felt light, fragile, as though he had left part of it somewhere else. Through the blur of tears he looked at Rufus. The man had one hand under Fiske’s arm, thrusting him up. Yet his eyes were still closed, his head looking to the sky; the lips still rising and falling in the narrowest of ranges as he continued his prayers.
Right then John Fiske envied Rufus Harms, a man who had lost his own brother, a man who really had nothing. And yet in the most important way, Rufus Harms was the richest man on earth. How could anyone believe in anything that much? Without doubt, without debate, without an agenda, with all his substantial heart?