The door to the dimly lit room opened slowly. A hallway light, shining from behind him, disguised the man’s features and cast his shadow halfway across the room. “Captain Williams?” Alan wondered.
“Yes?” the man responded warily. The gun in Alan’s hand exploded. The force of the impact propelled
Williams’ body backward into the hallway . . .
Steven Nolan rose from the desk chair and crossed his bedroom to the bureau. In preparation for his father’s funeral, he checked his tie in the mirror, giving it a final tug into place.
Alan’s daydream buoyed his spirits. The Williamses would
soon be preparing for a funeral, too.
Steven inspected his reflection. His brother, Alan had inherited their mother’s gentle, blue-green eyes. Steven’s, however, were the same silver-gray as their father’s and Alan had taught him to make them flash like the flinty edge of a sword in the sunlight. His enemies would feel their icy steel –
just as his father’s antagonists had felt his.
Even after twelve years, the sound of Alan’s voice remained
strong in Steven’s memory. “You look fine, Stevie.” He recalled his mother bursting into tears whenever he spoke aloud to Alan, and the oddest expression would cross his father’s features. He still couldn’t put a name to that expression, more than
merely sad or worried. Then he would gently stroke Steven’s head and say, “Alan is dead, son. He shot himself. Remember? It’s good to keep him alive in our hearts, but he is dead now.”
So Steven had learned to keep his conversations with Alan
private whenever anyone else was around. Otherwise it hurt
his parents.
“I don’t understand why Mom made an appointment with
that dumb old Fosdahl. What does she think he can do? Maybe we should just skip it, Alan. We haven’t seen him in ten years. What would he care?”
“Like you said, Stevie, he can’t do anything. Wonder if
the old goat’s changed. At any rate, we just have to sit in the shrink’s office for thirty minutes. Our biggest concern now is how to make Williams and Addams answer for what they did to Dad.”
Steven leaned his forehead against the mirror. “I wish you really were here, Alan, to help me through Dad’s funeral the way he helped me through yours.”
