Chapter 8

I was at the studio when I received the call.

"Brent," Grace said, "come home. Please come home."

"What's wrong? Are you crying?"

"Just come home. I need you here now."

"All right, but tell me..."

"When you get here," she said and broke down completely before she ended the call.

I left the studio without cleaning my brushes or my hands, without setting the alarm. I did lock the door. I noticed I still wore my painting smock because the garment made climbing into the truck awkward. I took it off, ripping away a button, and tossed it on the floorboard on the passenger side of the pickup.

Something terrible had happened.

Was Mom okay? Dad?

I'd already lost three of my grandparents. Grace was very close to Grandma Carson. Was Grandmother Carson okay? The last I'd heard she was healthy and active. Accidents happened, though, at any age.

Tires screeched when I stomped on the brakes in our driveway. I jumped from the truck, leaving the headlights on, and ran into the house.

Grace was at the door. She was sobbing and rushed into my arms.

"Brent," she said between sobs, "it's Mom and Dad." She couldn't speak for a few seconds. Finally she said, "They're gone."

Gone? "What happened?" I asked. "An accident?" That's when I noticed two men sitting on the sofa in the living room. I recognized one of them, Detective Lynds.

My heart felt as if it had dropped out of my chest. Tears stung my eyes. I could barely breathe.

"No, someone killed them," Grace said.

"Who?"

"I don't know. The police... they came to the door. They said not to tell you on the phone. Oh, Brent! Mom and Dad... What are we to do?"

My knees were shaking. I had to sit down, but my sister was clinging to me. I walked her to a large chair. Dad's chair. I swallowed a sob. I had to be strong. Grace needed me. I sat in the chair, pulling Grace onto my lap. She buried her face in my chest and cried. Mom and Dad. Dead. Killed. Tears streamed down my face. I pulled Grace closer and surrendered to my grief. We cried together.

"What happened?" I said to Detective Lynds. Grace was making a pot of coffee for the police officers and a cup of green tea for me, chores I'd given her after we gained a little control so I could speak with the police.

"Is there someone we can call?" Lynds's partner said. "A grandparent? Aunt? Uncle?"

"I'll call them," I said. "Tell me what happened, Detective Lynds."

"Tony, do you know this boy?" Lynds's partner said to Lynds.

"Yes. He's the young man I told you about who took down those five men with a cudgel."

"Oh."

Lynds turned to me and outlined what had happened to my parents. It took a while because I interrupted frequently to ask questions, most of which he couldn't answer.

Dad and Mom were at a hotel lounge having a drink (having a drink was an assumption) when a homemade bomb exploded destroying the lounge, part of the hotel lobby and part of the kitchen adjacent to the lounge that served a coffee shop. Besides my parents, the explosion killed twelve other customers and five hotel employees. Eighteen more were wounded, some critically.

Was this an act of terror? Using the definition of an act of terror, the answer was yes, but it was unknown whether it was related to the War on Terror or homegrown. No one as yet had claimed responsibility for the explosion, and the bomber's motive was unknown. Yes, a group or organization, as opposed to an individual, could very well be behind the wanton act of destruction. Homemade bomb, Lynds had said. What did that mean? Items like nails and ball bearings were components of the bomb, he told me. The bomb was constructed to kill or maim everyone in the lounge. Was it possible that a specific person was the target and everyone else including my parents became collateral damage? Yes. Was the FBI involved? Yes. Also Homeland Security and ATF. Special Agent Tim Garber was in charge of the investigation. Would he speak with me? Not likely. Why? Because I was a minor. Besides, Garber wasn't known for being forthcoming or cooperative with anyone outside the FBI. Funeral arrangements needed to be made. When would my parents' bodies be released? They didn't know. That was the bottom line. They didn't know much of anything. They'd been assigned to be the bearers of the horrible news. That was their job, and their job was finished.

Lynds and his partner left without having a cup of coffee.

I held Grace's hand and sipped green tea while I made the necessary calls to friends and relatives. Besides Grandma Carson, who all but collapsed when I told her what had happened, Mom had a sister in Denver and a brother in Houston. Dad had two sisters, one in Seattle and the other in Salt Lake City. I called Liz and Agnes. Grace called a couple of her friends, and I called Dad's lawyer, the executor of my parents' estate. Agnes and Liz wanted to come to me. I refused their offers. I didn't want to be with anyone except Grace.

I hoped I'd never have to make calls like those again, not in this life, or any future lives. I'd lost parents in my previous lives, but never both at the same time. Still, I had a reservoir of memories to call on, ways to handle grief.

When Josh Randall's mother died, he got drunk and picked a fight in a saloon, taking on all comers. He took out his anger and grief on belligerent fellow drinkers, smashing them with his huge fists, breaking furniture and glass. He was finally subdued and spent the night behind bars.

That wasn't my style.

When Jane Wilson's mother died, she handled that death with relative ease compared to the death of her father. She grieved deeply for him. He'd been her confidant and friend as well as a father. To lesson her grief, she worked, painted night and day for weeks, and finally after becoming completely exhausted, she collapsed.

That was closer to my style, but I had to help Grace with her grief. I couldn't go into my studio and not come out for weeks.

As Fang Hong, I believed that as soon as my father died that his personality went into a state of trance for four days. During this time, my father did not know he was dead. This period was called the First Bardo. Monks chanted, claiming to reach the dead person through special verses.

Toward the end of the First Bardo, my father would see a brilliant light. If the radiance of the Clear Light didn't terrify him, and he welcomed it, then he would not be reborn. If my father fled the Light, it would fade, and my father would become conscious that death had occurred. This was the start of the Second Bardo. All that my father had ever done or thought would pass in front of him. While he watched this procession of thoughts and deeds, he would feel like he had a body, but soon he would realize that he didn't and would long to possess one again. This realization started the Third Bardo, which is the state of seeking another birth. All previous thoughts and actions would direct my father to choose new parents who would give him his next body.

I was living proof that reincarnation was real. The concept that Mom and Dad would be reborn was consoling. I clung to that thought without the Bardos and Clear Lights confusing the issue.

I was in bed staring into the darkness, remembering, when Grace came to my room.

"May I sleep with you, Brent? Please?"

I turned the sheet down and scooted over.

"Just hold me. I need your arms around me, Brent."

She fell asleep in seconds. I didn't. I stared into the darkness, remembering.

I tried. As the new sun cast a golden glow across the desert floor, I tried to flow from one pose to the next, but faltered, stumbled. My movements weren't graceful; they were jerky. I started the tai chi form over again.

"Move with me, Mom," I whispered, tears sliding down my cheeks. "You loved this, but you loved your time with me more. Move with me. That's it. You are beautiful, and I love you, and I shall miss you every moment of this life, and I shall miss you most at sunrise, at the dawning of each new day."

I faltered again. My body felt too heavy to hold erect, and I crumpled onto the cool deck around the pool. A sob jerked my shoulders and back. My mother, my friend was gone. Never again would she flow gracefully through a tai chi form with me. Never again would she listen to my dreams while she blew air over the rim of her cup of coffee, or nibble on her lower lip with her upper teeth when she worried if I was doing something wrong.

Grace knelt beside me, put her arms around me and held me, held me that morning like I'd held her the night before.

"Teach me," she said when I stopped sobbing. "Teach me tai chi."

I nodded, and she helped me to my feet. I had purpose. Purpose pushed grief aside. The pushing was temporary, but purpose did offer some short respites from the overwhelming sadness and feeling of loss that the death of my parents evoked.

I taught Grace the basics of tai chi that morning. We worked at it for over an hour. When we finished, Grace said, "Tomorrow, same place, same time."

I nodded and pulled her into my arms, hugging her fiercely. "Thank you."

That's when she fell apart again.

A pattern was formed. I was there for my sister. She was there for me. We took turns falling apart and being strong for each other, and our bond, our love, grew and strengthened beyond any bond I'd had during all three of my lives.

Problems. Mom, Dad and Grace accepted me as an adult, Agnes, too, but Grandma Carson and my aunts and uncles didn't. Mom and Dad had executed a Last Will and Testament, and they'd shown Grace and me where it was kept. I read the Will, and it contained their wishes for their funerals. They elected cremation and wanted their ashes scattered during a private ceremony at dawn in the desert at a place where wildflowers grew in abundance every spring. I knew about that place. They also wanted a memorial service in a non-denominational church in Scottsdale. I made the arrangements accordingly.

Grandma Carson tried to change the funeral arrangements. She was opposed to cremation. One of my father's sisters, the aunt from Salt Lake City, didn't think the memorial service should be held in a non-denominational church. She had become a convert of the Mormon Church and started proselytizing the moment she arrived. Her husband was worse. Dad's sister from Seattle jumped into the middle of that argument. Politically, she was to the left of Stalin. She detested the religious right currently in power and stated if her brother and sister-in-law wanted a non-denominational memorial service, then that's what they'd get. Their bickering irritated me, and I asked both of them to leave, which was a mistake. I had no right to tell any of the adults anything. I was, after all, a minor, I was told.

Grace stood up for me. "I'm not," she said. "Stop your bickering right now or leave. The funeral arrangements have been made. Brent made them, and they are in accordance with Mom and Dad's wishes. They will not be changed."

The biggest problem, though, came from the Last Will and Testament. Mom and Dad had drafted the legal document years ago, and they'd named Uncle Samuel Torrance, my mother's brother who lived in Houston, guardian to their minor children. The guardianship didn't apply to Grace. She was eighteen, an adult, but it did apply to me, and Uncle Sam took his role seriously. After the funeral, he expected me to move to Houston with him and his wife, Gloria.

"Never happen," I said.

"You don't have a choice in the matter, Brent," he said.

"Sure I do. I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself, and tomorrow, I will petition the courts for emancipation and ask that the guardianship be set aside. If that petition is rejected, which is unlikely, Grace will ask the courts to appoint her as my guardian. I will not move to Houston with you, Uncle Sam."

"Humph, take care of yourself, huh. How?"

"My art."

That made him laugh.

Grace said, "What is your annual income, Uncle Sam?"

"That's none of your business," he grumbled.

"Brent will make over $200,000 this year with his art."

Aunt Gloria gasped, and she wasn't alone. Shocked faces stared at me.

"Which I won't share with you, Uncle Sam," I said to put a stop to the look of greed I noticed creeping onto my uncle's face. I could have been wrong. I didn't care.

"Nor will you get a share of the proceeds from Mom and Dad's insurance policies," Grace said. "I graduate from high school at the end of the month. I'll work here in Phoenix this summer, or not. I say, or not, because I won't work a menial job. I don't need to, and this fall I will attend college at ASU. I've been accepted there. They even offered me a scholarship. Brent will finish high school at Scottsdale High. We will live here in this house, which Mom and Dad left to us. The house will be free and clear. One of the insurance policies I mentioned pays off the mortgage on the house. With Brent's income, the proceeds from insurance policies, and the other assets Mom and Dad accumulated and left to us, we'll be fine financially. My half of the insurance money, not counting the mortgage insurance, comes to $1,000,000. Uncle Sam, listen to me. Listen very carefully. I will spend every dime of that money to stop you from taking Brent with you to Houston."

My sister made me proud.

But the sums mentioned hardened my uncle's resolve to be my guardian. I'd read him right. He wanted to get his greedy hands on my share of the insurance money and control of my income for the next year and a half. The next day while Grace and I were hiring an attorney to petition the courts for emancipation, Uncle Sam was talking with a different attorney to fight my petition and force me to accept him and his wife as my guardians. Grace and I also had a hurried meeting with the executor of the estate. It cost us, but he promised to support our effort.

And that wasn't the end of the problems. Probate should be against the law. I won't bore you with the details of that mess. Fortunately, the proceeds from insurance policies are not subject to probate, so Grace wouldn't need to worry about money. Insurance companies aren't quick to pay, though, and she wasn't signatory to our parents' or my bank accounts, which Uncle Sam's shyster lawyer managed to freeze. That was more a harassing tactic than anything because, with a $1,000,000 check soon to arrive, Grace had no trouble borrowing money to tide us over for a month or two and pay the retainers for the lawyers we hired to counter Uncle Sam's legal gymnastics. She also opened an account where we could deposit the proceeds from my opening in San Francisco in June. I'd already shipped the paintings for that show.

We did receive some support. Aunt Celia and her husband, George, were on our side. She was my mother's sister, from Denver. And Grandma Carson gave us tacit support. Deep down, I don't think Grandma liked my mother's brother, and she made it obvious to everyone that she didn't trust him. My dad's sister, the extreme liberal from Seattle, voiced her approval for Grace and my plans. My Mormon aunt from Salt Lake City took a neutral position.

After the memorial service, and after Grace and I had scattered Mom and Dad's ashes over a beautiful field of desert marigolds and globe mallow, I did not go to Houston with my uncle. Not that the issue was settled, but with the school so close to finishing for the year, the courts said I could remain with Gloria until after my emancipation hearing.

One positive result came from all the wrangling. Besides the love and trust and emotional support Grace and I gave each other, our bond deepened to include our financial affairs.

Liz wasn't happy with me. During my time of grief, she'd wanted to be there for me, support me, but I looked to Grace for the support Liz offered, and I didn't try very hard to disguise my preference.

Graduation night, Liz wanted to celebrate; after all, you only graduate from high school once in your life, and before my parents were killed, we'd made tentative plans for an all-night party, including our own hotel room. With the death of our parents so recent, and the fact that they weren't there to see her graduation ceremony, Grace didn't feel like celebrating. I was of like mind, and when I cancelled my date with Liz to support Grace, the small rift that had developed between Liz and me became a chasm.

Liz didn't come right out and say it, but she implied that she wanted me to choose between Grace and her. I chose Grace, and Liz stomped away in a huff. She called me later and apologized. I could hear the sounds of revelry in the background, and Liz's voice slurred a little. Then she negated her apology when she said, "You've been so morose, understandably, of course, but life goes on, Brent, and you need to get on with the rest of your life. You need to have some fun. Join me, not for all night, just for a few hours. It'll do you some good."

"That's not going to happen, Liz," I said.

"You care more about your sister than you do me," she said petulantly.

She's been drinking. She isn't thinking straight, I told myself. End the conversation before one of you says something you can't take back.

"I'll talk to you tomorrow, Liz," I said.

"No, we'll talk about it now. Are you fucking her?"

"Goodbye," I said and ended the call. I was so angry my hands were shaking.

The phone rang again a few seconds later. I let the machine take the call.

Liz apologized to the machine. "I'm so sorry, Brent. I didn't mean what I said. That was the wine talking, not me. It's just that I love you so much, and I've felt us drifting apart. I've missed you, and I wanted to be with you tonight to help me celebrate one of the milestones in my life. I really, really looked forward to this night and being with you, making love with you. Please forgive me. Call me tomorrow. Please."

I didn't call her, and she didn't call me. The next day, she rang the doorbell at my house. I let her in but shied away when she tried to embrace me.

"Sit," I said. "We need to talk." I turned to my sister. "Grace, please leave us alone."

Grace nodded and left the room. Liz took the sofa. I sat across from her in Dad's chair.

"I'll start," I said. "You said that I care more for my sister than I do you. You were correct. I love Grace and I do care for her more than I care for you. Grace will always be my sister, but you won't always be my lover. This fall you will move a few thousand miles away to start your college education. Is it still your intent to go to Harvard in three months?"

She nodded, and I could see tears brimming in her eyes.

"Good. I applaud your life goals, and I hope you won't let anything or anyone get in the way of achieving them, including me. Now lets address your extremely rude remark. I am not fucking Grace. Got it?"

"Yes," she said, the affirmation turning into a blubbering sound.

"What we had, Liz, was a high-school romance, a romance that would have ended in three months when you went on with the rest of your life, leaving me here to do the same with mine. Do you agree with that assessment?"

Tears streamed from her eyes. I did care for her, and I hated to see her so unhappy. I wanted to take her into my arms and comfort her.

She nodded agreement. "But it's more than that for me. I love you. I fell in love with you, Brent."

"But you will walk away from that love in September," I said.

"You don't love me," she said and tried unsuccessfully to swallow a sob. It shook her petite body.

"I care deeply for you, Liz. I'd hoped that we could have extended our romance through the summer, and I would've missed you terribly when you left me in the fall, but I knew you would, in fact, leave me, and knowing this, I didn't allow myself to fall in love with you."

She held herself with her arms around her waist, her shoulders shaking with her unhappiness. "You're breaking up with me, aren't you?"

"Yes. If we don't end it now, we'll go through this same pain again in three months. I don't want that. Do you?"

"No! I want you to love me. I want us to stay close and love each other, and after you graduate, I want you to join me in Boston and paint your wonderful paintings there. With me."

"Liz, what about college for me? I plan to go to college, too, not Harvard, but somewhere."

"Why? Your art is your career?"

"I want a business education so I can manage what I earn with my art."

"You can get that at Harvard."

"No, I'm not smart enough for Harvard. Liz, I hope you never have to go through the pain I've felt with the loss of my parents. My grief is deep and abiding. I believe I'll grieve for Mom and Dad for the rest of my life. You said I needed some fun. I can't have fun, not yet. I'm too fucking sad. Over time, that sadness will lighten somewhat. I know that, but I can't cope with your needs, not now. I'm barely coping, period. I'm sorry."

She hugged herself tighter and said nothing.

"About Grace and me, yes, we've grown even closer than we were before my parents were killed. She understands my grief. I understand hers. No one else can truly understand what we're feeling, what we're going through. When I need help with my grief, I go to Grace, and she does the same with me. She needed me last night. She graduated from high school, and her parents weren't there to share the achievement with her. I chose Grace's needs over yours. This upset you, and if we don't end our relationship today, I'll upset you again and again and again over the summer. Grace will go to San Francisco for my opening there in a few weeks, not you, and when that happens, you'll be upset again, but that's not material. What matters right now is the fact that I don't have any loving feelings for you, or anyone. Sometimes tears form and slide down my cheeks without reason. They just fucking happen. I feel so heavy I can hardly get up out of a chair or walk across a room. I can't be your lover, or anyone's lover, and I don't know how long I'll be this way. If you love me, Liz, let me go now, today."