Walking After Midnight - Denise V. Murphy (best beach reads of all time TXT) 📗

It was the usual start of another bad day. They hadn't even left the city yet and she could hear her daughter's cell phone ringing. It couldn't be good news.

Her daughter answered the phone as they were going through the McDonald's drive through window. Her grandchild was hungry and they had a one way three hundred mile road trip in front of them. Her brother was dying and some how she knew she was never going to see him again.

It was just what she thought. Her mother had just called to let her know that he had passed away. Such a weak word for the death of someone she loved so much. She tried not to cry but the tears rolled down her face the harder she tried to hold them back.

The grandchild sat in the back seat with her and didn't understand why her grandma was crying. The young man driving was someone she verily knew and his girlfriend was a girl she had disliked most of her daughter's life. It was an uncomfortable long ride to the other side of Iowa.

Her head was pounding as they finally pulled into the side yard of her Mother's house. Her entire family was there gathering for support. She got out of the truck and walked in a daze to the arms of her baby brother. She finally broke down and sobbed in his arms. Grief poured out of her like an open wound.

She walked in the house and found her mother and older brother sitting at the dining room table surrounded by family and relatives. She hugged her mother but her elder brother sat frozen in his chair in his own grief. She bent down and hugged him any way. A cousin asked her how she was and she just stared at her as if not hearing the question. She felt like a block of ice or a hard piece of wood.

She couldn't stand being in the house so she went back outside to have a cigarette. She knew she shouldn't smoke with a heart condition but she just didn't care any more. She was falling apart. Everyone had gathered on the south side of the house and were sitting on the deck smoking cigarettes and a few were all ready drinking beer. She didn't drink. Even if she did she knew it would not stay down today.

She rode out to the river where her brother used to camp and fish with her sister and one of her friends. It was hard to be out there and realise that she was never going to see her brother again. He was only fifty-four and it was just unreal to her that he was gone. She was never going to hear his voice again.

Her sister was drinking to much and kept bugging her to have a beer in their brother's name and she wouldn't do it. The day wore on and her sister continued to drink. That night she had to help her in to the house and take her shoes and socks off. It had been the perfect ending to a horrible day.

The next day was the trip to the funeral home to finalize the details of the funeral. Her sister refused to go and stayed at their mother's house to clean the house. The arrangements were finalized and the family was back at the house when an argument broke out between the two sisters.

"So what arrangements did they decide on?" The younger sister asked.

"We went with the traditional arrangements and a brown casket with concrete liner." She told her little sister.

"Great!" She grumbled. "Now we wont have any money left for a community luncheon."

"Look!" She snarled. "We are going with a traditional funeral. Our brother did not want to be cremated."

"What songs did you decide on?" Her sister snapped back.

"We chose 'Yesterday' by the Beatles and Led Zeppelin's 'Stairway to Heaven'." She told her being happy with the selections they had decided on.

Her sister blew up and they began yelling at each other. The argument didn't stop there though but followed them into the house. A fist fight broke out between the two sisters and it took four people to break it up. They both stormed off.

Onawa was seven miles away on an asphalt road and it was a hot late July night in August. She hadn't walked that road in twenty years. She felt her brother's presence as she walked that lonely highway that night. It felt like he was walking beside her step by step at her pace.

That night the dreams started. He came to her after midnight and they would walk together and she would feel drained the next morning and couldn't remember what he had said to her. Night after night the dream would start again but always they were walking somewhere but she couldn't remember where they were going or the conversations they had while they walked. He was trying to tell her something but by morning she couldn't remember what it was. It was like a strange buzzing in her mind.

Things had went from bad to worse after the funeral. She had left and went back to the other side of Iowa and nothing had been settled between her and her sister. Next thing she knew she was told that her sister had walked out on her marriage and was living in Onawa holding down a waitress job and living with her friend who also drank. She was concerned that her sister was using their brother's death to run away from her problems. Her husband told her to just stay out of it.

Midnight the dream would start again. Always it started with her brother reaching out and gesturing for her to follow him. The woods were always calm and unearthly quiet with no sound and the wind would be blowing gently through the trees and the path always weaved through a meandering stream and large birch trees lined the path way. It was always the same dream of the two of them walking and he was telling her something important but by morning light the dream would fade and she couldn't remember what he had tried to tell her.

It took months for the dreams to finally make sense to her. Her brother had been one of the best mushroom hunters in his area and he had told her in the dreams where to find his hidden mushroom patches. He was telling her many things by using the dreams of walking after midnight. She had a heart condition and needed to walk more, the birch trees were a sign of mushrooms and the meandering stream and the path in the woods were all telling her that it is your chose the path you choose in life. He was trying to direct her to the right path. The one maybe he had missed in life. The dreams still come but now she doesn't feel afraid of what he is trying to tell her but feels the love in his presence and knows he will always be with her.

Publication Date: 11-08-2009

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