Page 3 of Fallen Hearts

“Oh, Pia,” she said, as if feeling really sorry for me. “Thomas Bennett is dead.”

2

MASON

What does a person do the day after they bury their father?

I wandered from my old bedroom at the inn where I grew up down to the kitchen. Esther, the elderly woman Dad had hired a few years ago to cook breakfast when he decided to start marketing Heritage Hill as a B&B, used the second kitchen Dad had added to the expanded part of the inn. This one, in the original house, was used only by my father and me. It was strange to walk into the kitchen without a pot of coffee brewing, courtesy of Dad.

It was even stranger to imagine not seeing my father walk through the door saying, “Mason, get up to the Heather room and see about unsticking the window.”

Just as the coffee began to brew, a different voice filled the room.

“How you doing?”

Beck had stayed the night, along with a few other of my close friends.

“Alright,” I said, reaching into the cabinet for two mugs. “Black, right?”

“Yep.”

Only the sound of coffee brewing broke the silence. With someone you’d met in kindergarten, there wasn’t always a need to talk. A few minutes later, I slid my friend a mug and sat across from him at the kitchen island.

“How many years has death been a part of my life?” I asked, not really expecting an answer. “But it still doesn’t prepare you.”

“Yeah, but we’re not talking about terrorists or criminals. This is family. Hits different.”

The only close family I had left. “True.”

More silence. Some of those deaths Beck mentioned flashed through my mind. Eight years as an Army Ranger and four with the NYPD still hadn’t prepared me for when I walked into the morgue and saw Dad lying on that cold metal table.

A fucking heart attack. Sure, he’d eaten his share of unhealthy food, but my father had always been an active guy, like me. He even went to the doctor every year and had gotten a clean bill of health just a few months ago. I only knew that because he’d texted me to get my own ass to the doctor, something I hadn’t done since the medics forced me into their tent on my last tour.

One thing I did know about death, though, was that it came for all of us at some point. Lamenting the fact that he was gone wouldn’t bring him back. And it certainly wouldn’t solve the problem of Heritage Hill.

“What the fuck am I going to do?” I asked, as if Beck would have the answer.

“I don’t know, man. That’s your call. How many days did you clear the calendar?”

It might be more rundown than when I was a kid, and my father’s lakeside inn certainly made less money than it had in its heyday, but it was late fall in the Finger Lakes. Which meant the inn was at least half full for the rest of the month.

“For the week,” I said. “I should probably clear another.”

“Ya think?”

We were opposites in just about every way—Beck’s dirty-blond hair to my black, his openness and easygoing personality to my sarcasm and private nature—and the only thing we had in common was a sense of humor. And our friendship.

“I think I’m fucked. That’s what I think.”

“How many bereavement days do you get?”

“Five.”

“Hmm. It does seem like you’re a bit fucked.”

I rolled my eyes. “Thanks, bud.”

“No problem.”

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