Page 2 of Nash Falls
His father’s first wife had killed herself for reasons that had never been explained to Nash. He had married Nash’s mother when he’d been thirty-seven and they’d had Nash a year later. As an Army brat Nash didn’t have to move around much, because by the time he had come along his father was navigating the downhill portion of his enlisted ride to a full military pension. They had come here when Nash had turned three, and he had been here ever since, except for when Nash had left to attend college.
When Nash was a child, he and his father had spent a great deal of time together, doing things that fathers and sons normally did. Years in Little League baseball where, due to his clumsiness brought on by growing too much too fast, Nash played outfield and his father called out advice nonstop, or else screamed at the coaches, the ump, and other parents, sometimes throwing fists as well as insults. They had gone canoeing a few times and camped out once, but not for long as poison sumac waylaid Nash and nearly sent him to the hospital. By the time he was thirteen his father had taught him how to shoot like a pro and handle firearms exceptionally well. Nash, though, had absolutely refused to go hunting with his father. He could never see himself killing another living thing.
They also attended sporting events together where his father sucked down beers and Nash a soda. His father was the sort of fan who shouted and gesticulated no matter how well or poorly his team was performing. During these times Nash ate a hot dog and cheesy fries, and thought of other things. For the most part those times had been good; his father had been a fun, willing participant in the important moments of a little boy’s life.
As a child Nash had attended his father’s military retirement ceremony. He had experienced great pride during the ceremony as he watched his father in his full military regalia, his chest brimming with hard-earned ribbons and medals, being celebrated by other brave, tough, and strong men.
He’d also seen, when they would go to the beach on vacation, the permanent wounds grafted onto his father from his combat days. He had felt proud of his dad and sorry for him at the same time, that he’d had to go through that and suffer so.
These blissful times had ended when Nash had opted to play tennis instead of the manly sport of high school football. It had been for a simple reason: While already over six feet at age fourteen, Nash was very thin and underdeveloped, and he didn’t want to get his head knocked off. Playing a sport that could damage your brain for the rest of your life, for no compensation in return, had never struck him as a productive or intelligent use of his time.
His father, who Nash knew had been a football legend back in Mississippi, had completely changed toward his son after Nash had made his decision not to pursue football. There were no more fun times. No more father-son outings. There was only a wall between the two that Nash had never really understood because he couldn’t believe something so frivolous as choosing one sport over another could have such drastic and inane consequences.
Then high school was done, college had begun, and then Nash had married, become a dad at a young age, graduated with high honors with a degree in business, and begun forging his identity as a husband, father, and businessman extraordinaire.
His widowed father, who had lived only eight miles away, in the same little vinyl-sided house in a hardscrabble neighborhood where Nash had grown up, had not spoken to his son right up until the day he had died. He hadn’t even allowed Nash to come to hospice to say his goodbyes. He had never even told his son he had been taken to hospice. In fact, Nash had only heard of his father’s death from the man’s elderly neighbor.
So today was here and goodbyes would be made, and then what exactly?
His black dress shoes polished, his hair combed, and his slender jaw set as firm as he could manage, he walked out the door to join his family. Then they would drive off to pay final respects to a man who, for decades, had not respected his son in the least.
He was actually looking forward to tomorrow coming as quickly as possible. Then it would just be another day at the office where he could be reasonably sure of what to expect, for Nash was a man who, for the most part, loathed surprises.
And another day of his predictable life left on earth would be checked off to be followed by another day that was pretty much a facsimile of its predecessor.
Or so Walter Nash thought.
CHAPTER
3
THE INCENSE SURPRISED NASH BECAUSEthis was a nondenominational church. His mother had been raised Catholic and she had done the same for him, so he was well used to the smells and bells. His father had not attended Mass with them. He had explained to his son that the concept of God was for those who chose not to think for themselves.
“When you need to look to the sky for guidance, sonny boy, it’s time to call in a damn shrink,” he had told Nash, well out of his devout mother’s delicate earshot, for Ty Nash tried mightily not to upset his beloved wife.
Nash was also surprised that there was even a church service being held for his father. Or a casket. He had also assumed his father would go the cremation route, the pathway that his mother had chosen. Her funeral service had been the last time father and son had occupied the same space. A devastated Ty Nash had perched in the front pew, staring at the floor and looking like all substance and soul had left him. Nash had been three rows behind and sobbing heavily, as his wife and daughter took turns consoling him.
He had kept in touch with his mother throughout the estrangement with his father. She had been there for the birth of Maggie and later attended his college graduation. They would see each other for dinner occasionally, or she would come to his house for birthdays and holidays and the like, but he never went inside his childhood home. When they were together, they never spoke of his father, although Nash could tell, in his mother’s looks and the questions she sometimes phrased, that she wanted to broach the subject. Yet Nashknew a reconciliation was not possible. Unbeknownst to his mother, he had attempted one, soon after she had been diagnosed with the disease that would later claim her life.
While his mother was in the hospital for treatment, he had shown up unannounced on his father’s doorstep, with a hot takeout dinner for them to share in one hand, and a six-pack of his father’s favorite beer in the other. His father had taken one look at the offered food and his son’s sympathetic features, and then knocked the food out of Nash’s hand and grabbed the beer. He followed that up by violently sending Nash off the porch with a vicious right hook to the head that his son had never seen coming, because Nash had ventured there to make peace and break bread with his dad, not pummel him. His jaw and back had ached for a month.
The church crowd today was fairly large, and somewhat rowdy, the latter condition due entirely to one set of mourners. The Harleys he had seen parked outside had portended the presence of Ty Nash’s Vietnam veteran chums. His father had been a founding member of this motorcycle group, which they’d called the “Fuck Off” club. They’d even had leather jackets made up with that phrase stitched on the back.
The vets sat together, their suits mostly ancient and rumpled, but their hair combed and their faces clean, and none of them seemed to be too stoned. But he was certain they would all get shit-faced afterward and go on ad nauseum about the exploits of Ty Nash, soldier, husband and… father. Now they were talking in voices that carried and their words were not all that appropriate for a house of worship. However, Nash was sure no one had the guts to tell the battle-hardened wild bunch to knock it off. He certainly didn’t.
The Nash family sat in the second row of pews, behind a woman who was the only one perched in the first row, which had been marked as reserved. She had been introduced to them as Rosie Parker by Harriet Segura, a longtime friend of the family. Segura had also been the elderly neighbor to alert Nash to his father’s death. Parker was in her sixties, tall, thin, and big-boned with a long, flattenedface, and eyes that seemed to bite into Nash’s flesh like no-see-ums. Her dress was ill fitting and seemed decades old. After the introduction to the Nash family, she mumbled something incoherent, seeming to tremble with the slight effort.
What the hell was that about?thought Nash. His wife squeezed his hand in support and sympathy; his daughter was glued to her phone while she twirled a strand of her bouncy blond hair.
Harriet Segura leaned forward from the row behind and said quietly into Nash’s ear, “She’s been living with Ty for the past couple of years or so, his girlfriend of sorts. Least he held her out to be that.” Segura, a grim, matronly sort, had added, “Ask me, she’s a damn gold digger and your father too sick to notice.”
Nash was blithely unaware that his father possessed any gold to dig, nor did Parker look remotely like a gold digger, but he decided to table that, for now. He tried never to draw conclusions without sufficient data.
He had not been asked to speak at the service and was glad of that. Hewasstartled when Parker rose and went to the altar after being called on by the minister. She quietly and haltingly read a psalm, and then spoke more forcefully about Ty being a wonderful partner, and lover. Nash gasped at this last word, although there were hoots and catcalls from the Harley section of the church.
Judith’s fingers tightened around his.
The final speaker called upon was a mountain of a man whom Nash knew well from his childhood.
