Free The Second Coming by J. Fritschi Page B

head. “Oh man, I’m sorry. That must have been rough.”
    Mike puffed on his cigar. “The hardest part was the guilt I felt for leaving my team. I felt like I was letting them down.”
    “You did the right thing,” Axe assured him. “How are you now?”
    “It comes and goes. If I have enough to drink and take my meds I’m usually alright, but I still don’t like being in crowded rooms and I don’t have a lot of patience for people.”
    “Well, if it makes you feel any better, you seem fine to me.”
    “Whatever. It is what it is,” Mike said with a wave of his hand. “Tell me about Denise and April Rose. Do they live around here?”
    “Yeah, they live with Tom’s parents in Lafayette. Denise works at night and is trying to save enough money to put herself through college. After Tom’s death, when I was on leave visiting Denise, she told me that she wanted to get her degree in psychology, but that she was having a hard time juggling work, school and April Rose. That’s when I decided to leave the Army and come home. Now I help with April Rose when I’m off work and I’m helping Denise with her tuition.”
    Mike was proud to know Axe. He was a man of honor. “I respect your loyalty.” Mike slapped Axe on the shoulder. “Tom would be proud of you.”
    Axe raised his glass. “To Tom,” he said reverently as they clinked glasses. “Rest in peace brother.”

chapter 18

    “I HAVE A restraining order against you Jake. If you come within 100 feet of me I will have you thrown in jail,” Vicky shouted and then slammed the phone down. “Fucking asshole,” she said under her breath as she paced behind the dimly lit Tiki-style bar.
    “Everything alright?” a middle-aged man with salt and pepper hair and a red face asked.
    “I’m sorry,” Vicky replied as she flipped her shoulder length, blonde hair to the side. “You would think I would make better choices in the men I date.”
    “You know what they say about history repeating itself.”
    Vicky let out a sigh. “The men I date are just like my dad; they are going nowhere fast.”
    “What happened to your dad?”
    “He was an alcoholic who blamed himself for killing my brother.”
    The customer was taken aback. “I’m sorry to hear that. Do you want to talk about it?”
    “I was only four years old when it happened and I don’t know how much of it I really remember or how much of it I have made up. It was opening day of deer hunting season and my father came home with a 10 point buck. Everyone was very excited.”
    “That sounds nice. So what happened?”
    “My dad and my brothers were gutting the deer on the back porch when my dad went inside to get something. He had told my brothers that guns were not toys and if they ever found one that they were to find an adult immediately,” her eyes welled with tears. “I guess they were too young tounderstand. My brother Bobby was pretending to shoot the rifle when it went off and hit Stevie right in the chest.”
    “I’m so sorry.”
    Tears streamed down Vicky’s face as she sniffed and swallowed the rock in her throat. “I don’t know why I cry every time I tell the story. It’s all so distant now, it’s like it happened to someone else’s family.”
    “It’s completely understandable. I would think there is something wrong with you if you didn’t cry.”
    “My family was never the same after that. My mother couldn’t stand to look at my father or my brother because she blamed them both for killing her baby so she left one day and we never saw her again.”
    “What did your brother and father do?”
    “They were never able to get over it,” Vicky explained as she wiped the bar down. “They each blamed themselves. My dad hid in the bottom of a bottle and Bobby became reclusive and had terrible nightmares that he would wake up from crying.”
    “What would your dad do when he was crying?”
    “He told him that it wasn’t his fault, but Bobby could sense his resentment,” she