Perfect Day

Chapter 2

This is kind short and I'm kinda bullshitting my way through this so that we can get to the good stuff.

Brendan and Ann had been dating for over two months now. They were 'official' although they hadn't slept together yet. Brendan said that he'd like to wait, and Ann respected that. ' No pressure' . She had reminded him. One day, in the middle of a date, Ann got a phone call from her mother's neighbour. She was weirded out. She'd never really said two words to him and only gave him her number for emergencies, so this must've been an emergency.

"Hello?" She said as she answered the phone. She paused as the man on the other end of the call talked, and Ann felt her heart sink.

"How long?" Ann whispered, looking down at her watch. She paused again. Brendan could hear the muffled voice of a man on the other end, although he couldn't make out what he was saying.

"Okay. I'll be there as soon as I can. Thank you. Bye." She quickly hung up the phone and dropped it on the table as she stared blankly in front of her.

"My mother died. She had a heart attack." Her voice was emotionless. Tears began to form in her eyes.

Brendan reached over the table to hold her hand, and she held it back.

"I'm so sorry. Do you want a ride?" He asked, comfortingly as Ann nodded at his request.

They paid the bill and walked out to Brendan's car. Ann directed him to her mother's house where there were police officers standing outside as paramedics wheeled out a gurney with a black body bag strapped to it. Ann looked down, trying not to look at it. Brendan put his hand on her shoulder to comfort her and she put her hand on top of his. She looked up and a police officer was walking towards them.

"Are you Ann?" The police officer asked her and she nodded.

"The paramedics have ruled her death as an accidental heart attack. They believe that she mixed up her medication and took too much of the wrong one, and not enough of the other. I'm very sorry for your loss. If you leave your number, the funeral home will give you a call when they're ready for you to start making funeral arrangements." He handed her a clipboard and she wrote her phone number on it.

"Again, I'm very sorry for your loss." He nodded at her and she nodded back as the ambulance began to drive away.

Ann walked up the stairs to the porch of the house, and Brendan followed. She hesitated before walking inside. She looked around the house as she made her way to the kitchen. Her medication bottles were sitting on the countertop and Ann picked them up to read them.

"She took three of these instead of one." She picked up another bottle and read the label. "And one of these instead of three." Brendan leaned over her to read the labels.

"Yep, that'll do it." He whispered.

Ann sank into the kitchen chair, still clutching the pill bottles. She wiped the tear away from her face. Brendan knelt down in front of her.

"Are you okay? Do you need me to make any phone calls to anyone?" He said, putting his hand on her knee.

"No thanks. I'll do it. But that's it. She had no one. No family. I'm the only one. And she was my only one. I have no family left." She sniffled and took a deep breath.

"I'm so sorry." Brendan stood up and scooped her into a tight hug, and she hugged back.

"Thank you for being here." She whispered.

"That's what boyfriends are for." He kissed her cheek.

"I can't stay here for much longer. I guess we should just find all of her bank and insurance stuff and go." She pulled away from the hug.

"And where would that be?" He asked.

"No idea. Mom was kind of a hoarder. Wow, it's weird saying was, like past tense. I mean, just an hour ago, she was here. And now she's not." Ann placed the pill bottles on the table and stood up. "There's a spare bedroom with just boxes and boxes of stuff, so I guess we could start there?" Brendan nodded and followed her as she led the way to the spare room.

The room was small, and it consisted of a single bed, a desk with a lamp and loads of plastic storage containers surrounding it, with God-knows-what inside them.

"I guess we start at the top and make our way to the bottom?" Brendan said as he picked up a container, put it on the bed and opened it. Ann nodded and picked up a box and did the same.

The first few boxes only had pictures and old bills inside of them. Every so often, Brendan would make fun of one of Ann's childhood pictures and she would laugh. The next box that Brendan picked up had what they were looking for in a file. He read through it and handed it to her.

"Good find." She made sure she had everything she needed before shoving the file into her handbag. "I cannot stay here any longer. Can we leave?" She looked up at Brendan and he nodded. They made their way back to Brendan's car and they went to spend the night at his apartment.

The funeral was a week later. It was a nice service. A lot of people showed up. Ann didn't leave Brendan's side all day. She had moved into his apartment with him.

After the service, they went home and Ann curled up on the couch. She hadn't really said two words to anyone besides Brendan for that week.

"Let's go away this weekend. Maybe it could take your mind off of everything?" Brendan suggested as he sat down, handing her a cup of tea.

Ann sat up and took the tea off him. "Thanks."

"Where would we go?" She asked, taking a sip of tea.

"My friend has a place a few hours away. It's huge. Private hot tub, master bedroom, huge shower." He said, teasing her and she laughed.

"You know what? That would actually be great." She traced the top of her mug with her pinky finger. He chuckled and cuddled up next to her and she leaned her head on his shoulder. Brendan smirked a little, like he had hatched some sort of plan, but Ann didn't notice. She was just happy to have someone to be with that gave two shits about her. She was excited to get away. She felt like Brendan was kind of becoming distant, and she figured that maybe this weekend they would finally sleep together. But the things Ann didn't know were the things that Brendan was looking the most forward to. And he couldn't wait to surprise her...