Timelines Collide

Chapter 26: Golden Girl (Part 2)

"Wow Loran, you have to do this stuff every day," I ask her, doing my best to catch up on my set of towels.

"You bet, though some stuff you don't need to do every day, I just choose to do so. But somehow, I manage."

"No kidding. You might as well hire a house cleaner."

The air starts to become cold, or I'm only noticing now because of Loran. She flips one of her side-swept bangs as her smile turns ghostly pale.

"Now there's an idea, maybe if daddy was still around, then affording one would be a *snap*, just like that.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that. Lana has mentioned him a few times to me. If you don't mind me asking. What was he like?"

Her ghostly smile gains a bit of color back as she stops folding over her hands not bothering to move them. As if the ceiling was a tv screen, she places her head on the back end of the couch and closed her eyes. I know the feeling all too well.

"Where to begin? He was an interesting man, to say the least. A little rough around the edges and had a few quirks to him that can be questionable at times. Maybe only because he expected so much for our futures, especially Lincoln's. 

But his actions told the story of a man who would always work late nights if only to make sure his wife didn't have to. He and Lana used to work all the time on projects you know? Just the two of them. He would always try his dang hardest to make sure he bonded with every single one of us."

"How did he bond with you?" I try catching my words before they left my mouth, but I wasn't fast enough. She doesn't seem to mind my little slip as she shifts her head from the ceiling onto her shoulder, looking my way.

"He would always let me apply makeup upon him." She laughs softly which begins to reshape her smile back into the frame. I can't help but start chuckling.

"Really? His tolerance must be through the roof then."

She chuckles back "You have no idea."

Her voice starts to fade into a light hum along with her eyes. She opens them back a few seconds later. "He was a great man, who cared about this family more than anything else in the world."

"What happened to him?"

She pauses to let the once-warm air fill her lungs with thin sheets of ice. Maybe in a way preparing herself for who knows how many times she had to tell people. With two whiffs, she sighs letting it loudly spread its wings and fly.

"Well Joseph, everyone would tell you that he died in an accidental car explosion. That night, the news hit us like bricks being thrown against a metal wall. For some of us, it still does." She lets out another sigh. "Still, I would tell you that I have a feeling that isn't how he died.

"Why would you think that?"

"It's hard to explain really. I know that Mother and he would always be working on stuff at the Covenant facilities. And with that type of job, accidents can happen, and for secrecy, they'll have to be covered up. And since we never got to see his body. They could have covered that up too."

"I'm sorry" is all I could think at the moment. I expect more to follow but nothing does. I know her pain more than she'll ever realize. 

Many of my brothers died in explosions. A quarter of them I've seen with my own eyes. That pain of seeing a person for the last time evaporating to nothing in a matter of seconds is something that latches onto people. In a way, it latches upon all the Foliums. It's due to that, that I owe her a better response than such plain conjunction of words.