LOTF: Before and After

Phase 3: Chapter 72

Laurie Langley had once thought herself to be a keener, especially when it came to her son. And then came that horrendous, earth shattering moment, one she wouldn't wish on even the worst of mothers. It started with seven missed calls from her husband in the middle of the work day. She called him back, for it to ring not even once before he answered, his heart in his chest as he regretfully informed her that their little boy's plane never made it to its destination. And ever since he was rescued nearly five months later, Laurie Langley discovered that she was anything but keen when it came to her son.

She presently spent the better part of an hour talking to her boy in the assembly hall at Bainbridge Military Academy. They sat before the memorium display of all the sons whose mothers weren't as fortunate as she was when she got the call that Ralph was among the group of boys who were being rescued from a remote island in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean. Presently, after Ralph requested to be left alone for a while after they finished talking, Laurie walked out of the assembly hall to discover that the majority of tonight's guests had left for home. Her eyes immediately found her husband and Jack standing in conversation with a man in the academy's staff uniform.

"Hey, how are things?" Jeffery removed himself from the conversation to ask his wife as she joined them.

"It can only get better from here" Laurie answered, leaving Jack and Jeffery both to wonder whether that was a good or a bad thing.

Jeffery lifted his arm out to his wife, taking her under it as he redirected his focus back to the uniformed man in front of them. Jack, who stood comfortably under Jeffery's other arm, slipped out a moment later and quietly crept over to the doors of the assembly hall. He poked his head in the ajar door and noticed that there were only eight or ten people still in there, sitting around the photographs of his deceased former squadron members. His eyes finally found Ralph sitting alone nearer the back, a substantial distance between himself and the rest of the mourners positioned much closer to the stage.

Jack swallowed all the moisture in his mouth and throat, ignoring the uneasy feeling in his gut as he pushed himself through the door, letting it close slowly and gently behind him. His every step felt heavy and imbalanced as he walked behind the last row, turning down the center aisle that divided the room into two sections. He stopped as he made it to Row 32, where Ralph was sitting in the middle of it.

Ralph turned his head as Jack sat down beside him. Ralph stared at him, as if waiting for an explanation or anything that would explain why Jack would be here in the assembly hall of all places. But Jack didn't look at Ralph just yet, he simply kept his head down, gaze focused on his hands as he pinched at the skin of his hand in the sling with his other one.

Ralph turned his head back to face forward once he realized Jack wasn't going to say anything. For maybe the sixtieth time that night, Ralph scanned each of the photos of those who were taken away from them by this dreadful tragedy.

"It should've been seventeen" Ralph broke the silence. He felt Jack lift his head to look at him.

"What?" Jack finally spoke, in a raspy voice.

"There should only be seventeen memorials up there, not nineteen" Ralph turned to meet Jack's eyes as he elaborated. "Simon and Piggy should be here, grieving in one of these chairs with us, instead of up there on the screen with the plane crash victims."

Jack dropped his head back down, tearing his gaze from Ralph's in the process. Ralph was expecting him to stay silent, to have nothing to say, no way to defend himself, as he usually would.

"I know" Jack kept his head and eyes down as he replied, feeling Ralph's stare intensify.

"Do you?" Ralph pressed him further. "Do you really? Because I don't think you do."