Chapter Three

The Next Trip into the Fires

When Lysandra pulled up to the house she groaned. In the driveway were her father’s sisters. She got out of the truck before they could even knock. “What do you’ll want?” She drawled as she leaned against her truck, arms crossed, and legs crossed in front of her.

The ugliest and oldest one of them turned around, “we came to get what is ours,” she spat.

Years of drug use did not help this woman in any way shape or form, “Now, Aunt Ivy, I have no clue what you are speaking of, we have nothing of yours.”

“This farm was our parents! It is now ours! You freeloaders will have to leave!”

Lysandra laughed, it was cold and bitter, “father bought it with his inheritance, expanded it, and lived on this land since your parents died. You have no claim, even if my father didn’t have a will, which he did.” Lysandra moved and pulled her shotgun out of the truck, “now, you’ll have the count of three to get in your car and leave. Don’t bother coming to the funeral if you plan on making a scene. You won’t even get a drop of blood from us, even if it was to save your pathetic life and they would give us a billion dollars. Father may have bailed you out, may have put up with your shit, but I ain’t my daddy.” She cocked her gun, “One…”

The three women sneered but got into their car. She already knew they would come and make a scene and try to protest the will, but she had better lawyers. She emptied the gun and put it back in the truck.

The others came out when the aunts were down the road. “All the plans have been completed, we just have to know who they are presenting the flag too,” she took the bottle of beer Lander held out to her. She raised an eyebrow at the pale ale, but whatever, it was beer, and she took a long drag. “Funeral is Tuesday, visitation Monday.”

“Sandy, what do we do?” Lucian’s soft whisper reached her ears.

Lysandra held her arms open and her fourteen-year-old brother dove into her arms and cried. The others all curled around her and each other. Lysandra didn’t know what was in store, so she stayed silent and just held her siblings. She only knew whatever the next trip into hell was; they would get through it at each other’s sides.

That night, Lysandra made sure her siblings were asleep before she left to the local bar. She went for only one reason, to feel something for a moment of time, something other than numbness and anger. She stood at the bar, a few empty shots of tequila in front of her; she slammed another one before she looked around the bar. She smirked when she saw a man by the jukebox. He stood in a suit, his tie was undone, and he looked like he wanted to sneak out the back. Lysandra swayed her hips and smirked. He was perfect. She moved over to him, and grabbed his drink and finished it, before she grabbed his hand. “Dance with me.”

The man dumbly nodded and followed her to the dance floor. They danced like they were having sex with their clothes on, but they didn’t stay long. No, Lysandra needed to feel. She dragged him out to his car for some good ole stress relieving sex.

This nameless man picked her up and had her wind her legs around his waist, as he made his way to his car. He pressed her back to the car and ground into her. He needed her. He needed her now. “I want you.” His voice was hot and low in her ear as he whispered huskily because of arousal and the liquor they consumed. They were pressed flush together and Lysandra could feel just how much he wanted her as he canted his hips forward against her.

A moan found itself out of her throat as his lips descended on the sensitive skin of her neck. She needed to feel, and he was helping. “Take me.” Lysandra almost begged. That seemed to be all it took because they were no longer a mess of hands and lips and the car door was swung open. Lysandra fell against the back seat, with this nameless man over her. Their lips met in another filthy kiss full of teeth and tongue. Lysandra was ready, wet, and needed to get him to make her feel!

This man stripped them, and Lysandra enjoyed the view. He was lean and perfect, slightly toned and not as sickly pale as she had assumed from his hands. It was more like his skin was like cream; it was just as soft beneath her roaming hands. Because she needed him now! Her eyes fell on his cock as it sprung free from its bonds. He was well endowed, thick and long as he stroked himself, and put on the condom she had put in his hand on the dance floor. She for sure picked well tonight. The very sight had her spreading her legs, reaching out to pull him down.

His hands were on her again paired with fervent kisses and teeth that would graze her skin sending chills down her spine. This is exactly what she needed, to not think, to just feel. And then his fingers were brushing over the most sensitive part of her. He worked her clit with fingers so skilled and focused that she got exactly what she wanted, she couldn’t think. She came undone at those masterful fingers; her legs shaking and voice calling out to a God she didn’t know existed. If she had thought she was wet before she was positively dripping now. “No- no more,” she begged. She wanted more than just his teasing fingers; she wanted to feel him thrusting into the deepest part of herself, she needed it more than her next breath.

He complied eagerly. There was a quick moment where there weren’t any sensations stimulating her, but that moment was quickly ended. He kneeled between her spread legs, grabbing her hips to pull her closer. She wanted to tell him to hurry, to take her, delve into her, but she didn’t have to. He was thrusting into her fully with one quick motion. He bottomed out in a second and she threw her head back in a silent ‘o’. Though she wanted fast and dirty, he was gentle with her, and let her get used to his size. The first thrust rough and needy as he entered her, but he waited for her. She lay beneath him, legs wrapped around his slim waist. Her entire body shook with need. “Move,” she demanded and rolled her hips and gave a soft moan at the pleasure of it. He groaned as she tightened around him, squeezing him in the most pleasant way. Slowly he pulled out to the very head and thrust just an inch back.

A devilish grin was on his lips as he teased her. Slowly, he thrust into her over and over with just his head. Her stomach twisted in need as she tried to roll her hips to meet his thrusts, to make him go deeper. Strong hands at her hips pressed her down into the mattress so she didn’t even have a chance. “Tell me you want it. Tell me what it is you want and I will give it to you,” he murmured heatedly as he teased her dripping lips with his hot cock. He pulled out then, rutting against her, grazing her clitoris and making Lysandra call out.

“I want you to fuck me. Please! Don’t tease me anymore!” Lysandra ordered as she dug her fingertips into this man’s shoulders. There would surely be bruises there, marks reminding him of their night together. The very thought made her moan just as he thrust deeply into her again. There was only pleasure that zapped up her spine, making her arch her back for more. He groaned as he pulled back again and thrusting as far as he could. Lysandra matched his moans because that was all her pleasure clouded mind could comprehend. This man would murmur against her skin as he took her. He thrust into her sweetly when he felt like it, and harder when she begged. His cock pulsed in her as she clenched around him when he hit a particularly sweet spot inside. She was moaning and writing beneath him, their bodies moving together. They needed one another and as they had sex, even if it was just to feel for her, and a want to get lucky for him, Lysandra felt her orgasm deep in her stir. A warm sensation started just behind her navel and she called out to him, “harder, more, please!” She pleaded over and over in different variations. She was close to her climax and if the erratic snap of his hips was any sign, he was close. He murmured sweet nothings over and over when he was not crashing their lips together in a filthy meeting. Urgency came to their touches then, both of them seeking something from the other. It was not long until they were both coming together. A toe curling orgasm pulsed its way through her as she cried out. Her back arched and this nameless man did his best to keep her still. There would be bruises on her hips in the shape of his fingers in the morning. For a long moment, as they rode their climax out, they kissed. They held onto one for a moment while they rode out their high. She felt as he slipped from her, and she turned them so his back was against the seat. He fell asleep. She snorted and moved to get dressed.

After she finished dressing Lysandra stood outside the car, smoking a cigarette. The one-night stand nameless man was sleeping in his back seat. She sighed, she couldn’t seem to be but numb even if the numbness left long enough for her to achieve an orgasm. She would be thankful to this nameless man for the moments that left her without thought. She flicked her cigarette away and walked to her truck. It was time for her to return to reality, the numbness and anger that came with being human.

Monday afternoon came too soon for the family; Lysandra was standing in her dress uniform, as was Lander. The others in their Sunday best. They greeted all who came to the wake for their parents. As people greeted them, Lysandra had the rather out of nowhere thought of what they were going to do with all those goddamn plants. She stood like a damn Kennedy as Camelot when down in flames, and all she could think of in that moment was what she was going to do with hundreds of flowers and plants.

She was startled from her thoughts when it was time to get people settled and she walked to the front. “Thank you for coming. It hurts to be here today like this, burying our parents too soon. It hurts this soul of mine that they won’t get to see us as we travel our lives, to find love, to find out what it means to be a parent ourselves, it hurts that they won’t be there to lean on when we are reminded again and again it hurts to be human.” Lysandra took a breath as she looked out at the town, “I knew one day I may have to stand here in front of all you and talk about my parents, perhaps my father first, and talking about how much he bragged about his kids, how he adored my mother, and how he would give the shirt off his back to anybody who needed it. How he never gave up on the lost causes, because Saint Jude doesn’t give up, Jesus doesn’t give up, and for sure God never gives up. Then perhaps later in life it would have been my mother, and how she was adored by the town for her contribution to church and town, how she would talk to anybody just to make sure they knew they were not alone in this world, and how she pushed us kids to achieve what she knew was inside of us. I never thought I may have to stand here talking about both at the same time; how they adored each other, loved their community, and their children where their world. But God, this hurts, but it is a part of being alive, my father used to say that. Pain is letting you know you are still human, still alive, and haven’t given up your soul to the darkness that comes with life. I could tell you everything that made them pillars of this community, but you all know what made them the people anybody ran to in their time of need. I could tell you how involved they were with family and church, but again, you know that because you were there, right beside them, as they helped everybody stand tall and proud. They were powerful people who used their good fortune to help build the world they wanted for their children and all people in this world. This is a loss that affects not just me and my siblings, though it feels as if our world has stopped turning, it affects this town, this state, this country, and this world, because today the world mourns the loss of two people who only wanted the best for the world.” She took a breath and nodded, “thank you all for coming out. Please feel free to share stories of my parents with us today. The rosary will start at seven.” She moved down the aisle away from the coffins at her back, away from people who wanted to shake her hand and see what would happen with the money their parents had given, the investments in the companies worldwide, away from the false grief and sincerity.

Lysandra wasn’t entirely sure how she made it through the wake and rosary without drinking. But she couldn’t. Not at her parents’ wake. Once she knew Lander had the others taken care of she had to leave again, she had put them up in a hotel for tonight and tomorrow night, something about being in the home these two nights burned their souls, and they couldn’t take it, from nightmares to numbness, all of them were affected, thus the hotel for them. She needed some time alone. But once alone, she couldn’t stand the silence. It was deafening. And she couldn’t stand it. So she left and went down to the bar once more.

Hours later Lysandra stumbled as she made her way into the house. She had no clue where her bra was, let alone her panties, and she wasn’t exactly sure anymore if she had her keys. But she was able to get into the house; and the woman she had sex with behind the bar had been exceptionally beautiful. And Lord, did she have a talented tongue. She stumbled her way into the living room, where a portrait of her parents seemed to taunt her. She suddenly screamed, the wall of numbness finally breaking. She fell to her knees and bowed her head. “God, why? Why take my mom? Why take the only mom I knew. Oh, I have my suspensions and I am not stupid of the rumors. God, I am so alone, because this house is no longer a home. The feeling of home is gone, just like my parents on this plane of existence. Are they in heaven? Are they burning in hell? Are they waiting on my prayers to escape purgatory towards the pearly gates? I just need someone to make this place a home again. Mom, forgive me my hate. Daddy, how could leave me? I need you, so I can know what I am doing isn’t wrong, that how I am acting is human. I am unsteady, on uneven ground, on an unplanned and unwanted new path. I am a mess, God, please, hold on to my soul, because my heart is a little to unsteady right now, and I might do something worse than I have done before, and damn this tattered soul further into hell. Please, just hold on to my soul, tighten your grip, because I am no angel, I am no saint, I have more than a bit of rust on my halo. But please… please, don’t let go. Just don’t give up on me… For I was born in holy water but forged in the fires of hell. May God’s love have mercy upon my damaged soul.” Lysandra then fell forward and passed out.

Lysandara’s phone woke her up at dawn; it was way too early for someone who passed out just two hours before, drunk as hell. She chucked it across the room when she saw Brian on the caller id. She so didn’t want to deal with her boyfriend, who in all actuality she had been cheating on these last few nights. Not that he doesn’t do the same thing. She groaned and dragged herself to the shower. She had to get through today, and she had to be at the church in just a few hours. Coffee and an ice-cold shower would help hide the liquor in her system. She had to get through the day after all.

She met her siblings at the church; she moved and walked in first, after all, she had promised not to let them down. She greeted Father Singer and started the motions that would lead her to standing in front of the town, and then some, fighting the anger that woke up last night, after the numbness fully shattered. And right now she didn’t know what to do with the thoughts running through her head.

It seemed like it was no time at all went by, and Lysandra stood in front of the masses. “We are taught as Catholics that death is nothing but a transition.” Lysandra wasn’t sure she still believed in God after what she had seen in the war, but it was a comfort to her siblings, family, and friends, and even to herself at times, even if doubts and hate flowed through her at many times towards their creator. She stood before them in the church, her parents’ caskets laid out, side by side, one with a flag, one with enough flowers to make a garden jealous. She swallowed, “they teach us that there is life after death. We are taught about life eternal. We are taught that once these mortal hearts beat their final beat that we are raised into the afterlife. Where our souls are cleansed in purgatory, then we ascend into heaven. It is hard to remember these teachings today. It is easy to say these words; but to live them is harder to do, when our souls are in this much pain.

Our hearts and souls are grieving. It feels as if the ground has fallen out from underneath us. There isn’t a single person here that is not affected by this grief, though in varies degrees. No matter how long they have been gone, no matter it is now, or fifty years from now, losing a parent leaves a hole in your soul nothing can fill.

Our parents, Nero and Tia, they touched so many lives. One who never met them can tell that just by the fact the church cannot hold all of us. So many people from so many walks of life. There was nobody that my parents wouldn’t help.” Lysandra paused, so many thoughts into her own head. Especially if it was good publicity. After all, mother would not accept anything but obedience and following the path set for them for her children.’ She looked at the words she had written. She wrote them in a moment of pain and hate for her parents for leaving her. For making her do this, for making her siblings hurt. Once she wrote them that first night when she couldn’t sleep, had gone numb. She coughed to cover the pause.

“I am not going to stand here and say everything will be alright. Because right now, it is not for any of us. What I will state is that they believed in life after death. That we will see them again someday. It is so easy to say this, but I know the pain in my soul, and it is hard to not want the world to stop turning with you. Because it feels like the world stopped that night and we tilted as it went to a dead stop from the sixty-six thousand miles an hour it was traveling around the sun. The pain will gradually not be the first thing we think of in the morning, there may even come a time when we can talk about our parents and not have our eyes water, to not feel that acute stabbing in our chests that they are gone. But for now, it will take everybody some time to grieve and celebrate our parents’ lives. So right now, God’s plan may not be clear to us, but one day everything may just make sense.” How I wish I knew what my parents’ death had changed, Lysandra shook her head and cleared her throat. “Thank you once more for coming out and celebrating our parents’ and taking the time to grieve with us.” She moved and sat back down next to Lander and her siblings. She took a deep breath. How she wished this day was over with, even if there was nothing but deafening silence at home.

They stood there at the cemetery; the last four days had been a blur leading up to this moment. The moment of the final goodbye, it had all been leading to this, from the moment they got the call to the moment they were told the doctors did all they could but their parents were lost, to the funeral home, to picking out the stone that stated: Tiburtinus, and under the last name Nero Aurelius and Tia Celena, under each their dates of birth and death, and so much thrown at them, to the wake, to the services at the church and then the graveside service. It was a blur. They thought their world had stopped. It felt like it. But they knew the world turned. Their friends and boyfriends and girlfriends went on with their life. Their life wasn’t changed in the blink of an eye. Their life wasn’t forever changed. Not like the six siblings standing at the graveside in their Sunday best. They didn’t know what the next step was, or how to cope fully with how life had changed. Even when the two oldest choose to hide the fact they were coping with liquor. After all, the youngest of them was only fourteen, and the oldest had a college graduation in just weeks and was turning twenty-six. Four were still in high school. One in college and one had been accepted into Yale Law School. One had their hearts set on MIT. But what would they do now? Their lives were changed. Time seemed to have no meaning, but the world didn’t stop spinning even if it felt like it should. They felt the world should have stopped turn as their lives were forever changed. And soon they would realize just how much life had changed for them in that blink of an eye.

They barely remembered how they got to the luncheon afterwards, most likely those limos; The Rosary Society that their mother had been a part of had set it up in the church’s basement. Lysandra looked at the glass of juice that she had spiked with some cheap vodka. Lander came up. “Lander.”

“Pass over the bottle.”

Lysandra snorted and handed the bottle over to her brother. “I don’t know what our next step is; does it make me a horrible person to want to run away to the east coast and bury this pain so far down that I don’t have to think?”

“I am thinking the same thing, well not exactly the same as you, I never understood the full on drinking and one-night stands.” To this, Lysandra just shrugged. Sex allowed her to feel, even if it was for a brief moment of her life.

Lander kept on, “nobody can blame us. Our world just tilted. For as self-efficient and independent as we are, we still needed our parents. I was going to ask dad how he knew mom was the one. I was going to ask dad about proposing to Brianna. I had so much I needed to learn from him still.”

Lysandra nodded. “If it helps, I had similar questions for mom. Brian bought a ring. I found it in his sock drawer.”

“You going to say yes?” Lander never got how those two were a pair, even if they were the perfect couple in high school. “Finally closing that open relationship the two of you have?

“Depends on how he takes the fact I am putting Yale on hold.”

“You really aren’t going?”

“Lucian is only fourteen. And while I know he would be okay with moving with me, I don’t want to uproot him. It isn’t forever. Just a couple years. And I will take a few more classes and maybe get my teaching certificate.”

Lander nodded. “I could stay.”

“No. You are finishing up at Michigan and then going to MIT. We will work through this. I have my doctorates. Pushing the pause button on my plans doesn’t hurt me at all. In fact, it makes it look better as I plan on a political career later.” She snorted as she drained her cup. Politics, she couldn’t wait to see the scandals the newspapers dredged up.

Lander gave a sad chuckle. “Dad always said you would be a hell of a senator.”

“Maybe even beyond that.” She laughed. And the whole hall turned to her and Lander. She raised an eyebrow. “Gotta problem?” She asked. People shook their heads and went back to their conversations. She shook her head and turned to put more punch in the cup which Lander then poured a generous shot of vodka into.

“You know they think you are messed in the head, right?” Lander asked.

“Oh, let them. Bunch of stuck up people. They had the nerve to tell our parents that they failed because I joined the Army.” She snorted. “How dad and mom ever put up with them, I don’t know.”

“Same way you put up with Brian’s extended family.”

“With liquor?” Lysandra held up her cup in a toast.

“Well, that would explain our parents’ wine cellar.” Lander stated.

“Did I tell you that Miss Bitchface Lush over there at the buffet had the nerve to say it was tacky not to serve some of the best bottles of our parents’ collection?”

Lander snorted. “Do I want to know what you said?”

“I said that ‘Well, I appreciate your concern for appearances in regards to my family, they left the wine collection to someone in the will and thus not touchable. And if you are so concerned about appearances and tact, you might have wanted to come to a funeral and wake actually dressed and not wearing what appears to be a curtain that can’t actually fit around you.’ She huffed and went ‘Well, I never’ and stalked away.” Lysandra drained her cup again.

Lander couldn’t help it. He started laughing to the point he was bent over and holding his stomach. “Oh my Lord, only you Sandy. Only you.”

The priest came up there. They forgot his name, Father ‘I have a stick up my ass’ Some Spanish last name, he was the assistant to Father Singer. “Miss…”

“Doctor.” Lysandra corrected with a smirk.

“Doctor Tiburtinus, Mr…”

“Lieutenant.” Lander corrected.

Doctor Tiburtinus, Lieutenant Tiburtinus, do you think this is appropriate behavior? We are at your parent’s wake.”

Lander sneered. “Our parents would be happy that we are able to have a sense of normalcy. Our parents are gone. Dead because of a freak accident. My siblings and I had to make the choice to take them off life support. We had to bury our parents. So what if we find something to laugh about in one of our darkest moments? We are human. As humans, we are going to be flawed and do stupid things in our darkest moments and if the worse that I and my sister do is drown ourselves in liquor and laugh at inappropriate comments, then I consider that a win. People do a lot worst when their world stops turning and they see that the world hasn’t stopped with them. So Father, yes I think this is appropriate so that my siblings and I have some sense of normalcy right now in our lives.”

The priest wasn’t impressed. “Please, at least keep it down and set an example for your younger siblings.”

Lysandra sneered this time. “We are a fine example to our younger siblings. Don’t you dare to presume anything about our family; the only time you wanted anything to do with our family is to beg for donations. You forget exactly that my family is responsible, that you even have the newest rooms and paid for the renovations on the church. If you want the Tiburtinus can pull funding and leave the church. I am sure Saint James’ in Washington will welcome us with open arms. St. Mary’s isn’t the only Catholic Church we can go to. You remember that when you try to lecture us on proper behavior.” She drained her glass and threw it away. “You guys ready to bounce out of here?” She yelled to her other siblings, who were watching the confrontation.

Monty chuckled, they would be just going on over to the closed section, well Lysandra for sure, Lander maybe, after taking the others home. Within the hour they had said their goodbyes and dodged ‘family members’ that had come out of the woodwork when they heard their parents died, hoping for something in their wills. After a few hours in the bar section of the AMVETS they all said their goodbyes. They all just wanted to sleep. When they were asleep, all they had to worry about was nightmares. But sometimes the nightmares were worse. The guilt, the loss, the stages of grief flowed through them and the nightmares tried to help them process, tried to bring them to the last stage of acceptance as soon as was healthy. Though they all knew that they had to process and if they didn’t their minds would make them, but that didn’t stop them from being torn between wanting to sleep to avoid the gaping wound in their soul and staying awake to avoid the nightmares that woke them from their black oblivion.