Nathaniel

Inscribed on my fathers’ tombstone are the words, “I lived a good life, and I love you”. My family would like you to believe these were his final words. My family would like you to believe that he gasped them with his dying breath before ascending to Heaven in a death fitting the most noble king or valiant general. My family is lying.

The deceit is not due to some deep-seated shame or loathing, far from it. My father was an ex serviceman turned teacher, one of the best in town. He was admired, respected, even loved by many of the people who knew him. No, the reason for the phantom epitaph is the fact that nobody heard my fathers’ final words; he was found dead in his study having been shot in the left temple.

Myself, I cannot say for sure what his final words were, but I believe I have a fairly good idea. I believe he said, “All for you”.

I was nine years old when it happened. My parents had decided to uproot and start a new life somewhere else. My family is not known for doing things in half measures, and this time was no different. We relocated to the other side of the country, as far away as they could get from the quiet little seaside town I call my home.

Our new house was big. Really big. It was almost palatial. To a nine year old it was a dream come true; I was given free run of the house and I could play in any room I wanted. There was one exception to the rule – I was not allowed in my fathers study. The study was my father’s sanctum sanctorum, his fortress of solitude – a place where he could go to be alone with his thoughts (and, more often than not, a decanter of sherry).

Did I listen to the rule? Of course not. I used to sneak in there every few days to borrow a medical textbook or architectural journal; something to flip through in the hopes of becoming more knowledgeable, just like my father.

One morning I woke up particularly early. I needed to return the book I had borrowed and get a new one; doing so while my parents were asleep seemed like the perfect crime.

Apparently my father was already awake; as I perused the rows and rows of books he had in there, I realised I could hear him talking. He was not talking in the way that you and I would talk to one another – he was talking very quickly and very quietly. I feel bad saying as much, but it sounded like the kind of rambling you would hear from the man who spends his days standing on street corners, yelling at traffic.

I could not understand what he was saying; his words were unintelligible, almost like he was speaking another language. I figured he was reading a book to himself and saying the words aloud, or reading while ruminating on what his text meant. Now that I come to write that down I realise how ridiculous and clichéd it sounds, but that was the kind of scholarly thing I liked to imagine my father doing when I was that age.

Abruptly, he ceased. For a few moments I thought he had found me, but then I heard him talk again. He said three words, very slowly and very deliberately, “All for you.” Up until that point I had not been able to make out a single word that he had said, but these last three words were as clear as a bell. It was obvious, even to me, that father had meant for someone to hear those three words.

What followed next was a distinct sequence of sounds, identifiable by very few people. I heard someone prepare a revolver for firing. I heard them pull the trigger and I heard the loud click as the hammer fell on an empty chamber. There was an uncomfortable silence for a few seconds before my father sighed and spoke again, “One more day.”

I heard him take a seat and pour a glass of sherry. After a few seconds he began talking once again. This time, however, he was reading aloud from his book and I could understand every word.

Following the sequence of events I had heard, I had no desire to remain in the study any longer than was absolutely necessary. I hurried back to my bedroom and stowed the book before heading downstairs so I could go about my daily business. You might be wondering why I did not tell anyone about what I saw. I know I am.

There are two reasons why I remained silent. Firstly, I could not find my mother anywhere; she was missing from her usual haunts, so I can only assume she had stepped outside for a short while. Secondly, I was absolutely incapable of recapping what I had heard. As you will remember from some of my other tales, I am incapable of producing sound when I am scared, and this time was no different.

Thinking back, I had no reason to be scared. After all, there was no part of me that could fully comprehend what I had just heard. I was nine, I thought that people lived forever and nobody would ever kill themselves. Not really. Not my father.

Mother came out of hiding just as I was finishing breakfast. She told me that father had summoned me. I was to meet him in the study.

As I went to see him I was filled with a sense of dread. I was convinced had done something wrong and, while I could not remember what it was, he would be sure to punish me for it. Imagine my surprise when I arrived in his inner sanctum and he greeted me with a smile. He sat me in his favourite leather chair and paced back and forth as he spoke to me.

Father told me that somebody important needed to see him, and soon. He told me that he had the day free and that he wanted to spend time with me before he went to see the very important person who was waiting for him. He told me he had called my school and arranged for me to take the day off and that we were to leave as soon as I had changed out of my uniform.

I jumped at the chance. I think every nine year old would jump at the chance to play hooky, especially if their parents were in on it. I was ready and waiting by the front door in record time.

We left the house at eight o’clock in the morning, or thereabouts, and returned home at eleven o’clock at night. While we were together we did all kinds of things. He took me to the park, we had ice cream, we went to the cinema, we went exploring, he showed me how to spot various constellations and how to find my way home if ever I got lost. It was a truly amazing day, certainly one I will never forget. Most amazing of all was that, given the way we behaved, you would almost think that nothing was wrong. It got to the point that I thought I had dreamt the morning’s events and accidentally regarded them as truth.

The next day I learned that no, no I had not. Mother woke me up just after half past six in the morning and told me what had happened to my father. Or, rather, what my father had done to himself. Apparently father had shot himself with his service revolver while alone in his study. Mother had found him almost immediately after.

The police concluded that father had been planning his suicide for around a week before going through with it. He had circled the date on his calendar and crossed off the five days leading up to it. I imagine the fact he knew what was coming would be why he looked so calm and peaceful. Or at least as peaceful as a man can look when surrounded by his own blood.

Father’s body was turned over to the mortician on June the 9th, the same day he killed himself. The mortician was told to fabricate an epitaph and bury the body in the first available plot. Mother insisted that, due to grief, she would have nothing to do with the process.

Mother was so detached from things that she did not attend my father’s funeral. Nobody in my family did. Three people were there to witness the burial of the bravest, most intelligent man I have ever known. The first was the minister performing the ceremony. The second was a homeless drunk who spent time in the funeral home because it allowed him to stay out of the rain. The third was an unidentified young lady whose features were completely concealed by a black veil.

Rather than grieving, my mother insisted we spent our time at home, packing our belongings. We moved house again a few days later. This time we moved in the right direction: we went right back to our quiet, isolated, lonely, beautiful little nowhere town on the coast. To this day I am in the dark regarding why my parents chose to move, nor do I know why we returned so quickly. I asked my parents before, and after the fact, but the only answer I got was when we moved back here. Mother told me, “There was a complication. But we got over it”.