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Chapter Eleven

It had been another ordinary day, as ordinary as could be. Mason James was an only child and he was okay with that. He liked the solitude and the quiet. His mother, Carey James, worked as a nurse at Yorkdare Medical. She was a beautiful woman, even if she looked tired most of the time. She worked shifts and Mason learned long ago how to look after himself.

Mason’s father, Jude James, was rarely home and his deployment lasted months at a time. Jude James was a marine in the army and they lived a moderate life, comfortable even. Mason thought his father was the greatest man alive, brave and strong, fighting for what was right. He was the man Mason wanted to be one day.

Mason picked up the ringing phone and leaned against the kitchen wall. “Hello.”

“Good morning. Is Mrs Carey James available?”

“Just a minute.” Mason pressed the phone against his chest and turned towards the hall. “Mom! Phone!”

Mason put the receiver down on the counter and headed back upstairs to his room. He still had to get dressed for school. Mason was fourteen and he had the sinking feeling that his father’s leave had been cancelled again.

They had plans for the summer holidays, they were going to the mountains but now he was sure that they wouldn’t be going. He hadn’t seen his father in seven months and he’d already missed his birthday. Mason got dressed quickly and froze at the top of the stairs. Something wasn't right; like the air in the house had changed.

It was eerily quiet but he could see his mother on the floor, sitting with her back against the wall in the kitchen. Her head was lowered and her hands covered her face. His feet moved without a conscious thought of walking and he knelt down next to his mother.

“Oh, Mason.” Her shoulders shook as she lifted her face and tears streaked down her cheeks. Mason pulled her toward him.

“What’s wrong, Mom?” His mother never cried and it tugged at his heart to see her like that.

“It’s your dad … there was an accident …”

“Dad?”

“He’s dead, Mason, he’s dead.”

The world stopped turning on its axis, the air shifted into a stifling silence and Mason’s blood stopped flowing in his veins. Everything was upside down, everything was wrong. His ears buzzed and his limbs felt heavy.

It couldn’t be true.

Blood rushed back through his veins and his mother’s sobs sliced through the silence. The world started turning again and he felt the slight breeze on his bare arms. He blinked and looked at his mother, her arms now wrapped around him.

“I’m so sorry, baby …” Had she been speaking to him the whole time?

“How?”

“I don’t know … they’re sending him home in two days.”

Carey’s heart was shattered into a thousand pieces as they sat on the kitchen floor and cried for Jude James. There wasn’t anyone else to call. Jude James had been an orphan and Carey James’s parents had died when she was nineteen, she had been an only child too.

The morning that they had to drive to the airfield, Mason reluctantly got out of bed. He dressed in his Sunday suit because the funeral would also be held that day. It wouldn’t be lavish or even be attended by a lot of people but Mason tied his tie just like his father had taught him.

“Ready to go?” Carey looked strikingly pale in her black dress and low-heeled shoes that shone. Mason could see her reflection as he looked in the mirror. The icy wall around his heart cracked just a little at the sadness reflected in her eyes.

“Yes.”

They drove to the airfield in silence, the hour drive going by too fast. Mason’s breath hitched in his throat as a plane landed on the tarmac a few hundred yards in front of where Carey parked the car. That plane held his father’s body.

Mason held his mother’s hand tightly as they walked through a large warehouse-type structure and onto the tarmac. The plane was being unloaded and a man in a crisp military uniform walked towards them.

“Ma’am, I’m Private First Class Owens. I’m very sorry for your loss.” The man stood at attention and Mason stared at him.

“Did you know my dad?”

The man relaxed his stance and looked down at Mason. “He was a good man, Mason. He talked about you all the time.”

Mason smiled sadly, nodding his head as Carey’s arm circled his shoulder. Another man, also in uniform, informed them that they would be transporting Sergeant Jude James’s body to the cemetery and that they could follow the hearse.

A single tear escaped and made its way down Mason’s cheek as two men wheeled the coffin down from the plane’s hatch and covered it with a flag. Private Owen’s hand squeezed his shoulder and in that moment he took comfort from the man that had known his father.

Carey was crying so much that Sergeant Owens took the keys from her hand and led them both back to their car. He helped Carey into the passenger seat and slipped the safety belt around her sobbing form. Mason obeyed without words and buckled up in the back seat as Owens took charge of the situation.

The cemetery had a separate part for soldiers and war heroes and Mason and Carey followed Owens through the graves to where chairs stood next to an open grave. Mason swallowed thickly as the emotions pushed upwards. It hadn't felt real until that moment. Even seeing the casket hadn't felt real.

It was true. His father really was dead.

Four men in uniform stood behind the hearse and pulled the coffin out. They lifted it easily, their expressions stoic as they marched in time towards the gravesite. Mason couldn’t look and felt his mother’s hand tighten around his own. He didn't look up to see if she was watching because she probably was.

Owens stood slightly behind Carey as if waiting for her to crumble and ready to catch her when she fell. Carey wouldn’t crumble though because now Mason only had her. She had no choice but to stand strong through all of this. The fact that Jude James died in action and for his country

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