Haunted

The hip young pastor of the Lutheran church was set to marry a local girl. Smack dab on the bridge between spring and summer, the Women’s Auxiliary was already gearing up for what promised to be the Town of Bradstoe’s best autumn festival. This years theme: Fall in Love with Cabbage. A backorder for a new karaoke machine wouldn’t interfere with Saturday night’s line dancing. And finally, the item I was looking for. 

Quietly, on June 2nd, Loring Marsh of Bradstoe, Manitoba. Left to grieve are close friends and his only daughter, Hannah Cecelia Marsh, of Winnipeg.

Daughter. A simple word used to describe a relationship that was anything but. So far, the old man had kept to his side of the veil, yet I couldn’t help wondering if we’d find peace with one another, now that he was dead. 

I looked from the paper propped on my steering wheel to the stucco bungalow and its regulation two-and-a-half-inch lawn. In the east end of the city, Aunt V’s was a typical seventies neighborhood, locals accessed their garage, also stucco, via a back lane while visitors like me parked on the street beneath a canopy of mature trees. Bowser, pawing the passenger seat for the last ten blocks, trembled with anticipation now that we were idling outside her house. Say what you want about Aunt V’s prickly nature, the woman had a bottomless treat jar. When you’re a bloodhound, big ole sun setting on your golden years, nothing else matters. 

I took the keys from the ignition, ripped the obituary from the paper and shoved it in my rear pocket.

Daddy could kiss my ass.