Jonas Blaine
It's a four twenty seven AM ceiling. At this time of night, regardless of the time of year or the weather, whenever you lay in bed and stare at the ceiling, it always looks the same.
The light from the lampposts outside your bedroom window shine over the top of the Venetian blinds at what you believe is an 87 degree angle against the top right corner of the window. The light is always brightest before the spot on the ceiling that looks like an outline of the state of Idaho. And by the time it reaches the ceiling fan, it has faded to a murkiness. There is no light directly above your bed. If you look straight up, it's only dark.
Deidre mumbles something and rolls over. She stayed over last night, though both of you had been too tired to fool around. She usually starts out laying on top of your arm. But within an hour, she has rolled off your arm and is resting two thirds away from the invisible dividing line that marks your side of the bed from her side of the bed. At least the side that is hers when she stays over. Some nights she will make one more roll and end up at the very edge of the bed. If you weren't anchoring the blanket with your body weight, she'd probably roll right out of the bed.
You've been awake at four twenty seven AM many nights. Some nights you never fall asleep. Some nights you just wake up and can't nod back off. So you are well aware of what the ceiling of our bedroom looks like at this time of night. You've seen it many, many times before.
Your cell phone makes a soft vibrating noise and the screen lights up. Probably another update from your news feed. These days the story from the news feed always seems to be about some dumbass politician calling another dumbass poltician a dumbass. Or maybe it's always been that way.
Could be another spam e-mail from that weird website. How the hell did you get on their mailing list? And how the hell do they keep getting around your filters?
Usually you ignore it. But tonight, just to break the monotony of staring at the four twenty seven AM ceiling, you reach over and pick up the phone.
It's a text. From Bill Cardigan. You hadn't talked to Bill in a few months. He's Mr. Brumley's right hand. And even though Mr. Brumley gave you his blessing when you turned down his job offer, Bill still tries every now and then to get you to reconsider.
Why is Bill texting you at this time of night?
You scan the text. It's being sent to a large number of people: most of them are employees at Brumley's. You remember them all from your internship.
Bill is straight to the point.
Some of you may have heard. But I wanted to get the news out before you may have seen it in the morning news. Dick Brumley has passed away. It was very much a surprise. And if you hear the rumors, yes. It was suicide.
There will be a memorial service at Peaceful Oaks Funeral Home on Tuesday. If you can attend, please do so. Mildred is devastated. We all are. I had no idea this was coming. None of us did.
If you are religious, please remember Dick, Mildred, and their kids in your prayers.
Dick Brumley is...was...one of the nicest people you've ever met in your life. He was warm, always encouraging. He smiled freely and the smiles never felt false. His wife Mildred is a beautiful and kind woman. Hell, even their kids seem like they stepped out of a Norman Rockwall painting.
Dick? Suicide? That seems...no. Sure, it's possible he kept it all inside. But there was never a sign. To say the news of him committing suicide is shocking is like saying water is wet. There's no way it could be anything but.
Bill might know something. But he's probably in the middle of trying to take care of everything.
Your friend Rick Barton still works there. You haven't talked to Rick in a while, but that's just because he and his wife just had a baby. Still, he might know more.
And there's Shelly Blades. She was a receptionist at Brumley's Heating and Air. She was the de facto social secretary of the place. Always knowing everyone's business, but in a good way. She was never mean spirited.
You see Ida Comston is on the text chain too. She was the other intern when you were at Brumley's. She's working out of Nashville now, but she's kept in touch with a lot of people you both worked with. More people than you have you suddenly realize. Maybe she knows something.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:22, Wed 20 Nov 2019.