Return to the Homestead

Part 3 of an ongoing saga by Vic Miller

Read part one, "To Be Continued"

And that is what they did. They got a cab, took it to the south side of the JFK bridge, walked to the middle, where Travis dropped the pistols into the water rather unceremoniously, and then walked to the North side, where they got another cab, and took it to Travis’s house.

The house was dark, every house on the street was. The lawn had been mowed, and the fresh cut smell greeted them as they walked to the front door.

“Why didn’t she leave the light on for you?” Daniel asked, as Travis fumble with his keys.

“I’m sure she just didn’t think of it.” “Here,” Robert held out his lit cell phone.

“Thanks.”

He found the right key and opened the door. The four of them huddled in the pitch-black entryway. And then, they were bathed in marvelous forty-watt light from the bulbs of an overhead chandelier (night to day). And in this new day they began to walk their separate ways. Travis, to a wooden stand his wife sometime left note for him on. Mike, to a room just off the entrance, where a baby grand stood regally, and a cabinet of liquor behind it. Robert went straight ahead, and then veered right, toward the nearest toilet. Daniel turned around.

White curtains hung on either side of the door, and he moved one aside to look outside. He watched the faint glow of the leaves across the

street, as they moved in the mix of moon light and street lamps. “You guys want a toddy?” It was Mike, from the piano room. “Sure Mike, how about you make a tray for us all and take it downstairs,” answered Travis. He had found no note waiting for him, but he continued to look down onto the empty wooden stand. Daniel let the curtain fall back into place and tuned again.

“I always liked your old place back on Jeffers a lot better.”

“I know, Danny. We had some good times there, didn’t we?”

“I sort of thought that would be how life always was, you know?”

“Well, things are always changing. Come on, a few more years, I reckon the days we have now will look pretty strange.”

“I guess so.”

They stood there for a moment, on opposite sides of the entrance. To Travis, it looked as if Daniel might burst out the door and run into the night at any moment.

“Why don’t you head downstairs, Danny? I'll follow in a minute.” Daniel jolted, as if he was started, but he recovered quickly, and smiled. “Alright. See you down there, buddy.”

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