Mickey - The View From Here PART TWO - Gallavich

Excused

With a full can of gasoline, Ian and I headed over to Johnson Creek Cemetery. He was quiet, which I appreciated because my mind was already swimming with too many thoughts, conflicting thoughts, feelings that didn't make sense.

Luckily, Terry hadn't been burried yet. At the cemetery, we walked down a row of cheap boxes the held the dead, slowing in front of the name Milkovich scrawled on the paperwork stapled to a box.

"There he is," I stated as we halted, taking a deep breath. This would be over soon.

"Yep," Ian agreed before we both paused, staring down at the box. "Sure you wanna do this?"

I gave a lazy shrug and said, "it's what he wanted." With that, I began to douse the box with gasoline. "He wanted to be cremated."

Anxious, Ian glanced around for any onlookers. There was no way what we were about to do was legal.

When I was finished, I left the gas can on the ground and took a moment to gaze at the box with my father inside one last time. "I don't know. I'm supposed to say something," I reasoned.

"Yeah," Ian said, trying to be supportive. "Go for it."

I scratched my forehead with my thumb as I sorted my thoughts. "Shitload of stuff I wanted to tell him. Never gonna get the chance to now."

I could feel Ian's pretty gaze on me. "Like what?"

It didn't matter anymore. I took the Zippo from my pocket and flicked the flame to life. After I took a deep breath, I finally took the plunge. "Fuck you, Terry," I said, tossing the lighter and its flame into the gasoline. With a little nudge from the wind, my father's cardboard coffin was ablaze.

I had thought the act would alleviate some of the pain or the sense of loss that weighed me down. It hadn't.

Ian put his arm around me and pulled me close, placing a kiss on the side of my head. Just as the tears began to brim my eyes, Ian said, "think I know what Terry would've liked."

Too lost in my head in the rabbit hole of my childhood with Terry, I only stared into the flames licking away at the box.

Luckily, my husband persisted. Quietly, he began to sing, "at first I was afraid..."

Brow furrowed and unsure of what he was playing at, I shot him a questioning look.

"I was petrified," Ian sang with a gentle look in his eye. When I wavered for a moment and smiled, he continued. "Kept thinking I could never live without you by my side."

The smile came easier now. Joining in, I tentatively spoke-sang, "but then I spent so many nights thinking 'bout how you did me wrong..."

Ruffling my short hair, Ian joined in to sing with me. "And I grew strong, and I learned how to get along—"

"Hey!" a cemetery worker shouted at us from his excavator across the field. "The fuck you doing?"

"We should be going," Ian suggested as we both broke into a sprint.

"Yeah," I agreed, running off with the love of my life and giggling the whole way.

In the parking lot, we dove into our car and sped off.

Done, I thought. The fucker is finally gone.

I should have been relieved. I wanted to be relieved, but all that was there was the heaviness, that sense of loss.

We headed to the Alibi for a drink, isolating ourselves in one of the booths along the wall.

I silently stared into my beer as Ian assessed my posture.

"You can talk about it if you want," he told me, giving me permission to be emotional.

"Oh, fuck right off," I scoffed before I took a long gulp from my beverage.

Ian nodded, folding his hands together on the table between us. The slight tension in his forehead told me he wanted to say something but was unsure he should.

"What?" I pushed.

Ian opened his mouth, almost spoke, reconsidered, and tried again. "I thought you'd be happy."

I scratched my brow, irritated, "Happy?"

Ian stared into me knowingly.

Bristling, I found myself defensive. "You're an asshole."

"No. Terry was an asshole," Ian asserted.

"And now we know why!" I countered. "He loved Rachel so much that losing her broke his fuckin' brain."

Ian shook his head at me. "Don't fucking do that, Mick."

"Do what?"

"Give him an excuse!" he said, slamming his hand on the table. "Everyone gets hurt. It doesn't excuse what that miserable old fuck did every day of his life afterwards. Losing Rachel does not excuse his hateful, racist, homophobic, horrifying actions. The man was a fucking monster, Mickey. It breaks my heart to see you mourning someone who did such unforgivable things to you."

"Wasn't all bad."

The expression on Ian's face was that of fury. "Yes, he was. Look, I get the whole 'bad guys are sad guys' thing, but the things he did to you and to Mandy—"

"Shut the fuck up, Gallagher," I growled, white-knuckled with rage.

But he was upset now as well. "No," he insisted, hushing his tone. "Just because he used Svetlana as a proxy doesn't mean he wasn't responsible for you getting r—"

A glare from me was all he needed to stop talking.

Rephrasing, he went on, "I'm just saying that this Rachel thing shouldn't be an excuse. Look at us. We hurt each other over the years but no one was killed. I didn't start killing Russian hookers because you married one. No. I struggled, but I got past it. That is what a functioning human being does. They get past it."

Seeing that I was unsure, Ian extended his hand to take hold of mine. "I just don't want you remembering him as something he wasn't. 'Cause he was bad, Mick. He did unforgivable things to you, and honestly, I'm glad he's dead. And it's okay if you are too."

I took a sip of beer and nodded in agreement. "No, I am. Doesn't make it hurt any less, though."