The Fourth Roommate

Family Matters

***

We started to slow down and Ace parked the car. It wasn't very Sunny anymore, you could definitely tell that September was beginning. Ace took my hand and we slowly started to stroll forward, and I kept on questioning him where we were going. I made a few jokes as well, but Ace had on his  stoic expression and I could tell from the tense grip on my hand that he was nervous.

And then we stopped where I never would have expected. A small church with a large graveyard surrounding it. I stopped talking and squeezed his hand, curious but knowing better than to pry. He would show me when he was ready. He nervously took a deep breath and pushed the black gate open and we slowly walked onto the path.

We did not enter the church, instead we passed it and went behind it. Between two large oak trees, three graves stood. We slowly approached them and I recognized Ace's last name on the graves.

Here lies Paul Ford, beloved brother, husband and father, tragically lost but never forgotten

Here lies Maggie Ford, beloved wife and mother, Always in our hearts.

Here lies Dean Ford, beloved son and brother, lost too young. Rest in peace.

My eyes filled with tears and I pressed my hand over my mouth. This was where Aces family lay, dead and gone. I looked down at him; he was kneeling at his mother’s grave and pulling some weeds away from her grave. I looked at the dates on the graves. Dean was only seven when he died, his parents thirty-two and thirty years old. No life should've ended that way.

"I am so sorry," I whispered to him, wiping my eyes.

"Wasn't your fault," he said gruffly, letting his fingers trail over the engraved letters on Deans headstone.

I leaned down next to him, resting my head on his shoulder. Death was surely the cruelest thing to separate people. Tom and his wife, my dad and I, Ace and his family. All you wanted to do when you felt sad was Phone them up, tell them about your life. But they were missing it, and you were missing them. The only thing I could hope was that there was something else after we died, so we could see them again. I wasn't sure if there was, but I was hoping for it with my entire heart.

"Do you miss them a lot?" I asked gently.

"I can't even remember them nor the fire," he said, putting his head in his hands, "I can't even remember my own goddamn family!"

His shout echoed through the empty cemetery and I felt tears prickle my eyes once again.

"You were five years old, Ace, no one could ever blame you," I said, hating to see him filled with such hatred of himself, such guilt.

"I blame me!" he shouted, looking up from his hands, his green eyes a storm of emotion, "you don't understand! They're my family and I'm meant to love them and care for them and I don't even know them."

He was standing up now, tugging desperately at his hair. I could see how tormented he was for the first time, I saw his demons and you know what? It made me love him even more. I got up myself and tugged his hands from his hair, forcing him to look down at me.

 "I don't know your family, I never will but I know this... They would have been so very, very proud of you. They would have loved so much," I whispered to him and the hopeful expression he got on his face was heart-breaking.

"How can you know?" he asked me desperately.

"Because you are a good person. You can't help that you can't remember them, and they would have forgiven you. You are kind and witty and everyone loves you," I told him, tears rolling down my face, unable to help myself, because it was so true and it destroyed me seeing him with such loathing for himself when he was truly one of the most beautiful people I had ever met, inside and out.