A Son's Choice

A sons visit to his fathers grave.

  Phillip sat down on the ground and took a few minutes to look at the will-o-wisps floating about in the heart of the graveyard. Sometimes, you just had to wonder, were those the souls of the restless dead, or just the work of physics? In the end, it didn't matter much. Getting back up, Phillip took the pistol out of his holster and walked slowly towards the tomb of his father. The grave stone was massive granite, with the words "Phil Newborn, Loving Husband," engraved upon it. Phillip felt tears of anger welling up in his eyes, but fought them back.
 

*****

Why would she do such a thing? Sure, he was a loving husband, but what about a wonderful father and best friend to his son? It was bad enough he wasn't able to come home for the funeral, but to have to visit the sight of his father's grave and find this- it was unbearable, but no surprise either.
 

*****

He knew she didn't care. It was obvious from the first day they met, Rebecca wanted nothing to do with him. Honestly, he felt the same about her. He knew Rebecca's true intentions, and although he never told his father, he had no problem expressing his feelings to her. She was a gold digger. Nothing but in his eyes. That's probably why these were the only words on his father's tomb stone; she was cheap when it came to spending money on others. That and she was just plain cold as ice. If it hadn't been for his father purchasing the headstone years ago, he would probably have a wooden cross to mark his grave.
 

*****

Philip sat down right in front of his father's headstone and stared at the name. He couldn't believe he was gone. He was too young to have died. Philip thought about all the conversations they had before he went away. They had planned to do so many things once he returned from school. Now they had to spend their time like this. Philip passed his hand over the engraving Feeling the texture of the stone reminded him of his father's hands, callused and old from years of hard work.
 

*****

  Since the moment Philip had become an adult, his relationship with his father only grew stronger. His father had retired by then so he was finally able to stay home and they found themselves sitting around talking for what seemed like hours at a time. But Philip never told his father everything about his problems. He regretted that now. His father would never know that most of his problems growing up were because of Rebecca. She had made his childhood a living hell and there was no way his father would have ever known just how bad things were. Although his father was a great dad, he was also a very hard working man and very successful, which is the reason Rebecca had married him, so he was hardly ever home.
 

*****

  When his father was at home, Rebecca was always another person, like she had a split personality. Philip always thought she would have been a great actress or politician, for that fact. He even told her once or twice, but in her ignorance, she took it as a complement, instead of an insult.
 

*****

  While his father was gone, Philip suffered through abuse and neglect of almost every kind. He was only allowed out of the house to go to school and had to come home immediately after. So while Philip's father thought his son was out playing basketball and the star quarterback of the football team, Philip was actually at home, shut off from the world outside.

*****

  He was smacked around constantly for no reasons at all, but to Rebecca, him being alive was reason enough. If he got lower than an A on anything in school, he was sent to bed without supper. She threatened his entire life if he ever told. He became so used to it that he even let it go on even when he grew taller than her. He became so lonely in his childhood that even when he went to college, he would lock himself away in his room and study instead of living the life he had promised himself so many years ago. He just felt like he didn't fit in anywhere or with anyone. He couldn't even talk to his roommate, let alone try and find at least a little happiness with a girl, like most college boys were doing. The thought sometimes sickened him. His insides would twist and turn upside down at the very thought of marriage. He trusted no woman and felt he never would. How could he after seeing what marriage was like through his own father's life? No, women just weren't worth it.

*****

  Philip thought for awhile, maybe, surely, things would have been different if he had opened up more to his father. He could hear his father telling him all women weren't that bad and love, true love, was surely worth any amount of anger and mistakes and broken hearts that were endured along the way to finding it.

*****

  But all that didn't matter now. He had lost his best friend and the only person who ever really wanted to know who Philip Newborn was. He had come to his father's grave for a reason. Putting the pistol on the ground, he lay down in the soft patchy grass next to his father. He noticed the grass needed trimming, he hadn't realized how long it had been since his father's passing, to him it seemed just like yesterday.

*****

  He closed his eyes and felt the wind lick his face, reminding him of happier times. Times before Rebecca had come along and it had been just the two of them, just like now, just like it would be from this moment on.

*****

  Philip felt a sense of calmness and it appeared the wind had stopped blowing, but he never opened his eyes. He was waiting to see his father's face and his welcoming smile. With his eyes still closed, Philip felt for the gun beside him. He held it in one hand, point blank against his head. Stretching out the other hand, he laid it on his father's grave with a whispered, "I'm coming to be with you, Dad." In that moment, he saw his father's face and gently pulled the trigger.