A Familiar Demise by William Saunders aka (WiskeyBone)

A Familiar Demise

Chapter 1: The Tactical Rain

A Husband’s Recollection

Did you know that during the Vietnam War, the government told servicemen and women that Agent Orange and other tactical herbicides were completely harmless to man or animal? They were told it only targeted the jungle—that you could wipe it off your skin like ordinary rainwater.

They lied, of course.

It took decades for the cancers to show up in the veterans. But the worst part wasn't what it did to the soldiers who breathed it in. The worst part was what it did to the children they hadn't even conceived yet. The poison rewrote their biology. It hid in their DNA, waiting like a dormant curse to be passed down to the next generation. That was the curse my wife, Nikki, carried with her from the day she was born.

Act I: The Leaking Tarmac

The air at Bien Hoa Air Base smelled of scorched rubber, hot asphalt, and aviation fuel.

It was 1969. The heat was a physical weight, pressing down on Arthur’s shoulders until his olive-drab fatigues were soaked through with sour sweat. He had rolled his sleeves past his elbows to fight the stifling air, leaving his arms completely exposed. Around him, the flight line was a cacophony of screaming jet engines and barking officers. His platoon was tasked with loading a squadron of UC-123 Provider planes.

The cargo was stacked on heavy wooden pallets: 55-gallon steel drums painted with a distinct, thick orange stripe around their midsections. Tactical herbicides. Agent Orange.

"Watch that goddamn forklift!" a sergeant roared, spit flying from his lips. "Get 'em secured!"

Arthur lunged forward to steady a rusting drum as the forklift jerked over a crack in the tarmac.

Crack.

The corroded seam at the top of the barrel split open. A pressurized jet of thick, oily amber liquid sprayed outward, striking Arthur squarely across his bare hands, forearms, and the front of his uniform.

It was uncomfortably warm. It felt like mineral oil but clung like sap. Instantly, a bizarre, sickeningly sweet odor hit his nostrils—a cloying mix of artificial oranges and heavy diesel.

"Son of a bitch," Arthur grunted, wiping his slick hands down his trousers. The chemical didn't come off. It smeared, sinking rapidly into his skin and burning faintly like a sudden sunburn.

He didn't have time to wash. The whistle blew. He grabbed his M16, slung his gear, and marched up the rear ramp of the transport plane.

Act II: Flak and the Fog

The Provider plane hummed with a violent, bone-rattling vibration as it dipped low over the dense canopy of the A Shau Valley. Suddenly, the valves beneath the wings opened. A massive, lazy white fog billowed into the sky behind them, descending onto the jungle to strip the Viet Cong of their hiding places.

Then, the world turned upside down.

THOOM-THOOM-THOOM

Anti-aircraft fire erupted from the tree line below. The plane jolted violently sideways, throwing Arthur against the metal ribbing of the fuselage. The deafening roar of shrapnel ripping through the aluminum skin of the aircraft filled the cabin.

"We’re taking fire! Hold on!" the crew chief screamed.

A massive piece of flak tore directly through the floorboards barely three inches from Arthur’s boot, sending a shower of white-hot sparks into the air. One shard grazed Arthur's cheek, leaving a deep, bloody gash.

The plane went into a steep, terrifying dive. As the cabin filled with smoke, Arthur’s mind raced. The noise of the war faded, replaced by the pounding of his own heart.

This is it, he thought. I'm going to die here in this shithole.

Images flashed behind his eyes. He saw his wife, Helen, standing on the porch of their farmhouse, her sundress catching the breeze. He remembered the smell of the soil after a summer rain, the quiet mornings before the world woke up. He desperately wanted to go back. He wanted to build a life. He wanted a family.

With a groaning screech of metal, the pilot pulled the plane out of the dive, leveling off just above the treetops. Arthur slumped back against the hull, gasping for air, blood trickling down his neck.

Through the dense haze of chemical mist and engine smoke inside the cabin, Arthur looked toward the cockpit door.

Sitting perfectly still on top of an uninjured crate was a cat. It was pitch black. Its fur was entirely dry, completely untouched by the oily residue or the smoke filling the hold. It sat in total, unnatural serenity amidst the chaos.

But it was the eyes that froze the blood in Arthur's veins. They were wide, piercing, and a brilliant, glowing amber color. They didn't look like an animal's eyes; they looked intelligent, self-aware, Machiavellian.

Arthur blinked hard, shaking his head. When he opened his eyes again, the crate was empty. Only a puddle of the leaked herbicide sizzled quietly on the metal floor.

Act III: The Rerouted Path

The Provider plane didn't make it back to Bien Hoa.

Arthur woke to a world of absolute, screaming agony. The cabin of the downed transport was a twisted furnace of shredded aluminum and black fuel smoke. All around him, wounded servicemen were crying out in the dark, and a faint, distant voice was roaring through the haze, telling anyone who could hear to move, to get the hell out.

But Arthur couldn't move. His chest felt crushed, his vision swimming.

Then, he felt a weight. Sitting directly on his chest, completely unaffected by the heat or the smoke, was the black cat. It was idly batting a heavy paw at the dulled gold heart locket hanging loosely from Arthur’s neck—a token carrying Helen's photo inside. Its tiny claws clicked rhythmically against the metal. The cat's wide, unblinking amber eyes stared right down into his face, entirely serene amidst the chaos that surrounded them.

Heart pounding, Arthur choked out a raspy sob and violently slapped his hand across his chest, shoving the creature off him. It vanished into the smoke without a sound. Gasping, Arthur used the last of his adrenaline to scramble toward the light, dragging himself through the ruptured frame before a pair of hands grabbed his uniform and hauled him out into the blinding sunlight.

The pilot had dragged the crippled aircraft into a hard, sliding crash-landing at a forward operating base near Tu Thuy. The belly of the plane had screeched against the dirt, throwing them into a violent, groaning halt.

Arthur stumbled out, coughing violently. His lungs felt like they were lined with broken glass. The mist from the ruptured herbicide tanks inside the hold had coated his skin completely. When he reached up to wipe the sweat from his eyes, his skin felt slick, waxy, and smelled overwhelmingly of those rotting chemical oranges.

They spent three days at the forward base waiting for transport back to their unit. There were no showers. No clean uniforms. Arthur sat on an upturned wooden crate in the sweltering heat, using a damp rag to try and scrub the oily film from his forearms. It was useless. The chemical had already sunk deep into his pores, staining the fabric of his uniform and leaving a persistent, low-grade chemical burn across his skin.

That night, under the dim light of a kerosene lamp in a canvas tent, Arthur pulled a crumpled piece of paper and a stubby pencil from his pocket. His hand was steady then, but his chest ached with a deep, hollow cough.

Dear Helen, he wrote, his voice raspy as he muttered the words to himself. We had a close call today. Plane took some fire over the valley. But I’m okay. I’m putting this down because thinking of you is the only thing keeping the smoke out of my head. I dream about the farm every night. I dream about the cold air up north. Hold on for me. I’m coming home.

He folded the note, completely unaware that the oily residue on his thumb left a faint, translucent smudge across the corner of the paper.

Three weeks later, his tour was officially over. Arthur boarded a freedom bird out of Saigon. He didn't look back at the jungle. He didn't think about the white fog. He thought only of the snow, the timber, and the woman waiting for him.

The grey Greyhound bus hissed to a stop on the gravel shoulder of Highway 61, miles north of Duluth. The door folded open, and Arthur stepped down into the crisp, biting autumn air of northern Minnesota. The sky was a clean, piercing blue, entirely different from the heavy, toxic haze of the Pacific.

Down the dirt road leading to their hobby farm, a figure was running.

It was Helen. She threw herself into Arthur’s exhausted arms, burying her face into the stiff wool of his dress uniform, sobbing heavily.

"You're home," she wept, her hands clutching at the broad expanse of his back. "Thank God, you're home. I’ve missed you so much."

Arthur held her tight, closing his eyes, burying his face into the clean, familiar scent of her hair. For a brief second, the war was entirely gone. He was a giant standing on his own land, holding the woman he loved.

Then, a sudden, violent spasm shot up his right arm.

An inexplicable, heavy tremor ran through his fingers, causing him to tighten his grip on Helen’s shoulder so hard she gasped slightly.

In that exact instant, the crisp, clean country air vanished from his lungs. In its place, a sharp, suffocating wave of sweet, rotting oranges and heavy diesel fuel filled his nose. It was so potent, so visceral, that he almost gagged.

Arthur choked back a cough, his eyes snapping open. He looked past Helen’s trembling shoulder, staring toward the dark woodline bordering their farm.

Deep in the shadows of the pine trees, where the sunlight couldn't reach, two small, sharp amber points of light glinted in the dark. They didn't blink. They just watched him return, waiting for the seed to grow.

Chapter 2: The Harvest Years

A Husband’s Recollection

When Nikki and I first met, I used to sit for hours just listening to her talk about the old hobby farm up north near the Canadian border. I loved the way her face lit up when she told those stories. For a city kid like me, her childhood sounded like a completely different world—a world made of dirt roads, gravel pits, fresh country air, and endless pine trees.

She told me about her family's horse, Soup Bone, and about their massive, beautifully chaotic Samoyed husky, Duke, who didn't know his own strength. She laughed about the petty wars she fought with her brother, Harry, and how fiercely she loved her parents. Hearing her talk, you would have thought it was a perfect, untouched paradise.

But looking back now, with the cruel clarity of hindsight, I can see the cracks. The paradise wasn't untouched. The poison Arthur brought home from the jungle was a patient beast. It lived in the background of all her happy memories, hiding in the cold winter air that slowly ate away at her father's lungs, quietly waiting as patiently as only death can be.

Act I: The Dirt and the Ribbon

To Nikki, the farm didn't feel like a legacy of war; it just felt like home.

The property was a chaotic, beautiful expanse of northern Minnesota wilderness, centered around an old gravel pit her father had inherited. It was a place where money was scarce but life was full. Her towering, quiet father, Arthur, ran the place with a steady hand, frequently trading his tractor labor or gravel work to neighboring farmers in exchange for a slaughtered cow or machinery repairs.

Nikki was completely in her element among the animals. While her parents and Harry had their own horses, Nikki spent her mornings doting on her personal pets: a small flock of ducks and a hutch of rabbits she raised from birth.

Her shadow on these morning rounds was always Duke.

The giant Samoyed husky was a cloud of pure white fur, pure chaos, and wonderfully dense. Duke possessed a spectacular talent for tracking down skunks in the brush, a habit that regularly ended with him getting blasted dead in the face. His subsequent cleanup ritual was a legendary farm event. Duke would sprint directly down to the stagnant pond in the center of the old gravel pit, plunge into the water, and then immediately proceed to thrash and roll around in the thickest, blackest mud he could find along the bank until he looked like a total swamp monster.

"Duke, you idiot!" Nikki would yell, trying to dodge the flying clods of wet earth as the dog shook himself dry, completely satisfied that the stench of mud had successfully neutralized the skunk.

But Duke's clumsiness had a darker edge that provided Nikki with her earliest, painful lessons about mortality. The giant dog didn't know his own strength or size. He loved the ducks and bunnies just as much as Nikki did, but his attempts to "play" with them usually involved an overly enthusiastic pounce or a heavy paw. More than once, Nikki would find Duke sitting frozen in the grass, looking incredibly guilty, with a small, lifeless duckling or rabbit lying in the dirt before him.

Arthur and Helen would treat it as a hard, practical lesson about farm life, but for Nikki, each small grave she dug in the northern soil was a quiet tragedy.

She always chose the same patch of high ground behind the horse barn, marking each mound with a small, flat river stone. It took her three graves before she noticed she wasn't alone. As she smoothed the soil over a fallen duckling, she looked toward the edge of the woods. Sitting perfectly still on a mossy pine stump was a black cat. It just sat there in the shadows, its wide amber eyes locked onto her with a calm, heavy patience. As she continued smoothing the soil, a sudden shift of the wind brought a chill that left her briefly, inexplicably empty and helpless. When she looked back up from the fresh dirt, it was gone.

Still, her love for her animals never wavered, a trait that culminated in the great 4-H heist when she was eleven.

Nikki had spent months grooming and training her favorite rabbit, a massive Checkered Giant doe with distinct black spots stretching down its spine and one perfect, dark patch circled over her right eye. Being so young, Nikki hadn't fully understood the paperwork; she had been entirely focused on the excitement of the prize, completely unaware that she had accidentally entered her pet into a commercial meat class. She was ecstatic when she ultimately walked away with the coveted blue first-place ribbon, parading it around the barn until she overheard two older farmers talking near the pens, casually discussing the massive weight of her giant rabbit and which processing plant it would be sent to.

The realization hit Nikki like a physical blow. They weren't honoring her pet; they were valuing a commodity.

She didn't cry. She didn't throw a tantrum. Instead, she waited until later that evening when the barn grew quiet and the fair patrons moved toward the midway lights. Slipping past the security gate, Nikki navigated the rows of wire cages until she found her rabbit. She unlatched the door and scooped the massive, heavy animal into her arms, frantically bundling it against her chest under her oversized denim jacket to muffle its panicked struggles.

In the empty cage, right where the rabbit had been sleeping, Nikki tossed her first-place blue ribbon onto the straw. She didn't want their prize. She wanted her friend. She smuggled the rabbit all the way back to the farm in the floorboard of the truck, completely satisfied with the trade.

Act II: Sibling War and the Silver Creek

The warmth of the hobby farm was balanced by a relentless, exhausting ecosystem of chores. Because Harry was two years older, a foot taller, and completely obsessed with making the high school varsity football team, he possessed a spectacular talent for dodging work.

Harry called out from the shade of the porch, idly balancing his Crossman BB gun on his knee. "If you don't carry the water buckets to the horse barn, I’m telling Dad you broke the latch on the tractor shed."

"You're a lazy piece of shit, Harry!" Nikki yelled back, her thin arms straining as she lifted two five-gallon steel buckets brimming with heavy well water.

She took three steps before a sharp, metallic PLING echoed across the yard. The copper BB smacked the side of her right bucket. Nikki blinked, stumbling slightly as a little water sloshed over the rim, looking around in brief confusion. Before she could process what the sound was, a second PLING rang out, followed instantly by a sharp sting right on her rear.

"Ow! You jerk!" Nikki shrieked. Harry’s booming, teenage laugh echoed across the gravel pit, but it was cut short as a muddy cowboy boot, whipped by Nikki with terrifying accuracy, caught him square in the chest.

But the true danger of the farm didn't live in the yard; it lived out past the treeline where Silver Creek cut through the jagged ravines.

Nikki was twelve when she and her best friend, Sarah, took her brother's old red Honda three-wheeler out into the woods. It was a top-heavy, rigid machine that required a rider to aggressively lean their entire body weight into turns to keep the rear wheels on the dirt. Nikki loved the speed, the wind whipping through her hair, and the thrill of pushing the machine to its absolute limit.

They were tearing along the steep, muddy bank of the creek when a soft patch of earth gave way beneath the front tire.

The three-wheeler didn't just slide; it violently flipped sideways.

Sarah was thrown clear into the brush, but Nikki went down with the machine. It tumbled backward into the creek bed, the battered frame slamming over Nikki’s chest and trapping her flat against the muddy bottom of the shallow, rushing water.

Instantly, the world turned into a cold, churning vortex of panic.

The water was only a foot deep, but it was deep enough to completely submerge her face. The weight of the engine block trapped her torso, leaving her arms flailing helplessly against the slippery river stones. She opened her mouth to scream, but her lungs filled with the stinging, metallic taste of freezing creek water.

As her vision began to blur and darken, her mind violently fractured into quick, chaotic flashes—the warm, waxy spray of Agent Orange she had never actually seen; her father’s trembling hands; the smell of sweet, rotting oranges.

She was running out of air. Her body was giving up.

Through the distorted, rippling window of the rushing water, Nikki opened her eyes one last time. There, perched on the black underbelly of the overturned three-wheeler, was a pure black cat.

It was sitting completely still, looking directly down at her through the current. Its piercing, wide amber eyes didn't blink. They locked onto hers, holding her gaze through the rushing foam with a cold, predatory fascination. In that drowning silence, the smell of creek water vanished, choked out by the heavy, impossible phantom stench of diesel fuel.

Suddenly, the world exploded.

With a desperate, screaming heave, Sarah yanked the heavy machine upward just enough for Nikki to violently twist her head free.

Nikki surged out of the water, coughing convulsively, vomiting fluid onto the rocks as she tore fresh, cold air into her burning lungs. Sarah collapsed beside her, shaking violently.

For several minutes, the two teenage girls just lay flat on their backs against the muddy bank in absolute, stunned silence. The woods were quiet. The black cat was completely gone. They were deeply freaked out, the heavy shadow of near-death hanging over them like a physical weight.

Nikki checked her herself over; by some miracle, she had escaped any deep gashes or serious injuries. Aside from a few minor, faint scrapes on her arms that she could easily pass off as briar scratches from the woods, she was completely whole. Soaked to the bone, but whole.

"You almost died," Sarah whispered, her voice cracking as she stared at the sky. "Nikki... if I hadn't lifted it..."

Nikki wiped the stinging creek water from her eyes, her throat raw but unbruised. She looked at the three-wheeler, then back at her terrified friend.

"We don't tell them," Nikki said, her voice a raspy whisper. "If Dad finds out, he'll lock this machine in the barn forever. We never speak of this. To anyone."

Sarah looked hesitant, but seeing the fierce, unyielding intensity in Nikki's eyes, she nodded slowly.

Sarah extended her right hand, her thumb coated in the dark, wet river mud. Nikki didn't hesitate. She grabbed Sarah’s hand, interlocking their thumbs and pressing them together—a silent, sacred farm-girl pact sealed in the dirt of Silver Creek.

As soon as their thumbs broke apart, the sheer, delayed terror of what had just happened caught up to them. Sarah reached out, and the two girls pulled each other into a long, tight hug, holding onto one another in the quiet woods, shivering and crying softly in mutual relief just to be alive. They promised to bury the memory right there, completely oblivious to the fact that the amber-eyed witness had already marked the date.

Act III: The Suburban Shift

The idyllic rhythm of the hobby farm couldn't outrun the slow, eating rot in Arthur’s chest. By the time Nikki turned thirteen, the harsh northern Minnesota winters and the brutal physical labor of logging became an eventual death sentence for her father's fragile lungs. With heavy hearts, the family made the agonizing choice to sell the farm, leaving behind the gravel pit, Soup Bone, and the endless pine lines for a small, cramped rental house in the flat grid of suburbia.

The relocation wasn't the fresh start they had prayed for. Less than two months after the move, while the cardboard boxes were still piled high in the living room, Helen collapsed on the linoleum floor from a massive, sudden stroke. In the blink of an eye, the warm, steady anchor of their family was simply gone.

Grief flattened the house, but it also forced a fragile new normal to bloom. Arthur, Harry, and Nikki learned how to heal together, finding a gentle, quiet rhythm of survival. Arthur would sit in the living room, listening to Nikki practice her clarinet scales—a rare, proud smile cutting through his exhaustion. They had survived the move. They had survived the grief. They were going to be okay.

Then, Nikki turned fourteen.

It happened on a crisp Tuesday morning in October, right between second and third period. Nikki was reaching high up into her top locker to grab her biology textbook when a sharp, unexpected tweak shot straight across her lower back. It wasn't a violent shattering, but a deep, sickening ache that made her breath catch.

She dropped her book, leaning heavily against the cold metal locker as a high-pitched, ringing silence filled her ears. Through the blurred haze of sudden pain, Nikki looked down the long line of students shuffling sneakers. There, sitting calmly at the very end of the crowded hallway, was a flash of pure black fur. Two wide, unblinking amber eyes stared directly through the chaos, locking onto her from the shadows. For a fleeting second, the scent of floor wax was choked out by the heavy, impossible phantom smell of sweet, rotting chemical oranges and diesel fuel.

Nikki blinked, and the cat that seemed very familiar was gone. She forced herself to stand, dismissing the weird flash as a dizzy spell and the cat as déjà vu, completely unaware that the patient beast stood by, watching and waiting.

That locker incident was the catalyst for a long, exhausting medical journey. Her teenage years became a cycle of ice packs, heating pads, and regular visits to local chiropractors to manage the persistent ache.

Chapter 3: Static and Strawberries

A Husband’s Recollection

I was twenty when I met Nikki, and she was nineteen. She had this radiant, unyielding smile that made you think she didn't have a single care in the world. I was just an awkward city kid—clumsy with my words, easily intimidated by the sheer size of the world, and constantly fighting the background static of my own nerves. But the moment she looked at me, all that noise just drifted away.

It took me months to realize that her beautiful smile was how she kept her balance when her world was shaking.

Behind the laughter and the warmth, Nikki was already managing a deep, chronic ache in her lower back. It was a quiet, grinding agony she had carried since that morning at her high school locker, a heavy burden she hid from everyone because she refused to be viewed as broken. The tougher the pain got, the brighter she smiled. I fell in love with her joy first, but I fell in love with her fierce, unbreakable strength second.

We had been dating for two years when I finally gathered the courage to ask her father for her hand.

By that point, Arthur was a shadow of the towering giant Nikki had described from the northern hobby farm. Even sitting down, he possessed a heavy, commanding presence that made me feel like an untested boy. But if you looked closely, you could see the quiet toll the years were taking. The broad shoulders that had hauled timber and survived a war were slightly curved now, weighed down by the invisible, slow-burning fire in his chest. His breathing was heavier now, a persistent rasp that filled the quiet spaces of the room. He was far too proud for a cane, choosing instead to walk at a deliberate, measured pace and steadying himself by leaning a heavy hand against doorframes or the edge of a table whenever he stood for too long.

When I sat across from him at his kitchen table, the silence stretched out so long I could hear the rhythmic ticking of the wall clock. Arthur didn't offer a word, his chest rising and falling with a slow, heavy rhythm. Instead, he just stared right through me with a calm, intimidating authority, waiting to see if my resolve would hold under the pressure.

"Marriage is a huge step, Henry," Arthur finally said, his voice a gravelly, slow rumble. He leaned forward, bracing his thick forearms on the wood, his chest heaving slightly with the effort. "I loved her mother with everything I had, and Nikki carries that same spark. She’s my blood. I’m handing her over to you, and I need to know you’ll do right by her and honor her."

"I will, sir," I said. I forced myself to meet his eyes, swallowing hard against the lump in my throat while my hands sweated heavily in my lap.

Arthur nodded slowly, his gaze unblinking. "Don't take her for granted. Respect her. Treat her the way a woman you love deserves to be treated. When the days get heavy—and they will get heavy, boy—you stand firm. You make sure she knows she will always be safe with you. Do you understand me?"

He already knew the answer. He knew how deeply I loved his daughter. But he needed me to feel the weight of the promise I was making. I looked him dead in the eye and gave him my word.

The proposal itself was a beautifully chaotic mess, entirely fitting for a kid like me.

I took Nikki on a private picnic along the high bluffs overlooking the Minnesota River. It was a gorgeous, quiet afternoon, the slow muddy water winding through the thick summer greenery below us. I had skipped the traditional bouquet of flowers. Instead, trying to be sophisticated and romantic, I had put together a gourmet charcuterie board piled high with artisanal cheeses, fresh strawberries, and a bottle of chilled champagne.

Nikki was completely in her element, sitting on the plaid blanket, laughing at my nervous, overly formal descriptions of the different cheeses.

"Henry, you're a dork," she teased, her eyes crinkling at the corners as she reached out to slice off a piece of the sharp white cheddar sitting right in the center of the wooden tray.

As she lifted the heavy block of cheese, her hand froze.

Tucked neatly into a carved-out hollow directly beneath the cheese was a small, black velvet box.

Nikki blinked, her breath catching as the realization hit her. The radiant, practiced shield she always wore vanished, replaced by pure, unfiltered vulnerability. Her face flushed a deep, beautiful crimson. She looked from the box to me, completely and totally flustered.

I scrambled to my knees, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird, and popped the box open to reveal the ring.

Nikki burst into tears. She choked on a sob, laughing through the moisture spilling down her cheeks, entirely overwhelmed by the unexpected surprise. Before I could even finish stumbling through my rehearsed speech, she gasped out a desperate, joyful "Yes!" as soon as she could gain enough composure to speak.

I shakingly slipped the ring onto her finger and kissed her.

She threw her arms around my neck, burying her face into my shoulder, trembling with happiness. When she finally pulled back, wiping her eyes, she looked at the ring on her finger and then down at the empty picnic blanket.

"Henry... I love you so much," she whispered, her voice cracking with raw emotion. "But... a woman is supposed to have something for her man too when this happens. I don't have anything to give you."

I smiled, my own eyes stinging with relief, and took her shaking hands in mine. "Nik," I whispered, kissing her forehead. "This is exactly how it's meant to be. You just gave me everything."

Our wedding day followed a few months later. Arthur stood proud, ignoring the familiar tightness in his chest, his slow, deliberate steps perfectly matching the rhythm of the music.

During the reception, while the guests were laughing and dancing, Arthur pulled Nikki and me into a quiet corner of the hall of the VFW. With trembling, calloused hands, he unclasped the dulled gold heart locket from around his own neck and gently pressed the heavy metal into Nikki's palms.

"Your mother's picture is inside," Arthur told her, a sudden, raspy cough catching in his throat before he cleared it. "It’s been with me since I married your mother. Now it belongs to you. Wear this near your heart, Nik. She would want to be here today."

Nikki wept, clutching the heavy locket and its dainty key that was bound by a thin gold chain.