One night we ran out of things to talk about, so I was asked about their mother and why I left.I had dreaded this moment from the first time we were r...united, but I had to tell them the truth. I talked about leaving work early that day because of the fire, finding their mother and her lover in bed, going into a fit of rage, recovering and finding that I had beaten their mother's boyfriend to death with a baseball bat and injured her too. I told them that I have regretted that moment of violence. " Of course he is, dear. He's on a murderous rampage," his mother said returning to the kitchen. She had been in the laundry making sure that the washing machine was empty of clothes. She looked at Sean and said, "You're getting the kitchen all wet." I didn't have a towel," Sean said shrugging his shoulders. Being wet was the least of his problems. He wasn't exactly comfortable standing around the kitchen wearing nothing more than his underwear."Stay there," his mother said. She looked over at. "I know you would not take light your friend's wedding day, mysweetie. I just know how you get nervous."Simone was right, when nervous, Kelly would turn up his joke more thana headbanger listening to his favorite Metallica song. She did notknow Kelly's nerves were normal because of a couple of reasons. Herhusband was used to being in a dress from Steve's attempt at revenge.Also, because of support. Doing a hard task was always easier whenthe action was backing your friend. Hard tasks became. But after my initial grief and the formalities of my father’s funeral and bequest, I’d found myself constantly horny. There was just something about the nearness of death that made me desperately want to fuck, some ancient atavistic impulse to reproduce before the threatening face of doom.None of this was helped by the fact that, under the blanket, quite unconsciously, Violet’s fingers were slowly stroking against my ankle as she watched the movie.I took a deep breath and tried to relax. I.