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Goodbye, Hello, page 1
Goodbye, Hello
Kelly’s world collapsed when her father died. They had been very close and now she’s lost. How is she supposed to rebuild her relationship with her mother without someone to facilitate their conversation? But her grief takes a back seat when the unexpected happens the day of her father’s funeral.
When Teresa got the assignment to write up the obituary for Mr. Matheson, it brought back so many memories of when she had dated Kelly in high school. They had ended awkwardly, and, ready to apologize for how she had acted back then, she goes to the funeral to see her again.
The spark is still there, but Kelly and Teresa aren’t convinced their reconnection will lead to a forever romance. With so much time apart, all the ways they’ve changed since high school, and the challenges of a long-distance relationship, their second chance at love may end just as disastrously as the first.
Dedication
To my father. Thank you for everything.
You will be deeply missed.
And as always, to Kaye
Chapter One
Kelly Matheson sat on her bed streaming a ridiculous romantic comedy and tried to relax from her studies. Nursing school was hard, and she was still finishing up her other general ed classes. After this semester was over there would only be one year left in her schooling, and she was so looking forward to graduating. She wanted to get to work and was trying to look at all of her options, including possibly going back into the military.
She also wished she had a girlfriend. The only relationship she’d had at school only lasted a semester before they graduated and moved on with their life. That was over a year ago, and she missed the companionship. She heard that finding dates was easy on campus, but that wasn’t her experience so far. There were too many people who just didn’t mesh with her and her sense of humor. Dating was rough and had been mostly hit or miss since she’d graduated high school. Somedays it almost felt like she was cursed.
She thought of her high school girlfriend, Teresa McCune. They had been together for most of their senior year, and honestly, Kelly had been getting ready to propose to her before Teresa broke it off with her. They didn’t talk that summer and they both went in different directions in life, Teresa to college and Kelly into the army. She wondered what ever happened to her? That was the last time she had been in a relationship that felt right and she was missing that right now.
She shook her head and brought her attention back to the movie. Her plan had been to de-stress and not wool-gather over the past. She was where she was and she would be fine with that, as if there was any other option available. Besides, there were other dating options that could help fill her time while she looked for someone more permanent. She just had to keep herself open to possibilities that presented themselves and take the chances offered. She sighed as she focused back on the movie.
Her phone rang.
It was her mother. Kelly almost never spoke with her mother anymore so that made the call even more confusing. What could she want? Kelly answered, “Hi, Mom.”
“Hi, Kelly. I’m afraid I’m not calling with good news. I wanted to let you know, your father passed away. I just got the call a little while ago myself. Apparently, he had a massive heart attack as he was leaving the doctor’s office and there was nothing they could do.”
“Oh God! What the hell? How? Why? Mom, are you okay?” Her father was dead? Shock began to set in.
“No, I’m not okay.” Kelly could hear how flat the affect was in her mom’s voice and it wasn’t that big of a surprise all things considered. Her parents had been together for a very long time.
“Is there anything I can do? Do you need anything?” Kelly wished she were there in person. Maybe she could have been able to do something.
“Not that I can think of right now. Your brother is taking care of things with the funeral home, and we’ll have to wait to see if there’s going to be an autopsy or not. I’ll call to let you know when the funeral is planned when we get it worked out.”
“Thanks, Mom. You aren’t worried about Aunt Kate raising a fuss with my being there?” Aunt Kate had been getting on Kelly’s case for serving in the military. She couldn’t wrap her head around it and tried to just avoid her as much as possible. Nothing had ever given her a clue to why it was an issue.
“If she raises a fuss at your father’s funeral, I’ll show her what raising a fuss is all about. But I think she’ll be able to contain herself.”
“Do you want me to come out there early to help out? I can arrange it with the school, and I don’t want you to be there all by yourself. I can leave tonight easily enough.” Kelly was already starting to run down a packing list and what she would need to pack. The military had prepared her to move rapidly when there was a need.
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. Besides, your brother is here, and I know that you and Tim don’t get along great. When we get closer to the funeral, come on out. It’ll be better that way.”
“Okay, Mom, if you’re sure, I can wait.” Not going and doing something felt antithetical to Kelly but it was her mom’s call. She could use the time to talk to her professors and arrange for a leave of absence. She was going to be useless in classes until at least after the funeral. Something else occurred to her. “Is Carrie going to come out as well?”
“I’m calling her next. Your brother was visiting when I got the call, so that’s why he already knows and is making plans. But once we’re done, I’ll be talking to her. I’m sure she’ll come out. She was her daddy’s little girl.”
Kelly firmed her lips and nodded, trying to not let her irritation through. She and her younger sister didn’t get along well and this was sure to open new lines of tension between them. But she wouldn’t start anything because there was no way her mom was doing alright with this. Sure, her dad had been fighting against lung issues and had just been in a rehab facility to deal with his semi-regular bouts of pneumonia and bronchitis. But for him to pass from a heart attack…that was a surprise. “Okay, Mom. I love you. Does anyone know what happened? I thought he was still in that rehab facility and supposed to be under care.”
“I love you too, Kelly. And we don’t know yet for sure. Your brother is talking to them and trying to see what happened. I imagine he’ll tell me once he knows. As for the rehab place, he got out a few days ago and was going in to see his regular doctor when this happened. I’ll keep you updated as we learn more. Talk to you soon.”
The phone went dead in her hand. She fell back against her chair and stared at the far wall, not seeing anything. Her father was dead. A blanket of numbness fell about her.
Her father was dead. The whole thing didn’t feel real. However, it wasn’t like her mother to joke about such things. This situation was sudden and it wasn’t. He had been under hospitalized care for a month as he’d been having a harder and harder time breathing. In his condition, if he had gotten a bad case of bronchitis again it could have been fatal. He’d been in his early sixties and these lung issues had been persistent for the last several years. He was diagnosed with advanced COPD and needed permanent oxygen, so Kelly had started thinking she needed to be ready for this development, especially when he went into the rehab facility. She had planned for the worst and still hoped for the best.
She’d known it was a possibility, but the last thing she ever expected was this phone call. It didn’t seem real, more like a bad joke. If it’d been a call from her brother, then maybe it would have been just a terrible joke. But never from her mother. No, it had to be true, and she would just have to adapt to a world where her father was gone. How could she even do that? Right now, she could barely think.
The tears caught up to her.
She sobbed for the loss of him. He’d been a good father when she was young. Their relationship improved as she grew older and they had more to say to each other. He was the first person she told when she signed up for the army. His pride was quite evident when she graduated from medic school. He told everyone about it, and the memory of it made her face warm. He was the first she told about her plan to transition. He’d supported her choice to not reup and leave the army so she could pursue school. They had been so close and she had shared so much of her life with him. And now, he wouldn’t be there to be proud of her getting her degree and working toward becoming a nurse practitioner. He was gone.
It felt like there was a great empty hole expanding in her chest. How would this feeling ever get better? She wanted to sit there and do nothing else save cry, which surely wouldn’t help anything. She wanted to lament the passing of her father, but her mother had continued on after her parents died when Kelly was in middle school. And her father had continued on when his grandparents died. Continuing on was possible, so it would surely be better after time had passed. Right? Maybe there would be a little bit more closure after the funeral. It was all that she could hope.
God, she realized she needed to talk to her mom about the funeral. How was she supposed to dress? Would she be allowed to show up dressed as she usually did or would she be forced to play the part again? The black would be easy enough to manage, but her mother had been rather adamant about her not showing up dressed like she usually did years ago. She had balanced that by dressing rather androgynously or slightly masculine, but it was never comfortable. It was playing the part of the dutiful son when she would rather be wearing leggings or even a skirt. Her father tried to talk her out of caving like that, but s he had anyway just to make her mother happy. Why had she ever agreed to do that?
Would she have to wear a suit to the funeral, like she used to wear to church? That was back before she started her real-life test six months after returning from deployment to Afghanistan, when she realized that she was transgender and started her transition. She was finally growing truly comfortable in her own skin, generally wearing whatever she wanted to, whenever she wanted to. Hell, she even had her gender confirmation surgery so she was sure she would draw more attention if she had to dress drab than she would otherwise. However, she would do whatever she had to in order to go to her father’s funeral. If it meant that she had to wear a suit and tie to be allowed in, then she would do so. It would be uncomfortable and make her skin crawl, but she would be there. That was the important part.
Maybe her mother would reconsider her ultimatum that she only show up dressed as she approved? Maybe the loss of her husband would help make the gap between them close, or at least lessen to a place where understanding could happen. Kelly had some hope things would improve between them, because honestly, it seemed like her mother took Kelly’s desire to transition personally, as if her mother believed sincerely that she had failed somehow at raising her. Kelly didn’t understand the issue and just hoped it would fade. Her father had been more bemused about her transition, not really understanding it but accepting that she felt like she needed to go through the process. He had accepted her even as her mother had not.
Did she want to show up dressed like herself and possibly further antagonize members of her family? No. She couldn’t do that. It would be disrespectful to her father. If her mother didn’t relent in her proclamation, then she would arrive dressed in drab, if only for the funeral. She would have to go out and buy a damn suit if that was the case. That was something she didn’t even want to think about. It might even be her last trip to visit her mom and see her siblings if she would have to live that farce.
That brought a new wave of tears. Her brother and sister were both against her choice as well, aligning themselves with their mother’s position, not that she cared about their positions, because in the grand scale of things, it was her life. Tim didn’t want others to know, because of how it might reflect on him. And Carrie seemed offended by her choice somehow, but as they had never really talked about it, she wasn’t entirely sure what Carrie’s issue was. Maybe it was no longer being the only girl in the family? It wasn’t like they had talked over things, as they had never gotten along, even as kids.
No, she would need to talk to her mother and try to find some way to make this work. If she put her hair into a low ponytail, it might pass muster, but there was no way in hell she was going to cut it. And she still had some clothes that she kept to wear home, the few times that she visited. It hadn’t been as frequent of late, because hormones and clothes had altered her appearance quite a bit, which caused her mother to fuss more about her appearance. At this point, she would look like the woman she was wearing a suit rather than anything else. Hell, even her grandparents were moderately okay with her appearance. She had visited them a few times as herself, so it wasn’t a generational thing. But she would play the game to be there, just so she would have the ability to say good-bye to her father. That was what mattered.
She looked around her dorm room with an unseeing gaze, looking far more inward. Telling the administration and her teachers that her father died was an important first step. It wasn’t like she could focus on her schoolwork at a time like this. No, she would tell them and that would be it. She was thankful that she’d worked ahead of where they were in the textbooks. Her training as a medic certainly put her ahead in several of her nursing classes.
She needed to send a message to her English teacher, because she wasn’t in the headspace to discuss literature or even take notes right now, and that was her first class of the morning.
She sent off the email to her English professor. She then sent one to her advisor, letting them know what was going on and asking what she needed to do.
She headed to the bathroom. Her face burned a little with her crying and her eyes felt puffy. She filled her hands with cold water and rubbed her face. The chill brought her back to the here and now, so she could more easily think. There were things she had to do, and she should get them done to ensure she didn’t fall behind in any of her classes. Emailing her professors would be easy. She could copy paste the message into each of the emails. None of the syllabi talked about bereavement leave, and that was something she needed to find out about.
Oh man…what if they wanted proof? She would have to keep an eye out for the obituary so she would have something she could show them. There were sure to be people who would abuse the system otherwise, and she didn’t want to be thought of as one of those people. Email first, proof when she could get it. It was the only way. Hopefully, they didn’t require a copy of the death certificate. God, this whole situation sucked. Here she was needing to worry over bullshit when she had bigger issues to deal with, such as her dad being gone. But that was life, at least to her experience, always mixing issues when even just the one problem was more than enough to deal with.
She looked in the mirror, gazing into her own eyes. Her blue eyes looked bleak, with wet tendrils of brown hair framing her face, which seemed paler than it usually was. Right…she needed to deal with the email first. She could breakdown later after she arranged for a respite. Tears filled her eyes as she turned away and headed back to her room.
Chapter Two
Kelly was glad that she didn’t have a roommate. She was grieving and didn’t want to subject anyone else to her private suffering. She had woken up crying last night and again this morning, and that wasn’t something she wanted to talk about with anyone. This was her pain, her grief, and she would need to be the one to go through it. Maybe if she had a girlfriend, it would be different, or even any close friends, but right now she just wanted to be alone with her pain.
She had informed her RA, but that was as far as she wanted to deal with other people right now. Handling this on her own made sense to her, and she would keep doing it. Part of her was aware that this wasn’t the healthiest of choices but it was what she wanted to do.
After hearing back from her teachers, she knew she would be allowed a small sabbatical to go to the funeral and mourn her father without having to worry about any class assignments during that time. One teacher wanted a copy of the obituary as proof of her father’s death, but she hadn’t heard anything about the obituary coming out yet and so had nothing to send her. Doing the assigned reading kept her occupied and ensured she wouldn’t fall too far behind, but she wasn’t sure how much of the material she would actually able to recall at test time. She read the words, but her thoughts weren’t focused on them, and she would find herself crying at the oddest times.
That morning, she went down to the cafeteria later than her usual time. She got some cereal and coffee. She ate mechanically, barely tasting the cereal. The coffee helped with some of the muzziness she was wrapped in but not all of it.
She headed back upstairs. While in the elevator, she gave herself a sniff. While not rank, she smelled of sweat and decided a shower would help. It might even help her wake up even more. To be honest, so much of her wanted to go back to sleep and sleep until this whole nightmare was over. It would be nice for all this to go away, but her father would still be dead.
She wiped the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes with the palm of her hand. This all felt like so much to deal with. It was almost like she was drowning in it. Why did her grief have to feel like it was rending her on the inside?
The hot water felt good and she stayed under the stream for a while, letting her hair get saturated. She wanted to stand under the stream of water and just be. The heat was comfortable enough for her to just sit in the sensation and feel it over her whole body. She was able to stay in the moment and without any thoughts about her dad or anyone else running through her head as the water trickled over her. Just focusing on getting clean seemed like enough for her right now.
