Flash Fiction: The Bequest
The Bequest 
Morena’s failing eyes spied the familiar wooden bench around a corner as she followed the path through the park. It was a distance ahead of her, but she could see it was empty and when she reached it, she planned to sit a spell until she caught her breath. Her daily walk was exhilarating for her and every arthritic bone in her body ached. Her chest muscles tightened as she walked noting that her pain was a bit of angina. She moved with a little support from her cane snuggling her feet deeper into her sheepskin lined boots, slowing her pace, inhaling gently and then exhaling. She concentrated on each breath as she had been taught in a yoga class years ago. The sound of her own breath was her mantra for meditation. The familiar action grounded her movements and comforted her. It was late Autumn her favorite time of year. The leaves crunched under her boots with each step. The red and gold of the leaves tinged with flecks of brown and earthy ochres splattered the park terrain like a Monet painting.
It was October her birthday month. “I’ll be 88 in a few weeks, she mused aloud.”
There was no one left to help her celebrate. She had no living relatives at all. Both of her husbands and her only child a son, were gone. Most of her friends were dead too. She was ready to go when God called her to him. She had made amends to everyone she needed to before they passed. She was sorry if she had hurt anyone she had ever loved and had tried to tell them so. She felt at peace with the choices of her life and herself. She enjoyed the fact she could still walk before winter set in. She felt the inside of her blue woolen mitten for her identification card and her bank ATM card, which she carried on her walk. She fingered the sticky note stuck to the bankcard where her her frail hand had written “1952 ” the bank pin number she sometimes forgot. She carried the card daily because at the end of her walk she would stop at Starbucks and treat herself to a coffee. Despite the queue of millennials or was it Gen Z’s waiting, Juan the barista fixed her drink as soon as he saw her come into the cafe. She had the same drink daily, a Grande latte with almond milk and a double pump of vanilla. Sometimes she added a little brown sugar. Counting calories was no longer in her repertoire. She would sit unrushed, sipping the latte watching young professionals on their way to work; she did not envy their anxious faces and hurried pace.
Two young boys suddenly zigzagged around her on their bikes and nearly set her off balance, but they gestured and smiled at her and she knew thy meant no harm. One called out, “You ok Ma’am?” She waved them on, feeling a slight tinge of pain creep across her chest.
Near the garbage can, stood a scruffy younger man who was a regular park occupant. He moved closer to the can and stuck his arm down into the muck.
He pulled out a brown paper bag with a tiny carton inside with bits of Chinese noodles hanging from the sides. She realized that she was staring and suddenly she felt awkward and turned away so he could have a bite of his meal with dignity. He was close enough so that she could hear him slurp the noodles hurriedly as she imagined saliva dripping down his chin.
Ms. Snooty Nanny passed by with her superior twins in their doublewide stroller. Morena smiled, and cooed, “good morning,” to the twins. Ms. Nanny glared through her and moved the twins in their contraption to the other side of the pathway so as not to contaminate her charges with the milky-eyed stares of an old woman leaning on a cane. The twins, oblivious to Ms. Nanny gurgled and beamed at the pleasant old women.
The man had finished his cold meal and was jogging towards the bench. Her bench. “Oh dear, what now, I need to sit.” He usually greeted her and moved on his way to let her use the bench as her halfway resting point. Today though, he seemed determined to reach the bench before her. He was sitting on one end when she arrived. She was tired and had a little indigestion, likely from the Indian food her young neighbor had shared with her last evening. Morena plopped herself on the bench where Mr. Park, as she called him, had left a space for her to rest.
“Missy, are you alright, you look a little pale.”
“I am feeling a bit tired and uncomfortable. I’ll be okay in a moment,”
She sat in silence, glad to be off her feet.
Mr. Park began to speak to her as if they were intimate friends. Generally they nodded and went about their way or sometimes a “hello or a good morning.” They had never actually held a conversation before. He leaned toward her, “you know Missy, I am trying to get on my feet again. I went to the Veteran’s Administration, and they said they could help me get a place to live. I’ve been sleeping in the park. I am jumpy all the time ever since I came back from Afghanistan. After the troops pulled out I came home and realized that God awful war had changed me. I tried to be the man my wife remembered but I couldn’t. Now, still I’m scared of my own shadow. I am almost deaf from the constant IED’s (Improvised Explosive Device’s) exploding around me. The flashbacks, the dead kids on the street, I can’t forget them.
I killed a squirrel yesterday and ate it raw. I was too afraid to build a fire, and roast the thing, thinking the fire might bring the cops. I get so hungry, Sometimes I cry like a child. I feel so useless. I never see my own kids; my wife won’t let me see them. I’m so ashamed of all that has happened to me. Other soldiers came home from war and seem to do okay, but I feel shattered. The doctor at the VA said I had PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). I didn’t know I had anything, I thought it was my fault.”
He moved closer to her and Morena could smell his unwashed body and his fear.
Morena had no idea. What a sad situation, fighting a war, no one understood. Now he was fighting a war within. She touched his arm to comfort him.
“Merciful God, I have been so lucky in my life.”
Her heart was pounding and she began to sweat profusely.
He leaned into her and grabbed her hand, “let me get you help. Missy you look sick.” Sharp pains radiated across her chest running down her right arm.
“No, stay with me.” She let go of his grasp for a moment and pulled off her mitten, then clasped his hand tighter deliberately shoving the bank card and note into his palm.
He held her hand and spoke softly to her, calming her as she cringed with each wave of pain. He had seen casualties before, his wounded buddies in combat. He knew what to say. “Do you have children? Where is your husband? ” Her labored breathing was trying to speak. Suddenly Morena called out, “Jack, Jack can you hear me? I see you; I swear I can see you.” Exhausted she whispered in Mr. Parks’ ear,”my husbands are gone and my only son Jack died young in combat in the Iran Iraq war when an Iraqi missile struck the USS Stark. He was a sailor on the ship. Memories flooded her consciousness of that horrible conversation with him when he enlisted, “Jack, no, you dropped out of college?”
“Yes mom, I am enlisting now. They argued the night before he flew to basic training and she was heartsick. She saw him only once again alive before he went overseas.
Barely audible, she leaned into his ear wanting him to hear her clearly and understand, “Mr. Park, take my bankcard the money is yours. I am done here. Start over again.”
A business person walking through the park called 911 on his cell phone. Mr. Park took charge and stayed with Missy until the ambulance along with the police office patrolling the park arrived. He gave the officer her ID card. He told them that she had no next of kin. The police knew him from patrolling the park. They took his information with the only ID he had which was his VA card with no known address or telephone.
That night he slept in the park for the last time. The next morning he did not forage for food but went to the closest Well Fargo Bank. He entered the pin number on the sticky note written in Missy’s handwriting and input the key requesting the balance of her bank account. The mechanism released the paper into the palm of his hand, He read the numbers on the receipt, revealing the contents of her life savings, $77,577.20.
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