READER'S ROCK LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE VOL 2 ISSUE 4 NOVEMBER 2014 Vol. 1 Issue 9 March 2014 | Page 13

VISIT FRAN VEAL’S WEBSITE
My parents weren't who I thought they were. My best friend isn't who I thought he was.
The killer isn't who I thought he was. And scariest of all, I'm not who I thought I was.

I paused for one brief moment,
eyes closed, breathing a silent
prayer.
Then I looked up.
They shared a single monument:
Charles Morgan Jordan, born
March 22, 1969
Emily Elizabeth Jordan, born
August 18, 1970
One shared date, the date they
died. Three weeks ago today. Did
they seem less dead because I'd
missed the memorial? No. I still had
violent dreams of the night my
parents were murdered.
In a way, I was glad I had
missed the ceremony with its
endless line of mourners and their
endless barrage of condolences. As
it was, I'd only had to hear “I'm so
sorry for your loss” three
times—once in the hospital after I
woke up and the doctor expressed
her sympathy, once in the police
station when the detectives assigned
to my parents' case told me how
sorry they were, and then at my
hotel, when Matt's parents came by.
At least that one was genuine.
I took the flowers out of the box
I carried and spread them across the
mounds of dirt. I wasn't prepared
for the violence of the grief that
stabbed my heart repeatedly,
assaulting me like some vicious
killer. I felt like I was dying. Falling
to my knees, I crawled to the
monument, tracing their names,
tears running down my cheeks. I'm
not sure how long I lay there on the
dirt before I cried myself to sleep.
I woke up and looked around. I
wasn't in the cemetery any more. I

was back in Summer Cove in
Dave's Diner. There weren't any
customers – just Jessie, wiping
down the booth where I found
myself sitting.
She turned her auburn head
toward me and winked. “It wasn't a
coma, you know.”
“Wh…what did you say?”
She stopped wiping down the
table, looked me in the eye, one
hand on her hip. “Your coma. It
wasn't real. It was drug induced
because of your head injury.”
“O-k-a-y,” I said slowly. I was
trying to wrap my head around
being back in Summer Cove again.
Had I been dreaming all along?
Jessie shook her head and rolled
her eyes at me, plopping herself
down in the seat across from mine.
“You weren't always this dense.
Your. Coma. Wasn't. Real.” She
gestured toward me impatiently,
rolling her eyes again, but I
couldn't, for the life of me, figure
out what she was trying to get at.
Shaking her head, she leaned
across the table and whispered in
my ear. “Maybe Matt's coma isn't
real either.”
It took several seconds for that
to sink in, then a smile spread
across my face. I was just about to
thank her when she grabbed my
arm, cocked her head to the right,
eyes glassy like one of those
Stepford wives and said, “You'd
better wake up. You're asleep in a
cemetery, and you never know who
might be watching.”

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