The Big Dig- Part 2

When Finn came down that afternoon, the bar was empty with the exception of his brother Patrick at a corner table, surrounded by a stack of crumpled receipts and ledgers, plugging numbers into a calculator.

"Shouldn't you be out suppressing civil liberties or protecting the property rights of the wealthy, Officer?  I think I saw someone down the street loitering that you could go hassle."
Patrick, not bothering to look up, gave Finn a customary, "Fuck off, Finn."
"Maybe tonight, if I'm lucky.  Where's Mom?"
"She's in the back.  Do me a favor and tell her to buy a damn computer all ready.  This is ridiculous, " Patrick gestured toward the papers before smoothing them out.  Finn knew that Patrick had probably sorted them into meticulous piles from the no doubt chaotic state Mom had left them in.
"Like anyone can tell Mom to do anything, " he said heading behind the polished oak bar.
"You should know, you're just like her, " Patrick's exasperated voice followed him into the storage room.

His Mom had her back to him, a plume of smoke curling up above her head.  When she turned, he could see the Marlboro clutched between two long fingers that were topped with bright red nails matching her bright red hair.  It looked like Mom was a redhead this week.  He was glad she'd changed it from last week's pick; Finn was all about self expression but there was something vaguely disturbing about a fifty year old woman with cotton candy pink hair.
"Don't let Patrick catch you with that.  He'll run you in for violating the smoking ban."
"That's just in public places, as you can clearly see there's no public in here."
Her tone was light, but Finn could see the underlying sadness in her eyes and the hand with the cigarette trembled a little.  She must have been back here thinking about Jon.  Growing up, Finn and Jon had spent so much time running back and forth between each other's houses that Jon had been another son to her.  Finn remembered how she would yell out the door, "Patrick, Finn, Jon, your butts better be back in this house before the streetlights come on," whenever they'd go tearing off on their BMX bikes.  Jon had his own seat at the kitchen table too.  Right across from Finn.  As the oldest Patrick got to sit at the end of the table, where their father used to sit.  Sometimes, Kristen was there too and she always sat right next to Finn so he could "accidentally" kick her under the table, when he wasn't tricking her into looking at him while his mouth was open, full of half chewed food.  Mom usually caught him in the act, which always earned him a light slap off the back of his head while she ineffectively attempted to control her laughter.
Without another word, he crossed the small room, dodging the haphazardly piled up boxes and wrapped his mother in a hug, being careful to avoid the smoldering cigarette.
"Oh Finn, if I'd have known he was mixed up in drugs I would have helped him."  Her voice was choked up, full of the tears she was obviously fighting.
"I know Mom, I know." He murmured in his most smoothing tone.
"He seemed fine when I last saw him."
"That was a long time ago.  People can change."  Finn wondered who he was trying to convince.  Wasn't that exactly what he was thinking, why he wanted to see Kristen?
"No, I saw him a week before he died."  She pulled back and must have seen the confusion on his face, because she added, "Didn't you talk to him?  He stopped in to the bar and said he wanted to see you, so I sent him upstairs.  He had been up there for awhile before he came back down so I assumed you had been home."

His mind raced turning over the mysterious fact that Jon had come to see him out of the blue for the first time in five long years, not a week before he turned up dead.  As he rinsed out beer glasses, he turned over the possibilities.  As he cut up lemons, he thought about what it meant.  Maybe Jon had been ready to forgive him, not only for the band's breakup, but more importantly, maybe Jon had been ready to forgive him for messing around with Kristen.

As it got later, customers began trickling in.  A group of grad students, obvious from their thrift store t-shirts and ironic glasses, had ordered a round of beers and retreated to the back to take over the dart board, while two suits sat near the end of the bar closest to the entrance, no doubt so they could have first crack at any women coming through the door, sipped their Jamison's and bitched about work.  A cute brunette in a cheap suit, had taken a seat at the middle of the bar, a safe distance from the suits and ordered a Guiness with a friendly smile.  Under ordinary circumstances, he might have been tempted to flirt with her, but found himself strangely uninterested, wondering instead about whether or not Kristen would show.   

Looking across the room he could see that Patrick had evidently had enough of the paperwork, because he rose and stretched out his back, the motion pulling his neatly ironed polo shirt tight.  From the looks of Patrick's chest, he'd obviously been spending some quality time with the weights.  His brother really needed to get a social life before he started resembling like the Hulk, minus the green skin.  He noticed the brunette eyeing his brother like Patrick was a particularly tasty piece of cake, so her opinion on the amount of time Patrick had been spending at the gym most likely differed from his.