"I'm surprised you could make it, detectives. I heard you ran into trouble." Salome said.

Apollo swallowed spit. Dion put a hand on his shoulder, to hold him back.

"At least..." His voice was passive. "At least they invited us to dinner?"

Dinner. Right. Dinner.

It had already gone underway long before they arrived. The mess was all along the white linen cloths.

The set dinner plates and drinks trembled with the rumblings of first blood. Floyd pointed his fork at Aenea, Salome had asked Jezebel to relax, and Turnus sat, feet up, with a glass of wine in his hand.

The cold food tasted strange in his mouth. Apollo chewed, quietly. He was parceling the different ingredients, what seemed like steak au poivre with a side of roasted potatoes and broccoli. He was separating garlic slices, parsley, all rather unsuccessfully. The sauce was split, lacked gloss and looked like puss all across the meat. Looking to his rear, to Dion's and Aenea's plate, he realized it was his alone that was in ruin.

He turned. He spotted Junior staring at him, with glad curiosity. He put his head down and smiled, stained teeth flashing for a moment.

"He eats like me," He said. Salome rubbed his head.

"He's funny like me." He slapped his hands together. "He's like me, like us. You said he wasn't though? You said...you said..."

"Shh," Salome rubbed his scalp.

Apollo put his hand on his right leg and pushed it along, to cross with his left. He felt a bruised bone and winced.

"Ahem," Salome sniffed. She stuffed a slice of steak in her mouth.

"We've been thinking about where to bury your father," She cut a piece off her plate, it screeched as the knife hit porcelain. "We were thinking of building a small park behind the casino. Something pleasant, perhaps a garden that will connect to the left and right wings we plan to expand on."

"I didn't know two wings were even in the works. Let alone a garden. Or park, or whatever." She drank wine.

"We believe this is what Thomas would have wanted, expansion."

She chewed, with wide strokes, like the predator maw on a knob of bone and marrow.

"Well, who cares what he wants? He's dead now. And if he wanted honor in death, he should have given it in life." She said. "He won't be buried here. He'll be buried in his old house. With a little oak tree planted on him to weight the coffin down."

"And why's that? Because you say so?"

"Because he deserves to go back to where he came from, in an old shabby shack, poor and lonely in the desert." She said. "Away from everyone else. A nameless grave."

"You mean to dishonor your father? Are you insane?"

"I mean to honor my mother's wishes," She drank the whole glass and got another. "Which may or may not have been to dishonor father."

"And who cares about you or your mother?" Floyd pointed his dinner knife at her. "You're a bastard, and I don't care for your revenge, girl. So that's two marks against you, my respect and patience."

"That's the only reason I'm here. The only reason I came to meet with father when he called on me." She said. "To talk about the mother he left alone, to get an answer why. But he's dead now, so all I can have is a little peace, and nothing would make me happier than to bury him in a nameless grave."

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"I like how she thinks!" Turnus toasted, though no one tapped his glass. Jezebel sat idle, Floyd had his hand on her thigh. Luanne rocked her baby. Perhaps she was trying to comfort them all, for Apollo noticed, as his face dragged wide across the table, the disgruntled looks on all their faces. He came around finally, to Dion, who nodded his head.

"He will not die a tramp, buried in obscurity," Salome said.

"Did he make any arrangements when he was alive?" Turnus asked. Salome made an audible growl, hoarse and dry like the desert itself. "No? Then it's up to us then, right? And I agree with Aenea. Let father rest lonely, let him disappear. It suits him fine."

"Be quiet, Turnus," Salome said.

"Well, shi-e-t. The old bitch finally got a mouth? Now I know why the old man slapped you around. You can get loud, can't you?"

Apollo turned to Floyd, to spectate his reaction, how he squeezed on Jezebel's leg and used it to stand. The fury in his eyes, the redness in his face, the way he turned and got closer to his mother. Junior began to mope. They all passed him a glance, a cautionary one, a frightened one.

Aenea stood, and it seemed like one by one they were all coming awake. The food jiggled and vibrated, Apollo picked up his glass of wine. Every other goblet fell, stems shattered across the table.

The wide table, nearly the width of their (old) room, was on the verge of collapse as each dinner guest came around to shake it and push it and pull it to the rhythm of their emotional strings, the music of rage and growing hostility. Aenea had both hands against the table top.

Apollo would have stood. If he could. He pushed his chair back, grabbed his plate and dissected it again, with subdued chewing, with careful observations as he looked at everyone's faces.

"I have seen this family die nearly once. I will not let it happen again."

"You're not our mother," Aenea said.

"I am the surrogate matriarch. I am whatever I say I am." She said. "Your childish angst means nothing to me."

"You never knew the man he was," Aenea said. "You're a beaten wife with Stockholm syndrome. Open your eyes, Thomas was terrible."

"How terrible must he be that you hold this much against him even after death? Don't you have any compassion? Let him rest." Luanne added. The baby, Junior, both cried in synchronized distress.

"Oh, come on," Turnus said. "Just let her have it. What's the big deal? It's not like you liked him any more than us,"

He had a bottle in his hand (was it a magnetic force at will? For he seemed to attract alcohol).

"I loved him."

"No, you admired him. But admiration isn't love, sweetheart." Turnus smiled. "From what Luanne told me, is that you couldn't love him, right? Not in the way you wished. That really cuts deep into your delusion nuclear family image, doesn't it?"

Salome turned to Luanne, to the first-born daughter of her own womb, who had her grandson to her chest. Her mouth was cracked open into the shape of a small O. Her glare bordered tears. No spoken words were made between the two. No grunts, no sounds. Salome turned away almost immediately, dismissively like a commanding officer reading the letter, giving the dishonorable discharge.

"Turnus," Floyd stepped forward. Apollo felt an urge at once to leave, to take Aenea and Dion out, away from them. He stood. Stopped. Apollo felt his legs ache, his back burn as he leaned closer.

Jesus, couldn't they save the brawl for later. Fuck.

He tried to stand himself but fell back on his seat. He turned to face Dion, who with pursed lips was practicing deep breathing, clenching at his own thighs as if a strong wind was threatening to rip them off.

"What the fuck is this, roll call? Yes, my name is Turnus," He chugged. "Turnus Wolfe. What do you want, boy?"

He walked towards Turnus, knocking over a chair. Turnus turned to Apollo, smiling.

I can't help you like this, retard.

His legs failed him once again.

"You're looking tight, aren't cha?" Turnus broke the bottle against the table. "All of this for a fucking corpse."

"You know what this is for." Floyd raised his sleeves.

"Yeah, but do they? Do you want to let them in? I thought we had a nice little secret going on, like a fraternity. Really made us feel close, didn't it?"

They were near each other, feet away. Turnus held the broken bottle, Salome was tending to the boy, Aenea was walking forward (to split them up? To eat the corpse?). It was hard to tell what she was, dove or vulture.

Again, he looked and again, felt more hopeless. Dion was quaking quietly, as was the infant and the man-child Junior. Jezebel was cheering. Luanne's eyes drifted left and right, hostility and paranoia across her face.

Does everyone have Parkinson's here? What the fuck.

Apollo wished to write their faces down, to write the sour taste in his mouth he got when he looked at them as if his synesthesia was a kind of living soothsayer.

He felt his knees pop as he stood. He flinched and inched closer to the group. He was about to get hold of Aenea, to pull her back.

But the doors opened, and all their faces turned to face them. All but Dion's and Apollo, who were last in the rotation.

And beyond the doors, Apollo could hear it, the light tapping of a stick, of rolling thunder.