"Harry...!"

I heard my name, but I slept so good I didn't want to wake up. Plus it was always semi dark in here. You didn't know they time of day, the day of the week or the position of the sun inside this box...not to mention the heat. I didn't think I even had a bath since I've been in here...

"Harry! Get up, young man. You're being released. Bob Grimes dropped the charges against you. You're free to go. Head to processing and Outtake so you can take your ass home."

I didn't know how I found the strength, but I jumped up off the iron cot and had never run out of solitary confinement so fast in my life. 

I was a free man by six thirty.

It felt good to feel the cool air against my pale face. I was numb inside, going over my property. My cell phone was dead and I didn't have enough cash for a taxi.

I decided to hit up an Uber driver. Nah, my phone was dead.

I couldn't.

"Fuck!"

"I take it that you need a ride home," said a dude from a car parked beside me, with the driver side window partially down.

"I would appreciate it. You're not a psycho, are you?"

"No, Harry I'm not."

The driver lowered the window.

When Harry saw Bob Grimes, he said, "I'd rather die before I get in the car with you."

Bob got out of the car, opening the passenger side door.

"I'm deeply sorry, Harry and I take back everything that I said. At least let me drive you home. Then we'll never see each other again."

"I'll sit in the back."

Grieving 

There was a knock on my front door. I was asleep on my living room sofa, thankful for a hot shower and a great night's rest. I snapped a selfie when I put my phone on the charger. I was in jail for less than a week, but it felt like years. Jail definitely wasn't for me. I opened my eyes, looking over two wine glasses on the low table. An empty bottle of Liberty Creek Sweet Red next to my wallet. My head spun so fast I couldn't think straight.

I was trying to gather myself, getting used to never waking up inside my husband's eyes ever again. The thought crippled me. The burning in the pit of my stomach wouldn't leave me the hell alone. I was a widow now. I couldn't believe this. Why couldn't I die with my husband? Just looking at our wedding picture framed above the mantle of a fake fireplace drove me back into the bands of sadness.

Another knock on the front door. This time a fiercer rapping. "Harry Waters!"

Oh, shit. I forgot about my meeting with one of the funeral home directors today. When I got home from jail last night I saw his business card in the screen of my front door. He told me to call, no matter how late it was.

I called him around 7:30 pm, and set up a meeting for today. As much as I tried to run from my problems, I had to take care of Jonathan's body. Have it buried. Cremation was out of the question.

Hopping off the sofa I was naked. I smelled of a cologne I never wore a day in my life. Putting it out of my mind I slid into a bathrobe and a pair of gym shorts.

I answered the door just as the funeral director, Todd Stephens, was about to knock again. I firmly shook my guest's hand. He was on time. Eight am sharp.

I dreaded this day because I had to plan my husband's funeral services and I had a day to do it. Location, what suit I was going to choose for him, the repass. He deserved to be laid to rest, and the director of Jays Funeral Home wasn't leaving until it was all set.

We sat at my dining room table in silence for a minute. I was still devastated that through some unfair means Bob Grimes, my ex-boyfriend/fuck buddy, walked. All of the charges dropped, with the agreement to do an anti-drinking while driving commercial (his compensation given to MADD).

Hadn't he brought me home last night? Why couldn't I remember for the life in me? Those two wine glasses didn't sit themselves on my low table.

My ass was a bit sore. To add insult to irony, Judge Hills has been cleared, his legacy intact. And Lynn has been invited to tons of news programs, including Good Morning America, to talk about her ordeal. They were making her out to be Sister Mary Clarence from Sister Act, like the bitch was back in the habit.

"We can do this another day, Harry. Obviously you're still grieving."

"We'll do it now. Private ceremony. Family and close friends. Mount Pleasant church in Perrine. By invite only. I'll go through his photos and pick a few for the obituary. I'll write it out right now and I'll write the poem as well. It'll mean more if it came from me. I'll pay for armed security. Lynn Waters is banned from attending. I don't care if it is his mother."

"As you wish."

Denial 

Judge Harper Hills waited until Lynn's limo picked her up from her seedy home, before getting out of a rented Denali in a pair of suede slacks, black turtleneck shirt and black crocodile loafers.

Smelling of Polo black, he stuffed his keys in his pocket, walking along the mosaic tiled shapes leading to her front door.

I must see this for myself. I have two daughters? Unheard of!

He rang the bell, unsure about what he was going to do. What he had to do.

A young woman, very pretty, answered.

"If you're looking for mom she's on her way to a TV station."

"Are you Stacy or Tonya?"

She looked him over. Very nice looking. She loved a man that smelled good.

Deliciously clad in booty shorts and a Rhianna ANTI shirt, she said, "I'm Stacy. And you are?"

She extended her hand.

Emotional, he cupped it.

Yes, she was his daughter. She looked just like his mother, the late Honorable Geisha Hills.

"I'm Judge Harper Hills. May I speak to Tonya as well? It's very important."

"Tonya!" Stacy yelled over her shoulder. "Visitor!"

"Girl, who is it?" came Tonya's voice from the stair case. She was ravishing in tight black spandex and an old Janet the Velvet Rope shirt adorned with slashes and beads, cute. Harper hated the Mohawk.

"Come in Judge Harper," said Stacy with puppy dog eyes.

"Sure. Thank you."

Tonya shook his hand. "You look very familiar, do we know you?"

"OMG, that's the Judge from the news. The one that was rumored to be having an affair with our mother for the past twenty plus years..."

Stacy stared into his eyes. Silent.

Tonya looked from her sister to Harper in dramatic effect.

"Oh my God, Stacy. Call me crazy, but I think this man is our alleged dead father...You look just like him. Eyes, ears, nose, lips, the shape of our heads, everything."

Stacy was backing up towards her bedroom, shaking her head in denial.

"This...this can't be true. You're our father? A judge?"

Judge Harper Hills wiped tears out of his eyes.

"I only found out about both of you last night. Your mother told me. I had no idea I had two daughters, let alone two fraternal twins. I'm just as socked as you are."

Tonya embraced him. Stacy hugged them, reluctantly. Harper held on tight to his daughters.

Vowing to never let them go.