The Lights Will Never Fade

Chapter 1: Charity-2

The next morning, Charity arrived in Tulsa and drove the fifteen minutes to Jenks where Peyton remained. She found her friend Kendra's house and knocked on the door through puffy eyes. She'd just begun to mourn the loss of her only brother, nephew, niece, and sister-in-law. Kendra answered the door while Peyton stood directly behind her. She barely slept during the night and bags managed to fully form underneath her eyes.

“Oh, sweetie,” Charity spoke through heavy tears, “I'm so sorry.”

She reached out and held her niece. Peyton rested her head on her aunt's shoulder and received the love that she held for her. The two hugged each other for what seemed like an eternity and went inside to sit and talk about what to do next.

“I'm here for you, Peyton,” Charity said from the black leather couch in Kendra's living room. “We'll get through this together and find a way to move on.”

Charity was younger than her brother, only thirty-four-years-old. She never married and had no kids of her own even though she was a beautiful woman with a pleasant body. She stood at 5'5” and weighed close to one hundred and thirty pounds. She cut her blonde hair to just above her shoulders and displayed the brightest blue eyes. Peyton resembled her aunt though she might have been an inch and a half taller than Aunt Charity and somewhat skinnier. Peyton weighed only one hundred and twenty pounds at the most. Peyton also grew her light brown hair down past the middle of her back. She looked at her loving aunt through her hazel green eyes, grateful that she was there.

“Thank you for coming, Aunt Charity. What am I supposed to do now?”

“What do you mean?” Charity tossed the hair off of Peyton's forehead and placed it behind her ear.

“Where am I going to live? I can't go back to that house, and I don't have a job or anyone here to stay with.”

“I want you to come live with me, Peyton. You always liked coming to visit me, and there's no sense in you staying here unless that's what you want to do.”

Peyton stood up from the couch and pulled her hair back into a ponytail. She noticed her aunt seemed a bit disheveled and thought that moving east might be good for the both of them. She enrolled at the University of Tulsa months ago, and the fall term started just a week prior. She liked the idea of transferring to the University of Connecticut and living with Aunt Charity in her early twentieth century home. Connecticut in the fall displayed the most beautiful trees and vivid colors she'd ever seen. Yes, this is exactly what Peyton needed to heal and forget the images of her dead family that filled her mind.

“That sounds nice, Aunt Charity. Thank you for being so kind.”

“Don't thank me, dear. We are family, and this is what family does.”

Charity rented a room in a local hotel so she wouldn't be a bother to Kendra and her family. They told her she was more than welcome to stay, but she insisted on getting a room for the week while they waited for the funeral. They still had to get everything in order for Peyton to move back with her. Peyton stayed in the hotel with her aunt as well, and the two laughed and reminisced as they talked about old times together and her aunt cried quite often.

“Remember that time when you were only eleven or twelve, and you all came out to visit for Christmas?” Charity said through her laughter on the queen-size bed.

“Oh my God, it snowed so much during that trip.” Peyton smiled and nearly allowed herself to laugh. “Wasn't there like a foot of snow or something?”

“At least. If I remember correctly, it snowed right after you guys flew in, a few days before Christmas, and then we got a huge nor'easter Christmas Eve night and into Christmas morning. We were stuck in the house all week until you had to fly back home.”

“Yeah, I remember that trip. Sabrina was six, and Blakey was four I think. We played in the snow so much our fingers felt like they were going to fall off.”

Peyton grew increasingly excited at the prospect of living in her favorite place she loved to visit. She missed her family, but the severity of what happened hadn't quite sunk in yet. Maybe when she saw them at the memorial service or when she watched their caskets be lowered into the ground it would cause her to feel sadness. For now, she felt more numbness than anything else. She looked at her aunt and wondered what life would be like now that they were gone. She understood that it would be different, but she liked the idea of the unknown. Something about it excited her.

“Aunt Charity, why haven't I cried for Mom and Dad, or Sabrina and Blakey? Shouldn't I be more emotional than I am right now?”

“There's no right way to respond or act.” Charity walked over to the chair near Peyton and took a seat next to the small table. “You saw something that most people never see in their lives, and it was incredibly traumatic for you. Your tears will come, but you don't need to feel bad or guilty for not breaking down. I know you love them, and they knew that too.”

The girls went to sleep that second night after the tragic morning of September 1. Peyton's eyes closed quickly from the weight of her tears that did not fall. Somewhere around 2:00 a.m., Charity woke up to the sound of a sharp scream.

“What is it?” Charity gasped with a tinge of fear. “Are you okay?”

She looked over and saw Peyton sitting straight up in her bed and panting with fear. Peyton's head dripped small beads of sweat as she clenched the sheets in her fists.

“I had a bad dream, it was so real.” Peyton looked straight ahead. She'd had dreams like this recently, but she wasn't prepared to tell Aunt Charity about them. She could not tell anyone about her dreams.

“What was it, sweetie? You scared me to death.”

“I don't know,” Peyton said as she lay down on her side. She closed her eyes to fall back asleep and pretend like everything was okay. “I can't explain what it was, just that there were flashes of a girl running. It sent chills down my spine. I know it doesn't make any sense, but it was the most terrifying thing I've ever seen.”

“I'm sorry, Peyton. You can sleep in bed with me tonight if you'd like to.”

She drifted back into a deep sleep before Charity finished talking, and her aunt went back to sleep herself. Morning arrived on time, and Peyton seemed better from the nightmare just hours ago. She acted like nothing happened and assured her aunt that it was no big deal. They made their way to Jansen Funeral Parlor in Tulsa to get everything planned for the funeral.

Charity worked as an author and an editor in Connecticut. Three of her novels had been published in the mystery genre. Her first book, Dying to Sleep, sold sixty thousand copies and set her up for a moderate advance for her next book. Bodies of Water sold only fifteen thousand copies due to poor marketing by the publisher, and Charity herself went to few signings and speaking engagements. Before writing her third novel, she started to edit for the New Milford Times newspaper as well, and she wrote opinion pieces each week. Her third book, Secrets From My Grave, released in July of last year and sold twenty thousand copies in fourteen months. It's sold better than her debut novel did and caused her two other books to pick up steam as well.

Charity's finances were stable at best. She had enough to live on, but writing hadn't made her rich by any means. The prospect of having to pay thirty to forty thousand dollars for the funeral was not within her means. She didn't have that kind of money, and her brother didn't own any sort of life insurance policy. Kevin and Samantha lived frugally with the three kids in Jenks. They talked often about getting life insurance in case something ever happened to them, but they never got around to it. Kevin ran his own lawn care business in Jenks, Tulsa, and Broken Arrow. He made respectable money cutting residential lawns while Samantha stayed at home to raise the kids and play a more traditional role.

With just the one income, the Hamilton's managed to save only five thousand dollars and had no retirement savings yet. The house held about thirty-five thousand dollars in equity, but Charity didn't want to spend that money on funeral expenses when she could use it for Peyton's college fund. After speaking with the funeral parlor, Peyton and Charity decided to have the family cremated and take their remains to Connecticut with them.

“If they're buried here,” Peyton said, “who will come and visit them?”

“That's true, and you can either keep their ashes with you or spread them somewhere special once you get settled in New Milford.”

Peyton liked the idea of having her siblings and parents close to her rather than in the cold ground. Charity settled on forty-eight hundred dollars for the cremation, and they decided not to have a memorial service at Peyton's wish.

“It's not like we can view their bodies,” she said to her aunt on the drive back to the hotel from the funeral parlor. “We don't have any family here either, just a few friends. I'd rather have a gathering at a park or something instead of in a stuffy church where everyone dresses up and pretends to be sad.”

“Why would you say that? No one would be pretending to be sad. All of your friends will want to say goodbye to your wonderful parents and precious brother and sister. What if we had a celebration of their lives at Riverside Park instead?”

The girls worked on packing up all of Peyton's belongings and put the house on the market. They moved all of their nice things into storage and kept in touch with the detectives each day to find out if they had any more information about the painter or any other leads in the case. They were allowed to go into the house the third day after the crime took place on September 4.

Charity sold both of her brother's vehicles, his work truck, and the family car. He owed two thousand on the truck still, but the car was paid for. Between the two vehicles she made eleven thousand dollars to help with the move to Connecticut, and she put the rest in a savings account that Peyton could use at her discretion. She paid for the cremation by selling Kevin's sports memorabilia collection. He'd collected autographed baseballs signed by Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and one by Mickey Mantle. He saved a Cowboys football signed by the entire starting lineup and head coach from 1994, the year they beat the Bills for the second straight year in the Super Bowl. He even acquired an autographed Michael Jordan rookie baseball card. The girls took his collection to an upscale sports memorabilia shop in Tulsa and received five thousand dollars for the entire collection. It was a fair price based on the research they did online, and neither of the girls held any sentimental value towards the items. That covered the cost for the cremation and urns to hold their remains in.

Charity contacted their close friends, only about thirty people in all (including kids), and they all met at Riverside Park on September 7 to remember Kevin, Samantha, Sabrina, and Blake Hamilton. She ordered a life-size poster made up of the entire Hamilton family that stood on an easel with flowers all around it, and the Arkansas River ran seamlessly in the background. There were no pastors or clergy there to say anything about the family. They rarely attended church, so it didn't feel right to either of the girls to put on a show when Peyton knew her parents wouldn't have wanted that.

No, they were all about simplicity. People spoke kind words and shed tears for the tragic loss of this family. They hugged Peyton and wished her all the best in her move to the Northeast. Several people handed her checks for one hundred dollars and another for five hundred. Their kindness made Peyton feel a little guilty for receiving gifts when she should have been mourning the loss of her family. She grew concerned that she didn't feel more remorse for her family as she had yet to shed a real tear for them. The closest she came to crying was when she found Blakey in his room, seemingly a lifetime ago. Peyton turned from the crowd of people and strolled over to the soothing water. She couldn't see her reflection down below, but she knew that there was more than meets the eye.