FORTUNE: A FREENBECKY STORY

Chapter 25 👩‍👧‍👦

Their lips were centimetres apart. Becky could feel Freen's breath on her top lip but could not bring herself to pull away. When Freen eventually noticed Becky's breath shallowing she edged closer to her lips. Becky still did not pull away.

Freen did not plan or expect this but she instinctively closed the gap between their lips.

This kiss was not desperate like their previous kisses, it was not impatient or lustful. Freen did not passionately swirl her head and tongue around. She just planted a single tender and soft kiss on Becky's lips.

Becky without a word exited the car.  She did not look back. She entered her house leaving the to-go box on the seat.

Becky entered her home and stood at the door taking in what had just happened. Becky stood there still, so distracted she did not notice Richie and Ma sitting at the dining table in front of her.

When Becky finally looked up she saw Richie and Ma staring at her. Their faces were downcast. Looking at their faces wet and eyes swollen, Becky knew exactly what had happened.

"He's dead," she thought.

Da was born in 1952 in Brixton, London and grew up in the city with his parents and two sisters. He was nerdy and effortlessly landed at the top of his class. He was gifted and once built a machine to bowl cricket balls at him 'cause his sisters didn't want to. Da loved cricket and also loved invention. That's how Becky got into invention and further committed to it when she chose to study physics.

Da started undergrad at Anglia Ruskin University, but transferred to Cambridge University "in protest" of ARU's position on Vietnam. They supported combat missions flown by Royal Air Force aircrafts from bases in Thailand against targets located in Laos and North Vietnam. He did his Master's Degree and his PhD at The University of Oxford, the same university as Ma.

Apparently, one day Ma was standing in a friend's doorway when she saw a skinny drunk guy in the background who gave her a big Charlie Chaplin wave.

They would marry, a Thai girl from a fishing village and a London boy from the city, have a son and daughter, and move to Bangkok, where he settled in a job teaching at the business school. Though while at university Da created a water filtering system he believed would save lives, he eventually sold it off in order to teach. He called teaching the most noble profession much different from business in his eyes which was a lot less morally aligned with him.

He was a kind and inquisitive man and noble but also sort of a hometown hero. Just for leaving London for pastures unknown he seemed like someone who had made it out not to mention being so successful in business. He was sacrificial and kind to a fault. He didn't care much about what others thought about him only what he could confidently believe about himself. Even so, his family loved him, his friends and colleagues respected him and he always left others with a positive impression. He was really alive and he really lived.

Becky spent the night sobbing in bed with her Ma. The last time she saw her Da was the day she left for Bangkok. She had flippantly remarked "see you soon" as he dropped her off and told him to stop when he smothered her with kisses.

Grief in the beginning is specific. It is awkward questions and sad answers, it is rooms you once stood in together, and places the two of you went to, only now it's just you.

You gradually remember all the things that won't look like you'd thought they would: like how he'd never be at mine or Richie's weddings or see us make waves in the world, he'll never know our children and never meet our spouses. You remember that next Christmas will be the first Christmas without him and that every subsequent cricket match we watch will now be watched without him. Every upcoming annual event like a birthday or anniversary will remind us of that same event one year ago, when he was still here.

Now nothing would feel right. It was now cold, and our hearts were now these icy bundles heaving behind our ribs.

The next day we received a call from my grandmother in London to start making funeral preparations.

Heartbreak is coming for the next to weeks but it will be worth it in the end.

As always, please feel free to leave a comment telling me what you think is going to happen next! That makes it more fun for me too.

That's it for this week guys!

- I'll be back with five chapters next week. -