Love in Chipilo-Drabbles Scomiche

31: Devotion

Mitch went home after the mass to change his clothes, he came back wearing a big blue jacket. Looked so good, he stylized his hair and brought a big bouquet of red roses with him.

There was mariachi music playing there and people were still crying. I did actually, maybe I didn't like him because he was with Mitch but the guy made it impossible to hate him. He was always kind to me and my parents. We could be friends, real friends if Mitch weren't in the middle.

Mitch cried his eyes out again, I don't believe that his body could resist this anymore.

And then it came the moment for the coffin to go under the ground, to receive the last tears and the last flowers. Everybody walked away to their cars, his parents had to go, and a lot of people were going to go to their house for a family gathering. Mitch was supposed to be there too but he wasn't moving.

"Mitch, we have to go." His father said but he ignored them and fell on his knees caressing the plants aside this tomb and then lay in the earth.

"I want to buy this." He said. "I want to buy this place to be by his side."

"Mitch..." Nel went to him to help him to get up but he refused.

"Don't touch me!" He yelled. My parents and I didn't know what to do, we weren't used to this kind of devotion. "Leave me here. I don't want to go."

"Mitch, don't be ridiculous. We can't leave you here." His father tried to lift him.

"No! No!" He yelled and cried. "I don't want to go. I don't want to go! I don't want to leave him alone. He shouldn't be alone. I need to stay. Please! Please!"

My father went to them and tried to help Mike but I had to join because Mitch was a wreck mess and was fighting them. Between the three of us could make him enter the car but he continued his tantrum inside.

In the end, Mitch didn't go to the gathering but Pablo's father came to the Grassi's and stayed in the room with him. I don't know if it was because of respect or because they looked alike but Mitch calmed a bit and gave Nel a box of pills for Mitch.

"You are always going to be like a son to me, Mitch, he loved you until the end, every day you were together. You are always welcome home." Then he extended some papers. "Those were the places for my wife and I, we didn't think we will need one for our son, we thought we were going to die before him, that's how things should be. They are yours now, just as the house you both were building, the money he had, the ownership of his office in the College of Architects, everything. It belongs to you."

"We weren't married. Is yours, I only want the cemetery place, I-"

"No, Mitch." He interrupted. "He was going to marry you. Everybody knows that, and maybe there is no such thing as post-mortem marriage here in Mexico but everything belongs to you because that is what he would like. It's in his will."

"His will?"

"My son was in love with you, Mitch, everything is yours like from four years ago." He hugged Mitch. "You are going to be always my son, I really expect you to never forget how much you were loved by him. And I expect you to find someone who loves you just that much and no less. You are still young. He would be mad if someone loved you less than him."

"I don't think I can love this way again," Mitch said. "I always loved him more than I loved myself and now I feel barely alive. I can't even think about it."

"As a father and as a doctor, the only thing I can tell you is that time cures everything and maybe it won't be at 100% but we always expect for the best."