Chapter 20: Familiar Faces

By a/k/a Simon
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Bouquets of flowers had been arriving all morning to the Trafalgar Brothers Funeral Home. Abe and his staff had done their best to arrange the mish mash of gaudy floral designs into a respectful display on and around the coffin of Mrs. Helen Kroeger. Until the last minute before four o’clock, new tributes continued to arrive, forcing the associates to constantly improvise new places to put more flowers. By the time the wake started and the first attendants appeared, the Front Room of the mortuary, the larger of the two rooms, looked more like a florist than a place to hold a funeral service. Abe Trafalgar always hated it when Townies died.

The Kroeger family arrived a minute after four, Shane’s SUV unloading Shane, his wife Hazel, and Murphy. Megan, Greta, and Eddie in her Subaru followed close behind. Ryan had yet to be seen that day and they could no longer wait for him. They just assumed he was coming separately.

Abe met them at the door and gave gentle hugs to the women, reassuring handshakes to the men. As they spread out around the Front Room, inspecting the work the funeral home had done, they each slowly made their way to the casket. Fending off melancholy, Greta complimented the work of the morticians, saying how nice Helen’s corpse looked. She held Megan’s hand as she spoke, Eddie standing a few feet back. Shane couldn’t find it in himself to stare at his mother’s dead body too long and wandered over with his wife to check out the floral arrangements people had sent. He would read off a tag and explain to Hazel the names she didn’t recognize, family friends who hadn’t been seen in years, former employees of the plant that left their lives when the plant closed, long ago schoolmates that even Helen herself would vaguely remember, were she still capable of memory. The flowers said nothing about how the giver’s life had intersected the deceased’s, just that it had and that she was in their thoughts.

Reverend O’Leary walked into the room, the first guest to arrive, echoing Abe Trafalgar’s physical displays of condolence. He looked not entirely unlike Father Mark, the priest Megan and Eddie had helped on the drive up from DC, thin and wiry, a kind demeanor if maybe a little bit older than the previous servant of the Lord. He took them all to a corner of the room where there were chairs. He sat down with Greta, the rest standing over them, asking questions to help put together a proper eulogy. Reverend O’Leary had known Helen Kroeger fairly well, as well as he did most members of his congregation, but he wanted insider information to personalize his speech.

Once his line of questioning was finished, the reverend approached the coffin, knelt on the stool before it, and said a silent prayer. After he left, Greta took the moment to have her own time with Helen. She folded her hands together and prayed, asking her God to grant Helen peace after enduring the long horror of cancer. While she had his attention, she asked for God to take care of Murphy, to not let her brother suffer long. Finally, she prayed for the family, knowing that it would take the Lord’s hand to make things right.

Greta walked away from the casket and was replaced by Shane. He felt uncomfortable, his faith more a thing he said he had than something he actually believed. God was useful when Shane wanted something, when there was something to gain. God was to be blamed when bad things happened, when the world didn’t turn out how Shane wanted it. God was in Shane’s life in name only. But he was oblivious to that fact when, despite his attitude, he made a brief request that God look over his mother in the afterlife.

Hazel went next. She wore a tight fitting black dress that perfectly sculpted her surgically enhanced breasts and liposuctioned ass. On her head she had a black hat with a fishnet veil, over he shoulders a white silk shawl. If you didn’t look at her face, you’d think someone put Audrey Hepburn’s style on a Playboy Bunny. Maybe hundreds of people would be attending the wake and Hazel wanted them all to notice her.

She bent down in front of her mother-in-law, bowed her head, and thought of nothing. Less than a minute passed and she stood up, wiping a forced tear from her eye as she rejoined the group across the room. She made a display of embracing Shane before pulling a compact out of her purse and checking to make sure her mascara wasn’t smudged.


Guests and mourners, distant family and close friends wandered through the doors of the Front Room over the next hour. Mitch Tedesco, Shane’s friend from elementary school, and his wife Debbie paid their respects and talked about the housing project on the other side of the highway. Rich Vallely showed up and joined in the conversation, Rich being the football player who got Shane the job as a housing inspector. An assortment of selectmen came and went, adding their two cents to the topic, while also taking their time to glad-hand the rest of the family and schmooze with their constituency.

Sergeant Webster and Officer Susan Fatchinelli made an appearance, checking with Eddie to see how he was doing, complimenting him on his help with the Shadowclaw incident. Webster told Shane that the mall was going to need some repair work, implying there might be some money in it for him as inspector.

Adam Canton kissed up to Shane, assuring him that the catering for the gathering after tomorrow’s funeral would be handled by him personally. There would be no mistakes and no need for Shane to tell anyone about the illegal construction that Canton Market had done a few years back.

The entire time Shane held court over the wake, his father Murphy sat trembling, strapped to the wheelchair by his son’s side. Everyone who came knew Murphy and said hello, though he recognized very few of their faces. Murphy was a symbol, a message to everyone who passed through the doors. Murphy was the old patriarch of the Kroeger family and Shane was the new. Shane made perfect use of the wake to establish himself to anyone who questioned that. It was like his coronation.


Megan and Eddie spent much of the wake apart. While Eddie played the wallflower, she was serving as Greta’s hand of strength, by her aunt’s side at all times. Well-wishers would approach, offer condolences, then be distracted by the return of the Kroeger girl. Rather than dwell on the dead they would ask what Megan had been up to, what it was like living in the nation’s capital, telling her she should come up and visit more often. Megan took it all in stride, embracing and shaking hands, smiling and nodding.

Midway through the wake Ryan showed his face. But he did not come alone. From across the room, Eddie recognized the other man as Ryan’s belligerent friend from the mall. Megan recognized him as well, though her memories were more frightening.

It was very quickly obvious that Ryan had been drinking. From a distance you could see the reactions of the people he addressed. As he greeted them, extending a hand or patting someone on the shoulder, they would draw back, their faces slightly scrunched from the smell of alcohol. Both men were carrying clear bottles of spring water, though it was more likely the bottles held vodka or gin, judging by the expressions the men made when taking a sip from them.

Eddie could see Megan’s anxiety, despite how well she tried to hide it. When Ryan and his friend got halfway to Megan, Eddie went to her side.

Ryan half-stumbled up to Greta. “Pretty nice turn out,” he slurred. “Didn’t know Ma had so many friends.”

Greta was not pleased, but she did her best to conceal her judgement. “Glad you could make it, Ryan,” she said, hoping not to sound sarcastic. “Who’s your friend?”

“This is Derrick,” he said, pointing a thumb at him. “We used to work together.”

“Oh, what do you do, Derrick?” she asked.

Derrick let out a chuckle that might have been more of a belch. “Horticulture,” he said, amused by himself.

“Is that what you call it?” Megan asked, empowered by the crowd.

Greta looked at Megan. “Do you two know each other?”

“Oh yeah,” Derrick said, a tiny spark in his brain triggering a memory. “We met before. She helped me out one day. Hey, I never did call you like I said I would.”

“Well I was never looking for drugs,” Megan said. “So I guess there was no point.”

Eddie’s suspicions were correct. This was the drug dealer who had forced Megan to load Ryan’s pot plants into his truck. A surge of adrenaline rushed into his body, doing its best to prepare him for whatever might happen next. His body tensed.

“That’s what he means by horticulture,” Megan clarified. “This guy is Ryan’s drug dealer. We met when he came by the house one day to collect a drug debt. Ryan wasn’t home, but his plants were. So tough guy over there muscled me into helping him steal all the drugs Ryan had. He was so nice, he even gave me a little kiss for my effort.”

Hearing the details again, with the perpetrator right in front of him, was making Eddie squeamish. It sickened him to finally put a face to the story. He wanted to rip the guy’s throat out, return the pain he had made Megan feel tenfold. The only thing stopping him was the fact that a memorial service was in progress. Otherwise, powers or not, Eddie would already be on him.

Greta was noticeably confused. She had heard bits and pieces of the story over the years, but always thought it had been exaggerated, as stories do when passed from person to person. In her mind, Ryan had always been troubled, she’d hoped he would one day get his act together. She had no idea the lengths to which his trouble extended. She wasn’t naive enough to think he’d never tried drugs, or had a drinking problem. But to be wrapped up with an actual drug dealer was more than she would have imagined.

“I can’t believe you brought him here,” Megan said, chiding her brother without restraint.

“Fuck you,” Ryan came back, with not nearly as much decorum. “She was my mother more than she was yours. I can bring whoever the fuck I want to her funeral.”

“Really? So why don’t you go up and say a prayer for her,” Megan suggested. “Come on, Ryan. You’ve been avoiding everything about this funeral since the beginning. What’s the matter? Afraid of what her being gone means? Worried that you might have to actually start acting like an adult, maybe get a job, clean yourself up? I bet the reality of the situation has you shitting in your pants.”

Ryan didn’t move. He didn’t speak. Nobody was even sure if her words were registering in his brain.

“Come on,” Megan said, grabbing his wrist. “Let’s go up together.”

He pulled away violently. “Don’t you ever fucking touch me!” he yelled, loud enough that everyone noticed. The commotion caught Shane’s attention and he started over toward his family without excusing himself from the conversation he was having.

“I think maybe we should all calm down,” Greta suggested, trying to diffuse the explosive situation. “Ryan, maybe you and your friend should go to the other side of the room.”

“I’ll go wherever I want,” he said ardently.

“Go over to the other side of the room,” Shane said, towering behind him, cane in hand.

The two brothers stared at each other for an interminable moment. Drunk, Ryan was the one to finally back down. “What the fuck ever, man,” he said, starting to walk away. “Lets get the fuck out of here.” Ryan and Derrick staggered through the crowd of people and out the door. A few seconds later his SUV could be heard squealing out of the parking lot.

Shane turned to his sister. “You just had to start trouble, didn’t you?”

Megan didn’t back down like her younger brother had. She stood her ground until Shane finished his posturing. A minute later she was in the bathroom, crying her eyes out.


In the bathroom, Megan let it out. So much pent up anger, so much pain from memories she tried to compartmentalize and hide in the recesses of her mind, it all manifested in tears. Some of those tears were for her mother, the things she would never get a chance to say. Tears were for her father, dead alive, drifting less and less back to the realm of lucidity. She cried for Eddie and the things Wanda Schenkman had said just before going into labor to a child with a questionable father. And she cried for Shane, for Ryan, for the memories so far in the past, when they were still young, when they could have fun with each other. It hadn’t always been like this. But with each passing year, with every new incident and confrontation, attack and manipulation, it became harder and harder to remember the few genuinely good times they’d had together. Eddie had told her that his mind was a blank before the age of five, that the day he got his powers was the day his life really began. Megan could remember being five, playing in the pool with her older brother or holding Ryan as a baby. Looking back, the day her younger brother came into the world was the day when the life she thought she was going to have really ended.


Eddie stood near the bathroom door, far enough away that he couldn’t eavesdrop on her crying, but close enough that he could protect her privacy from any of the other guests. When she emerged her face around her eyes was puffy and the whites were bloodshot, despite her best efforts to conceal the truth of her reaction. Luckily she was at a wake, and teary eyes were not only expected, they were encouraged.

As he escorted her back into the Front Room, they were stopped by Shirley Moores, the editor of the Putnam Bulletin. “I just wanted to let you know that I changed your mother’s obituary to include you,” she said. “I’m really sorry about that. If I had known about the mistake beforehand I could have spared you a call. I know your mother would have really wanted you mentioned.”

Megan thanked the woman and continued with Eddie to find Aunt Greta. Greta was standing by one of the larger floral displays in the far corner of the room, talking with a pair of nurses who worked at the home her brother Murphy stayed at. She introduced them to Megan and Eddie, and Megan thanked them for coming.

“I’m going to go up,” Megan said, meaning she wanted a moment by herself with her mother. Greta gave a pleasant smile and Eddie let her go.

Once Megan was out of earshot, Eddie said, “That was some scene, before,” meaning the scuffle with Ryan and his friend.

Greta didn’t answer. Eddie looked over and saw her lower lip trembling. “Are you okay?” he asked, putting a hand on her shoulder.

“I don’t know,” Greta confessed. “This family…Megan, Ryan, Shane…Murphy… there’s just so many problems. I guess I was stupid enough to believe that everything was going to work itself out at some point, that things had to get better because we’re family. But now…It’s all just so…”

“I know what you mean,” Eddie said, forlorn. “I’ve been trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do, what Megan wants, what I want. I hate to say it, but if this is what family is like…”

Just then, a short little black girl in a dark blue jumper walked up to Greta and stood before her. “Aunt Greta, I’m really sorry about what happened to Aunt Helen. I miss her a lot.”

The girl was Samantha Orton, the adopted daughter of Frank and Mindy Orton, the formerly raucous neighbors that lived next door to the Kroeger’s. Greta bent down and gave the girl a hug, looking up to see Frank and Mindy approaching.

“She wanted to come,” Mindy said. “We explained what happened to Helen and she wanted to come say good-bye. We weren’t sure if it was such a good idea, her being so young. But she was very persistent.”

Greta pulled back from the girl and looked into her young, innocent eyes. “Well, I’m very glad you came,” she said, smiling. “I know Aunt Helen is watching from heaven and she’ll be very happy to see you here.”

Mindy and Greta hugged, then Frank and Greta. “If there’s anything you need,” Frank said. “Anything we can help out with, just let us know.”

“Thank you,” Greta said, taking another look at Samantha. “You’re doing a wonderful job with her.”

“We’re doing our best,” Mindy said.

The Ortons wandered off to visit with other familiar faces. Eddie began to rethink his position on families. Maybe they weren’t all hopeless.


Megan knelt on the stool before her mother and stared at her face, wishing it could still talk. The blush on her cheeks was wrong, she thought, her mother would never wear so much makeup. It had been years since Megan had last seen her and the cancer had not been kind. But when she looked at her mother she didn’t see the withered corpse lying in the coffin. Her mind remade her, taking her back in time to when her mother was still vital, still active. She had been one of those women who didn’t look her age. At fifty she still looked thirty. But now, dead at sixty-one, she looked hundreds of years old.

Mom, I just want to say that I’m sorry. I still don’t understand why you did what you did, but I can’t keep blaming you. Things didn’t go the way they were supposed to, I guess. Maybe you were just doing whatever felt right at the time. Maybe it’s something I won’t understand until I have kids of my own. I only wish it all could have ended differently, that we didn’t spend so much time apart. Of course I realize that now, now that it’s too late. That’s the way it goes, though. I can’t keep holding on to all this pain. So I just want you to know that I’m sorry and that you’re in my thoughts. I hope you can forgive me.


She stood up from the stool and wiped the tears from her eyes with a wad of toilet paper from the bathroom. She smiled at the man standing behind her, waiting for his turn.

Across the room, the man did not go unnoticed. Two people recognized him instantly, though they attached different names with his face.

“I can’t believe he came,” Greta said, staring at the praying man by the casket.

Eddie was confused by the sudden appearance of Roland Balthasar, the man who claimed to be able to return his powers to him. “What is he doing here?” he said aloud, but to himself.

“That’s my brother,” Greta said, answering his question.

“What?”

“That’s my brother, Peter. Megan’s uncle.”

Peter Kroeger, the previous generation’s black sheep. The man who quarreled with his father over safety measures at the nuclear power plant. The genius scientist who had disappeared after a falling out with the family. Peter Kroeger, who Eddie had met at the Canton market as Roland Balthasar, the man who promised power.

He finished his prayers and approached Greta and Eddie, both awestruck at his presence. She barely moved as he embraced her. “Greta, I’m so sorry for your loss. I know you and Helen were close.”

“Peter,” Greta began, stumbling for the words. “Thank you for coming. Can you…”

“I can’t stay. I’m sorry.” He looked over at Eddie and tipped his head. “Eddie,” was all he said in acknowledgement, before the former hero could respond. And with that he swiftly made his way to the door.

“Well, that was a surprise,” Greta said, still dumbfounded by the encounter.

“You said that was Peter?” Eddie asked her, still having trouble piecing things together. Greta nodded. “Peter Kroeger?” he asked again, to another nod.

But nods weren’t going to be good enough. Eddie wanted answers and the only man who could give them was about to disappear again.

Megan returned from the distraction of Barbara Long, the mother of the boy that Ryan had punched so cruelly years ago. She saw the looks on Eddie and Greta’s faces. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“I can’t talk right now,” Eddie said, taking off for the door.
“What was that all about?” she asked Greta. “Did it have something to do with that man I saw you two talking to just now?”
“That man was your uncle Peter,” Greta told her.
The mention of the name, a figure who had been elevated to lore in the family history, piqued her interest. She followed Eddie out the door at a far distance, hoping to grab a moment with her long lost relative.

“Hold it!” Eddie cried, grabbing the door of Peter Kroeger’s car before he could shut it. “What’s the deal here?”

“Deal?” the man asked, as if he didn’t know what Eddie was talking about.

“You told me your name was Roland Balthasar. But just now Greta tells me that you’re Peter Kroeger. So which is?”

“Both,” the man admitted. “I used to be Peter Kroeger. But after all the trouble at the plant, my name as a scientist was ruined. So I changed it and started over. I made a new reputation as Roland Balthasar. A strange name, I’ll confess, but I like it.”

“And the stuff about getting me my powers back…” Eddie asked. “Was that true, or just some bullshit to mess with my head?”

“Again, both.” He was making it difficult. “Consider it a test.”

“A test?”

“Contrary to what you may have heard, Eddie, I love my family. My disappearance may suggest otherwise, but truth is I hold a deep affection for these people. Sure, it’s not perfect. But like they say, you can’t choose your family.”

“What does this have to do with my powers?”

“I can’t choose my family, Eddie, but I can have some influence over which outsiders are let in. I can get you your powers back. You’ve no doubt called on your connections to verify my claim, so you know I’m telling the truth. But if I do, how is that going to affect my family? What role will you play if you become a superhero again? You weren’t very…present, the last time.” He was enjoying this too much. “So you have to make a choice, Eddie. You realized that when I gave you my business card at the market. Your powers…or her.” He motioned to Megan, approaching the car.

He started the engine and put the car in reverse. “You can’t have both, Eddie.” Megan looked at the man. “Hello, Megan,” he said as he backed out of the parking spot and drove away.

Right away she recognized his voice. The way he said her name. He was the man she’d called. The man who could give Eddie back his powers.

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