Final Words

By Patrick Ian O'donnell

Freelance editor/writer Colin Gunderson is summoned to the family home in Pasadena by his uncle and former guardian, William Benton. When Colin arrives, he finds Bill on a couch, weakened by a stroke. Bill is transported to a local hospital where, before being taken to the intensive care ward he mumbles a few cryptic words to Colin and dies befo

• Language: English
• Publisher: Book Vine Press
• Release date: Apr 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781954941335

Patrick Ian O'donnell

Patrick Ian O’Donnell was born and raised in Los Angeles and has enjoyed a varied career including teacher, university administrator, resort operator, and a principal of a registered investment advisory firm. His books include Death of an Oysterman, Illicit Cargo, and the Phil and Paula Oxnard murder mysteries: Ortega Night, McCollum’s Run, Of Doggerel and the Dean, and A Wrathful Vintage He has also published a book of short stories set in the California mother lode: Gold, Greed, Guile, and Gumption, and a chapbook of verse: The Least You Can Do Is Smile. He and his wife, Lorraine, live in Yorba Linda, California.

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Copyright © 2021 by Patrick Ian O’Donnell.

ISBN 978-1-954941-32-8 (softcover)

ISBN 978-1-954941-33-5 (ebook)

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual locales, events, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Printed in the United States of America.

Book Vine Press

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Palatine, IL 60067

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 1

William Benton, my late Uncle Bill, became my guardian when, at the age of fifteen, my parents, Lionel and Sarah Gunderson, died when their Cessna 172 crashed while taking off from Burbank airport in July of 1995. They had set out for Denver for my paternal grandparents’ sixtieth wedding anniversary. Originally, I was supposed to accompany them, but my senior division little league team managed in the last game of the regular season to win a spot in the playoffs, a new experience for both me and the team. I begged to bow out of the anniversary celebration, and my parents reluctantly allowed me to stay home. While they were to be gone, it was arranged for me to bunk-in with Uncle Bill, whose marriage had hit the rocks a year or so earlier. He lived in what is now my condominium on Los Feliz Boulevard, only minutes away from my parents’ home in L.A.’s Silver Lake District.

Bill, until the last few years of his life, always had a smile and a joke for everyone. His jokes weren’t the kind that began with a priest and a rabbi or two guys in a bar. His humor simply flowed naturally from his conversation: wordplay best describes it. Anytime I was feeling down, he could cajole a smile out of me, and immediately I’d feel better.

Upon his sister’s and brother-in-law’s deaths, he was faced with the challenge of dealing with his own grief as well as that of a fifteen-year-old orphaned boy. His task was made more difficult by the fact that I felt guilty staying home and missing that flight for no other reason than a baseball game or two. I should, I felt, have shared their fate. I was indeed more miserable than I had ever been, before or since.

There were two reasonable options for my care for the next three years while I finished my studies at John Marshall High, where I was about to enter my sophomore year. I could stay with Uncle Bill, now single, or with my uncle Bill’s older brother, Gregory, whom I always thought of as a bit of a horse’s ass. Pompous might be a more delicate way to express it. Uncle Gregory was always referred to as Gregory. I can’t imagine anyone calling him simply ‘Greg’. Bill—as different from Gregory as one could imagine—always spoke well of his brother, older by four years. Still, I had a question, to which I never gave voice, as to whether Bill was all that fond of him. Fortunately, because of the proximity of Bill’s condo to my school and childless Gregory and his wife, Alicia, being none too eager to take on the responsibility of the care and feeding of a teenager, it was an easy family decision as to who would provide my ongoing maintenance.

Although there would always be a profound sadness when thoughts of my parents’ death arose throughout the years, it was Bill’s care and compassion in those first few months that got me through it. My three years living with him meant that all other facets of my life from then on would be viewed through the lens of Bill Benton’s wry humor.

Bill had put his sense of humor to good use, having spent his working life as a writer for television sitcoms. He was never the lead writer for a series, but he contributed significantly to several successful comedies.

Bill retired upon moving to Pasadena in 2006, shortly after he acquired title to the house upon the death of my Uncle Gregory. It was then that I purchased Bill’s Los Feliz condo from him. I never learned how Gregory’s other assets were distributed. Bill never mentioned anything about it.

It struck me that Bill’s humorous take on the world seemed to have waned of late. He had become more introspective, brooding almost. I once tried to broach the subject with him, but it was clearly something he hadn’t wished to discuss.

One summer evening I answered my telephone to hear Uncle Bill on the other end of the line telling me I had better come over and ‘give him a hand’. There was an unfamiliar quaver in his voice, that made me think he might need something more than a mere hand. I told him I’d be there in less than half an hour. I immediately left the house, jumped into my aging Alpha Romeo and set out from my home near Hollywood for the thirty-minute drive to Pasadena.

The Pasadena house was built by my great grandfather, Albert Benton, in 1914. He had made a substantial bit of money developing orange groves in the San Gabriel Valley of which Pasadena is the tail end. Probably not the way citizens of what, for some reason, they call the Crown City would express it. In his will he left the house to his eldest son Stephen and stated his desire that it be passed through the generations: primogeniture for the common man. It landed with Uncle Bill thanks to Gregory being childless. Bill, also childless, assured me I’d be next in line.

The place was always referred to as ‘the house’ as if there were only one such building in the world or at least the only one in Pasadena. Then again, for families who have lived in Pasadena three generations or more, Pasadena and world are synonymous terms.

I had visited the house with my parents two or three times each year as long as I could remember. My mother, I think, felt obliged to pay her respects to her older brother from time to time, although I never remember Uncle Gregory ever visiting us.

The house was approximately four thousand square feet of what those in the know call Colonial Revival, a gabled roof and four Doric columns supported a small portico over the entrance. Green wooden shutters on both sides of four double hung windows that were evenly spaced across the clapboard siding.

A circular drive passed between the front of the house and a well-tended rose garden in lieu of a normally requisite lawn. Two steps rose from a path between the house and the rose garden to the portico and its heavy oaken front door.

A driveway on the left side of the house led to a three-car garage and a one-bedroom servant’s cottage at the rear. Behind the house, a large backyard with a railed wooden deck of some three hundred square feet overlooked the tennis court.

When I arrived half an hour later in response to my uncle’s quavering summons, I rang the bell, then immediately turned the door handle and found the door unlocked, which was well because I had come away without the key my uncle had entrusted to me two years earlier. I had never before had the need to use it, and it hung on a hook in my kitchen next to the one that held my own keys. I entered the house to find him lying on his back on one of two massive leather couches in the living room, his cell phone resting on a nearby table. Mrs. Crutchfield, his resident housekeeper, was away running errands.

Uncle Bill, what’s the matter? I asked, bending over his prostrate form confirming he was in fact breathing.

Not good, Colin, Bill muttered between labored breaths. Thanks for coming.

I was sure his voice was considerably weaker than it had been on the telephone no more than half an hour earlier. I think we’d better get you to the hospital. You didn’t by any chance dial 911?

I leaned in closer so that I could hear the reply. With great effort Bill mumbled, No, pal. Guess you better do that for me.

I picked up his phone and punched in the three digits. My call was answered immediately. I explained there was an older man seriously ill. I wasn’t sure of the cause. Possibly a heart attack or stroke. It must have occurred at least a half an hour earlier. We need to get him to a hospital immediately.

When I closed the cell phone and returned it to the coffee table, Bill reached out and, feebly pulling on my shirt sleeve, beckoning me to come closer. His lips began to tremble as he attempted to speak in what was by then a guttural whisper. I bent over him trying to understand what he was saying. It was something about the awful truth. I could barely make out what I thought was the word conscience and also what sounded something like gold and murder. Then two words, clearer than the rest, ‘promise me’. His eyes closed completely, and he no longer tried to speak. Much of what he has said made little sense. I thought he might be delirious.

The emergency response team arrived in less than ten minutes. Two minutes later they had my uncle strapped on a gurney and ready to roll. As they were about to push the gurney toward the door, Bill raised his hand in a feeble gesture pointing at me and limply signaling me to come closer. I could barely make out the words, There’s more I need to say.

Don’t worry, Uncle Bill, I assured him, I’m going to come along to the hospital. Once they get you more comfortable, we can talk. His head nodded slightly.

By ignoring speed limits and playing fast and loose with a couple of red lights, I managed to arrive at the Huntington Hospital emergency room only a few minutes after the medics had delivered Bill. I was told to remain in the waiting room while the doctors examined my uncle. After about fifteen minutes, a physician, who introduced himself as Dr. David Rowan, confirmed that Bill was suffering from a stroke and possibly a second one between the time he telephoned me and the arrival of the paramedics. He needed to be stabilized.

Mr. Benton is my uncle. We’ve always been very close. Is it possible for me to see him now? I asked.

Yes, but don’t expect much conversation. He’s barely coherent, and we need to keep him calm. You can stay only a few minutes. We’ll be taking him right away to intensive care.

Rowan led me to a small examining room where Bill was lying on a gurney, eyes closed, on oxygen, and seemingly breathing easily. He apparently sensed my presence because his eyelids fluttered and opened slightly. You’re going to be okay, Uncle Bill, I tried to assure him, placing a hand on one of his. With a sudden movement he grasped my hand more firmly than