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were pretty decent with him and his sister, so he would just ask himself what his mom or dad would do as each case presented itself. He’d made a promise to Hyun-Ok and as best he could, he meant to keep it.
    Finally, the day had come where he would set into place what he and his father had planned. Now these plans had to include a young boy too. It would certainly slow him down, but he’d never been a loner in life and started to warm to the idea of having the kid along. At least it gave him a legitimate reason to talk, with no one accusing him of talking to himself.
    After getting ready, he contemplated shaving, but somehow he just could not bring himself to do it. Looking at his own reflection, he saw only a worn man full of grief, someone he did not know at all.
    Ready for the day, he headed into the bedroom. He found a neatly folded solid blue comforter but no boy. “Bang?” he called, panicked, and he ran into the kitchen searching for the kid. He cursed himself for not leaving the door open. He did not have to look long. He found Bang staring out the glass door to his mother’s grave.
    The boy’s eyes had still not lost their sleepy morning gaze. “All right, buddy, it’s your turn,” he said with relief. “You do know how to turn on the shower, right?” The boy grabbed his backpack without looking up at Graham and stomped past him. He headed down the hall and into the steamy mist of the bathroom beyond. Graham watched him as he closed the door. Somehow, he did not quite believe the kid could do it all by himself, as tiny as he was.
    Graham turned on the Keurig one last time and leaned against the counter. He and his father joked, before the first of them died, about who would get the last K-cup of coffee. His dad dubbed it as the ‘last stander’ trophy. Graham flipped the white cup around a few times and opened the Keurig’s latch, popping the cup in with its familiar snap. They’d been without coffee for three weeks now. This last single cup was a kind of morbid symbol. He let the machine go through its rowdy routine. The pleasing aroma filtered through the room, which made the first tears of the day slip gently down his sunken cheeks. Graham lifted his steaming cup with a tip to his departed father as he sipped down the black brew. He needed this caffeine jolt to begin this day. His father was right. If it were not for the promised plan, he would not make it for long here in this silence.
    Bang emerged from the bathroom and walked back down the hall towards Graham, dragging his feet and his backpack. Besides that, he looked and smelled fairly well cleaned to Graham’s summation.
    “Good job, buddy. You look pretty clean. Let’s get some breakfast and start packing up this place. We have got a lot to do before we head out tonight,” Graham told him.
    Graham reached down and lifted up the boy’s light weight easily onto the granite counter top. He needed to talk to him while preparing some leftover beans and rice he’d made the day before. Initially, it was enough to last him and his dad a few more days. Now, they’d have to throw some out.
    Luckily, for Graham’s family, his mother’s southern roots taught her always to stock a pantry well. She kept twenty-five pound sacks of pinto beans and rice in quantity. She shopped at Costco weekly and always prepared for emergencies. After having lived through the aftermath of several hurricanes, droughts and one calamity after another while growing up in south Texas, she argued it just made sense to be prepared.
    While the family quickly grew tired of beans and rice, they never grew hungry. Grabbing a second bowl for the boy, Graham considered him and asked something his mother always asked his friends. It had always caused him great embarrassment as a kid.
    “Are you allergic to anything?”
    The boy just raised his shoulders and made a face instead of answering. Not ever running across anyone allergic to the concoction, Graham decided it was a safe