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My breath died completely. I squeezed her shoulders and spoke in the most controlled voice I could. “Will you tell me what happened?”
She raised a tear stained face to me, shock reflected there. “You don’t know?”
I shook my head, mute. No air left, no words. Just...nothing.
The ambulance door slammed and the engine rumbled. I banged the wall with my fist. “Wait a minute. Please.” The words barely made it past dry lips.
“Kyle, he killed himself. I heard the shot from the surgery. I was closing up and it– it echoed. Like the whole world went silent for him.” Fresh tears joined their brethren on her cheeks.
“Okay,” I murmured, patting her head gently, though I barely felt her pressed to me. “It’s okay. You found him?”
She nodded. “Yes. He... there was blood,” she whispered. Her whole body stilled.
Rachel was a vet. If this brought her horrors enough that she was already past the shaking stage, then...
I swallowed hard. “You had something to eat? Water?” The perfunctory words fell from my lips in a desperate bid at procrastination.
“You wanted to ask something?” A frowning paramedic appeared next to Jimmy, whose hat spun faster and faster.
“Can I see him?” I cleared my throat, my brain screaming with conflicting information while I tried to make sense of the world that flashed and caved around me. “Please?”
“It’s not–”
“It’s fine,” Jimmy said quickly. “Kyle is...family. Niece’s side,” he mumbled, studying his hat that stopped in his hands.
I flashed him an appreciative smile I neither felt nor did he see. “Thanks,” I muttered, following the paramedic to the back of the ambulance.
He paused and looked at me. “You seen a suicide before?” he asked softly, not without mercy.
“No. But I know his stories. From the war.”Twice. He went back fucking twice.
Daisy slunk against my legs, winding her way between them and whined softly. I reached down to scratch her ears, squeezing my legs about her long body.
The paramedic nodded, watching the dog. “You had love for him, huh?”
I swallowed. “Yeah.”
“This isn’t something we do. But... let me recommend you hold his hand. Don’t pull the sheet back.” His voice held a note of warning as he pulled the stretcher forward to us.
I nodded, gripping the old man’s hand when he drew the cloth back enough to expose the pale skin to the night’s air. When I touched him, life was gone. A partial waxen figure was all that remained.
“Goodbye, old man. Hope you have a beer with Sommers.” I squeezed his hand, hoping he heard me, and let go.
The wax hand dropped back to the stretcher with a soft thump. I pulled the cloth back to its position, nodding blindly to the paramedic as the bright lights and people gathered around blurred.
His hand gripped my shoulder, and he said something I couldn’t decipher in the muted bubble my head seemed to be stuck in.
Drunk Jack, pulling him from the bar in White Cap. His silence the whole way home. Unable to break from his past tosee a future. Unable to remember his niece, or anyone else. He’d been so damn happy, cleaning the place up. Making it pretty.
Totally out of character.
Being so lost in his grief that I couldn’t see what was right in front of me, the silent messages he sent that went unanswered.
All the signs were there. I just didn’t see them.
One by one the cars glided away into the night, taking the ambulance's light with them in their path. Jimmy piled Rachel into his car, giving me a single wave, his face in harsh relief beneath the moon that reappeared to track their exodus. In their absence, the world fell silent.
Jack was gone.
