Page 8 of Never Forget
I drove to the hospital. I don't remember the drive either, just the way my hands wouldn't stop shaking on the wheel, the way I kept thinkingthis is a mistake, there's been some kind of mix-up, I'll get there and he'll be sitting up in bed complaining about the food.
Jack's room was empty.
The bed was stripped. The machines were gone. The chair where Loretta had been sitting was pushed against the wall like no one had ever been there at all.
A nurse found me standing in the doorway. Young. Kind face. I hated her for the pity in her eyes.
"I'm so sorry. His body has been moved to the morgue." She hesitated. "Are you family?"
"I'm—" The word stuck. What was I? "He's my best friend."
Her expression shifted. Softer now. Sadder.
"Can I see him?" My voice didn't sound like mine.
"I'm sorry. Only immediate family."
I couldn't even say goodbye.
I stood there for a long time after she left. Staring at the empty room. The stripped bed. The silence where the machines used to beep.
Then it hit me.
Loretta. Rosie.
Had anyone told them? Did they know?
The thought of Rosie knocked the air out of me. Four years old. She'd already lost her mother. And now her father was gone too. How do you tell a child something like that? How do you explain that the person who was supposed to keep her safe isn't coming home?
And underneath that, the thing I couldn't outrun:
Jack was on that call because of me. Because I'd asked him to cover my shift. Because I'd gone to a party I didn’t even want to go to for a woman I didn't love.
He was dead because of me.
I made it to a bathroom down the hall before I fell apart. Locked the door. Slid down the wall until I was sitting on the cold tile floor.
And I broke.
I don't know how long I sat on that floor. Long enough for the shaking to stop. Long enough to remember how to breathe.
Then I stood up. Washed my face. Looked at myself in the mirror and didn't recognize the man looking back.
I drove to Jack's house.
The whole way there, I tried to figure out what I was going to say. How to put words around something this big. But every sentence I practiced in my head felt wrong. Too small. Too ordinary.
Loretta opened the door before I could knock.
She took one look at my face, and she knew.
Her hand went to her mouth. Her whole body crumpled. The sound that came out of her was something I never want to hear again.
I caught her before she fell. Held her in the doorway while she sobbed into my chest, her fingers gripping my shirt like I was the only thing keeping her upright.
It was a good thing Rosie was napping.
Eventually, Loretta calmed down enough to move inside. We sat in the living room, the house too quiet around us, trying to figure out what to do next.
