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“You don’t have to do it, John, you can wait outside if you want to.”
The warmth of her hand left his arm and she slowly walked up the porch, eyes closed, but her movements steady, never wavering. He watched her go—and couldn’t bear the feeling of being left behind. He followed, needing her close. Standing next to her made him feel like a giant on a normal day, but right now her presence was overwhelming to him, making him feel small. Like she was shielding him. From what he didn’t know. Didn’t dare ask.
“You can wait outside if you want.”
He didn’t, he couldn’t, she might as well have asked him to stop breathing.
There was silence and she just stood before him, breathing in, breathing out, a slow rhythm he could sense and hear. It grounded him, kept him focused.
“I need the keys,” she whispered softly, and somehow the hand was back on his arm. Steadying him as he walked up to the front door.
He was trembling, his hand was shaking as his fingers closed around the metal warmed by his own body heat inside his pocket. The soft click as he pulled them out almost undid him, almost made him drop the key ring. It was such a familiar sound, he’d heard it every day and never paid much attention to it. It had always been followed by a yell, a good noise, a happy noise, made by a human whirlwind that would launch itself into his arms. Daddy!
She didn’t hurry him along, the pressure on his arm never increased, but when he finally slid the key home it was her strength that turned it. Once the lock was open his hand fell away from it, to his side, where it hung limp. Useless.
She was in front of him again, a steady presence that stood between him and the nightmare he’d left behind. Together they moved toward the door and then they were in the house and he braced himself for the smoke and the smell and the sounds of wood creaking in protest as the fire bit into it—
“John, open your eyes, look around. It’s gone. The fire is gone.”
She was right, it was gone and the air didn’t strangle him, it didn’t even smell of smoke. Not much. It smelled like home, as long as he didn’t concentrate, as long as he didn’t remember, it smelt like home.
And then there was sight, shapes, forms. The armchair. The TV stand. The table, the couch, photos covered with soot, books with black spines…
He stood in the doorway and looked at what he could see of the living-room, lost in thoughts, in memories that painted reality in bright colors and she was back again, just out of reach, in the kitchen, preparing dinner.
“John, I have to look at the room. I need to be in the room. You just stay here if you want, it won’t take long.”
She moved and he moved with her without being aware of it. He didn’t see the stairs, he didn’t realize he was climbing them behind her, the only thing that was on his mind was the need to not be alone anymore.
But then there was smoke, not real, not there, not choking him, but it was still there, as real as the memories downstairs. And he flinched back, stopped moving at the top of the stairs.
“It’s okay, you can wait here.”
She moved away from him, slowly, down the hallway. He watched her go, watched the distance grow between them.
And then she turned around the corner and was gone.
He couldn’t move, couldn’t move a single limb, he just stood there, staring at the black walls, breathing in the smell of smoke that wasn’t there and listening to soft laughter he would never hear again.
Time lost its meaning, he didn’t know how much minuteshoursdays had passed when he heard her gasp. It was a soft sound, one she didn’t want him to hear, he was sure of it, but he did. And he couldn’t stay back, he couldn’t just stand there doing nothing, if there was something she had—she had seen… then he needed to be there.
He started to move toward the door, but it was a slow process, like he was trying to fight his way through a storm. A storm that didn’t ruffle his hair but was blowing through his very being, freezing his soul. It felt like it was trying to keep him back, away from the place where he’d fallen into the nightmare he couldn’t escape from. The closer he got, the slower he moved, until, in the end, it couldn’t have been faster than the slow motion they used in TV shows. Everything around him was slowing down, sounds grew longer, distorted, his own shadow reached the door ages before his searching fingers touched the frame.
She was standing in the middle of the room, right where the… where the crib used to be. She was looking up, at the ceiling, focused on the very spot he knew he would still see her if he could force himself to look up.
“Oh honey,” she whispered, but she wasn’t talking to him. “I’m so sorry.”
He wanted to look, wanted to see her, even if she would be burning, in pain, dying, but he couldn’t do it, he just couldn’t—
“Oh no, don’t look, John, don’t look, it’s okay.”
It’s not okay , he tried to tell her, I need to look, I need to help her. But his mouth wouldn’t form the words and even if it did he knew his breath wouldn’t carry them over his lips.
“I can feel it,” she murmured and he shrank back against the wall, away from her, from it. If she could feel it, it was still there, could still hurt them, could still hurt her. His breath stuttered in his chest. And stopped.
“It’s gone.” Her voice was soft again, near his ear. “It’s gone, John, it can’t hurt you anymore.”
Gone.
Like Mary. Like his life. Like everything he had been living for.
“No, John, you are not alone. You are not alone, your boys need you.”
I want Mary.
“I know.” Warmth returned to his arm. “She’s gone.”
His head dropped forward in a nod, he could feel it, she wasn’t there.
“I’m done now, we can leave if you want to go.”
He didn’t. He didn’t want to leave, he didn’t want to go back to where she wasn’t, where she would never be again.
“You take your time, John, you just take your time.”
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