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I’ll take any damn good luck I can get today because I just know it’s going to be a rough one.
* * *
My fingers are red, the skin raw from rubbing for at least a few minutes now.
No one is speaking. The room is utterly silent.
Platitudes. Condolences. All of us know there’s no space for them.
We all know they do nothing to help or change the fact that…
He’s gone.
And hell, we all knew it was a possibility going in, and yet here we are, still somehow shocked.
Still angry.
Neither Linda nor I is willing to give the news alone or make the other person do it, so we go together.
As a team.
So, it’s together that we tell the parents their son has…gone to a better place.
That empty rationale we always use.
I can only take solace in the fact that I know, for a fact, he isn’t suffering anymore.
That much is done.
They take it better than most would. They’re still sobbing, still a mess, but I think they’ve been preparing themselves for this.
Or at least trying to.
Trying to.
The rest of my shift goes by in a blur.
We don’t have any more heavy-duty procedures today. So I’m getting into the car with Luke before I even realize it.
“Hey.” Luke’s voice is soft, gentle. “Are you…well, no, I can see you’re not. What happened?”
“Lost another one.” All I can do is stare off into the distance through the windshield. “He…had an uphill battle. We all knew that. He’d been sick for so long.”
Luke’s fingers find mine over the center console again. I remember the other day, the other week?
Everything is blurring. But I remember the older man. I remember this…child.
“I’m sorry, Clara.” I can actually hear Luke swallow. “But sometimes when you’re older, when you’ve been fighting for so long?—”
“He wasn’t old. He was eight.”
Something changes in the air. Luke grips me harder, and when I look over, he seems especially affected.
I should ask about it. I should say something uplifting.
But I can’t find it in me to do so.
I’m just so damn tired. My shoulders ache, my feet ache, and my freaking soul aches.
