He spoke as if nothing had happened, his words tumbling over each other in nervous bursts. “I told her I’d be home early, you know? I always say that. But there was traffic, and the boss kept me late again. She thinks I make excuses, but I really tried this time. I really—”
I stayed quiet, letting him spill it all. I’ve learned it’s better to listen than to interrupt. They always need to be heard, even if the words don’t matter anymore.
Then it hit him. His voice faltered mid-sentence, and his gaze dropped to the table beneath us. To his own body—pale, motionless, the sheet pulled halfway over his chest. His lips parted, but no sound came.
I leaned closer, my tone gentle, steady. “It’s time.”
Confusion clouded his eyes first, then horror. The memories rushed back into him—the screech of tires, the windshield shattering, the abrupt silence after the crash.
“I… I didn’t make it home.” His voice broke into a whisper.
“No,” I murmured. “But you’re not alone.”
He looked at me for a long moment, as if the weight of my calm could anchor him. Slowly, his shoulders loosened, the tremor in his breath faded. That’s when I knew—he had finally begun to understand.
The body lay cold under the harsh glow of the lamps, the sterile scent of disinfectant clinging to the air. The pathologist struggled with his tools, his hands hesitating as if the flesh itself resisted him. But I knew better. The soul still lingered, unsettled, clinging to the echo of its own heartbeat.
He hovered near the table, his spirit trembling, horrified by the sight of the scalpel tracing the skin he once called his own. I placed my hand on his head—what was left of it in this form—and whispered softly. “It’s all right. You can rest now. Your mama is waiting for you there. You’ll be safe.”
His breathing stilled, though his body had long since forgotten the motion. When I pressed my forehead to the corpse, I felt the last thread of his presence unravel, like smoke fading into the air.
Then silence. Not the silence of an empty room, but the kind that follows when someone steps in unnoticed. I didn’t need to look. I knew.
“Spying on me?” I asked, keeping my voice low, almost amused.
She didn’t answer. She never needed to. Life always made herself known in the quietest ways—by the warmth she carried, by the ache she left in my chest when I realized she could never be mine. She stood beside me, her eyes locked on the lifeless body. That look of hers—melancholy, pity—it was the sort of gaze I could never hold. I bring endings; she brings beginnings. We are mirrors that refuse to touch.
“He’s gone,” I told her. “For now, he’s in a good place. The rest…” I glanced at her, at the glow that clung to her even here, in this room of stainless steel and decay. “…depends on you. What life you’ll grant him when the time comes.”
She said nothing, but her silence was louder than any words. I thought then—as I often do—that for her, I would turn every morgue into a nursery, every cold slab into a cradle. But she never looks at me that way. Not the way I look at her.