Killing Me Softly (#Wattys2016)

THREE

THREE

The ensuing days were draped in heavy fog. Before Tracy had gone jogging she talked to Phillip, out of town for a pharmacy convention, mentioning that if the promised snowstorm didn't materialize, she was going to stop at the store on the way home for a few things and would call him when she returned.

He never heard from her.

Her body had been discovered along the lakefront, her face bashed in. Her empty wallet was found a few feet away and the police ruled it a mugging gone wrong, but had no leads. Phillip took on the gruesome task of IDing the body. Tracy had requested cremation and Sondra was thrust into the role of trying to comfort her parents and be strong for Phillip. Her mother, Mimi, never stopped crying, while Phillip and her father, Gordon, cycled between stoic strength and jagged sobs.

Tracy's memorial service brimmed with people from all corners of the country. Sondra, unable to read the poem her mother had requested, broke down mid-stanza. Phillip rushed to her side and with one reedy arm planted around Sondra's shoulders, finished reading it for her, his own voice quivering with corked tears.

In the end, it had all been too much for Mimi who, after the service, fled in a taxi back to her hotel downtown, leaving Gordon, Sondra, and Phillip to accept the well-meaning platitudes and stifle their own tears. Sondra wished she could have hopped a ride with her mother, because, truth be told, all she wanted to do was lie down on the floor, curl up in a ball and cry herself tearless. When people didn't think she could hear them, they would tut-tut about how terrible it was to outlive your children.

Sondra was starting to think it was pretty shitty to outlive your younger sister.

It took the better part of five hours to clear the house of mourners-people reluctant, it seemed, to leave, as if the simple act of departing Tracy's house would mean they really would have to say goodbye. They lingered long into the night until Sondra had finally started to hint it had been a long day.

Exhausted, Sondra flopped onto the couch in the living room, watching the promised flurries float across the night sky. She heard a noise and tilted her head to see Phillip come in. He too seemed mesmerized by the fat, juicy flakes drifting to the frozen ground. She noticed he was clutching Tracy's burgundy cardigan sweater.

"When it finally hit me that she was missing, I found myself carrying this sweater around, wondering if she was cold and just wishing I could wrap her up in it." He sighed. "And it smells like her."

Sondra sniffed and turned her attention back to the snow. "I wondered the same thing. If she was cold, I mean."

Phillip sat down on the couch next to Sondra. For several minutes, neither of them spoke.

"You know she called me a few days before... I was right in the middle of something and I told her I'd call her back and then I forgot..." Sondra said, her voice trailing off.

"Don't blame yourself, Sondra. It's not worth it."

Sondra sighed, shaking her head and they both fell silent again.

"Was she happy?" Sondra asked to break the silence.

"What?"

"I mean... was she happy? The last few months..." Sondra was unable to keep her eyes dry.

Phillip sighed. "Yeah, I mean... she loved her job, her friends, we were talking about starting a family in a year or so... she... God... that last time we talked, she told me how much she loved me..."

Phillip cried as he remembered his last conversation with his wife. "We just didn't have enough time. We were supposed to have our whole lives together." Phillip stopped and looked down at his hands, rolled together like balls of yarn.

"At least she was happy," Sondra murmured, the tears streaming down her cheeks. "That's something at least..."

"Without her, I just..." Phillip's voice cracked as another tidal wave of tears washed over him. Sondra reached out her arms and drew him into them and they sobbed together.