Sixteen Small Deaths Read Free Page B

was taken, but I knew that this was a sliver of happiness, a flash in time where nothing else mattered except the love burning between these three souls.
    I turned on the ignition and blew past his house, not taking a second to see if he was standing by a window. Eyes focused on the road, and soon enough I was flying on the highway, eager traces of snow falling from the sky like little rogue angels dancing in a winter solstice.
    #
    I found a hotel less than an hour later. I plunked down my credit card at the front desk and asked for the cheapest room they had available. I knew that I wanted to sleep off the day, let the thoughts in my head burn into embers wild as a forest fire. Two flights of stairs and my room was in the very corner of the floor. I didn’t bother to turn on the television, just kicked off my boots and placed my cell phone on the nightstand next to the clock radio.
    At some point, my eyes closed and I remember the cooling whispers of the night beckoning me to slumber.
    #
    My cell phone rang around three in the morning. On the second ring I jerked out of a dead sleep, unaware I was resting on a hotel bed. I flipped open the phone without ever seeing who the caller was. The voice was a woman’s, and if I didn’t know that I was now fully awake I would forever swear that what she said was just the soundtrack to a temporary nightmare.
    Her name was Rianna Peterson and she was a doctor calling from Massachusetts General Hospital. My father had dialed 911 and only a second after the operator answered, silence spilled from the other line. Police and an ambulance rushed to the house and found my father crumpled on the kitchen floor, his fingers still touching the receiver. He had experienced a massive heart attack shortly after noontime. Doctor Peterson said the paramedics found him dead.
    I closed the phone and immediately leaned forward, ignoring the urge to let my insides spill to the carpeted hotel floor.
    #
    I drove that night with fire in my eyes, the smoldering strands of shock still waltzing in my head. The ride to the hospital should have taken three hours, but with my foot on the gas and my heart in my hand, I walked through the front doors in just over two. I was barely coherent at the front desk, managing to say the words “father” and “Armstrong” and “heart attack.”
    Doctor Peterson greeted me a minute after, olive skin somewhat comforting in a sea of lost souls scattered about the hospital lobby. She shook my hand with the grace of a beautiful woman and asked me if I was okay. I told her “No” and smiled,unaware that I was gazing into the distance.
    “I know this is difficult for you, so I’d be happy to call any relatives that might need to know what happened.” She placed a hand on the side of my arm, unpainted fingernails plucking the rogue fuzz from my jacket.
    “Yeah,” I said. “His brother, my Uncle Charlie. If you can, please call him.” I shook her hand again and walked away, forgetting to button up my coat as I walked out the front doors and into the throes of December.
    A gentle sniff of the air told me that another storm was coming. There were already four inches of snow on the ground, and before long I’d be wondering when winter would be over. I knelt down and ran my fingers along the concrete, swirling figures into the ground that were symbolic of my confusion. I stared out into the night, half moon poised in the sky like a low-hanging slice of glowing frost. I removed my gloves and shoved them into my pocket, letting the back of my boots support my backside as I knelt down to scrape up a handful of dirty ice and snow.
    I packed it into a ball, watching the flesh of my fingers begin to flush with red. Smile upon my face, I closed my eyes while I worked the snow until it was as hard as baseball. I opened my eyes and held it in the night air.
    It was good enough to throw.

Sometimes You Can’t Wait Forever
    She exhales a strand of icy vanilla lace and my heart