“Maybe he won’t be here at all. Maybe…maybe he went on. Maybe there wasn’t anything he felt he’d left unfinished.” Nick sounded more upset than John would have imagined given the way he’d talked about his father in the past.
“Maybe,” John agreed cautiously, not sure if that was what Nick wanted to hear. “Most people do, don’t they?”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the tall man start to walk toward them. Slipping his arm around Nick’s shoulders, he turned him so that his back was to the advancing man. “Let’s go, Nick. We can come back later.”
Nick nodded, leaning against John as if for warmth although they were both overdressed for the weather as it was. “Is it cold?” he asked, but before John could respond, the man behind them called out.
“Excuse me -- did you have a family member on this flight?”
To John’s surprise, Nick stopped and answered, looking over his shoulder. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Maybe?” the man repeated, sounding intrigued. “You don’t know?” His eyebrows were fair, too, John noticed, a shade or two darker than his hair. He walked quickly, closing the distance between them. “Or are you just thrill-seekers? Always plenty of them. Nothing we like better than a disaster, is there?”
“Speak for yourself,” John said roughly. The man barely glanced at him. All his attention was on Nick, his forehead wrinkling as if he was trying to remember something.
“They called me.” Nick’s voice was rough, too, and for an instant John thought he was talking about the ghosts, until he added, “The airline. They said my father was on the plane. But his -- “ He swallowed, looking away. “He hasn’t been identified, so I can’t know for sure. Not yet.”
“There isn’t always a lot left to identify,” the man said. His words might have been cruel or at the very least thoughtless, but his tone made it clear that he was doing his best to be helpful. “Not with stuff like this. Believe me, I’ve seen.”
“You come to take a look at crashes a lot, do you?” John wasn’t usually rude to strangers, but his protective instincts were screaming at him that the man represented a threat. He just wasn’t sure what it was.
“All in a day’s work,” the man said lightly, tapping his ID badge and then noticing that it had twisted so that it was blank. Smiling, he flipped it, exposing a single word, ‘PRESS’ and his photograph. “Greg Duncan. I’m a freelance reporter.” He held out his hand for Nick to shake. “And I’m sure I’ve seen your face before.”
Nick kept his hand outstretched for a moment after
Tilting his head to the side,
“No.” Nick’s face was closed off again.
“What do you do?”
“He’s a writer,” John said softly, finally drawing the man’s attention away from Nick. “And we’ll be leaving now, if you’ll excuse us, Mr. Duncan.”
“A writer?”
John turned between Duncan and Nick, blocking the reporter’s view and slipping his arm around Nick. It felt odd and right at the same time. “Goodbye, Mr.
Nick allowed himself to be drawn away, his expression still withdrawn.
“Nick?” John murmured as they walked toward their car. “Still just us, is it? You’re awful pale.”
“Am I?” Nick sounded a tiny bit more like himself. “I don’t feel…I don’t know.” He was quiet then until they reached the car; he leaned against it heavily, apparently needing the support, and John couldn’t help but think that he could have leaned on
him
that way if he’d needed to.
Maybe this was all going to be more difficult than he’d thought.
Still, the look Nick gave him was a grateful one. “Thanks for not telling him, about --” Nick gestured at himself. “He might figure it out anyway -- hell, people are going to know one way or the other. But I wasn’t ready.” He did look pale.
“None of his damned business.” John didn’t glance back. He knew
“Yeah, I think so.” Nick grabbed onto the front of John’s T-shirt and pulled him closer, pressing his face to John’s collarbone. He muttered something that John couldn’t understand.
“What?” John rubbed the back of Nick’s neck. “Couldn’t hear you, love.”
Nick lifted his face. “I don’t want to see him. Even if he’s…not recognizable. He wouldn’t be, would he? Like that guy said.”
It took a moment for John to realize he was talking about his father’s body and not his ghost. “You --” John was lost for words. He wanted to be reassuring, but it wasn’t like Nick had a choice…“Nick, maybe we can explain to them that you haven’t seen him since you were a child; that you wouldn’t know if it was him. And if you do see his ghost, well, he might not…maybe he wouldn’t be…damaged…” He faltered. He’d seen his own father’s ghost and it’d been an experience he’d never forget, but the love he’d felt for his father had made it less of an ordeal than a comfort. Nick wouldn’t have that.
“I’ll be there with you,” he said. There wasn’t anything else he could offer by way of help. “And we don’t have to stay. Not this time. You won’t see any of them if we’re back at home. We can just get on the plane and go.”
A shudder went through Nick and John tightened his arms around him automatically. “No,” Nick said. “We can’t. I can’t. I have to…this is what I have to do. I have to know for sure.”
“Aye,” John said with a sigh. “I know you do.” He kissed the side of Nick’s face and then moved away reluctantly, already steeling himself for what they were going to see. The spirits might not show themselves to him, but dead bodies were all too visible and John wasn’t looking forward to that, at all.
Chapter Six
Nick was grateful that driving had become possible again -- he’d barely been able to handle getting behind the wheel for a good six months after the accident that had broken his wrist and killed Matthew. It was strange how things like that worked; he hadn’t been worried about being on the plane the day before at all, despite the crash he’d seen all too vividly in his dreams night after night.
“Turn left just there.” John pointed and Nick followed his directions, pulling the car into the parking lot beside the large public building that housed the morgue. God, walking into a morgue -- the implications of that hadn’t even occurred to Nick until now. Of course, most of the ghosts he’d encountered tended to linger either at the site of their deaths or, less often, the place they’d had strongest ties to when they’d been alive, so maybe the morgue wouldn’t be full of ghosts.
He hoped.
“I really, really don’t want to do this,” Nick told John as they got out of the car. “You know, just for the record.”
“I really, really don’t want to do it either,” John replied. “So you can add that to the record, too.” He looked at the double doors and visibly braced himself. “I don’t like the way these places smell. There’s no air.”
Since John practically lived outside, in good weather or bad, Nick could see why that would bother him, but there wasn’t much he could do or say. Exchanging one last, commiserating glance, they walked through the doors, and began the transfer from reception desk to elevator to morgue.
It didn’t take long once Nick had told the receptionist he was a relative of a crash victim. They obviously wanted the bodies identified and removed as soon as possible; the extra workload must have been making for all sorts of administrative nightmares. Nick wasn’t sure if the lack of waiting time was something to be grateful for or not.
Beside him as they walked down long corridors, always close enough to touch, John was silent, swallowing often, his eyes a little glazed. Nick felt a twinge of guilt that he was making John go through this, but he knew that John wouldn’t have waited outside, wouldn’t have let them be separated.
The next receptionist looked tired, and the waiting room was busy. Nick told her who he was, and he and John sat down, managing to find two chairs together. The people around them were locked in their own grief, their gazes fixed blankly on the bare walls, their hands clasped tightly in their laps or clutching at the person next to them. The room held no hope, no possibility of a miracle.
Unless the person you were looking for wasn’t one of the bodies. A mistake, an error, a change in plans that meant someone who was listed as being a passenger on Flight 57 to
From the expressions on the faces around them, Nick didn’t figure many people were thinking that.
After a long wait, in which people were called through to look at the bodies and, since they never came back, presumably sent out through a different door, it was Nick’s name that was called.
The man waiting for them behind the door was wearing a lab coat and holding a clipboard. He was also frowning at the clipboard. “Brian Hennessey?” he asked.
Nick’s stomach twisted a little bit. “No,” he said. “Nick Kelley. Um, but yeah.”
“But you’re here for Mr. Hennessey.” The man was still frowning as he flipped to another page. “Why are you here?”
“Because the airline called me,” Nick said, looking at John uncertainly. “Is something wrong?”
“Mr. Hennessey’s remains have already been identified.”
“By who?” John asked, looking as puzzled as Nick felt. He turned to Nick. “Your dad didn’t get married again, did he?”
“Not that -- I don’t know.” Nick tried to work out why the idea bothered him. “It’s possible, I guess.”
“It wasn’t his wife,” the man said. “And we’ve got you down as next of kin, but with you being out of the country we weren’t sure how long it would take for you to get here. She had photographs, documents…we’re trying to get the bodies processed as quickly as possible, you see.” Belatedly, he seemed to realize that he was talking to someone who’d just been told that their father was dead. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thanks,” Nick said, not really knowing what else to say. He guessed it shouldn’t have surprised him that his father had a girlfriend, even if his impression of the man had been that he didn’t give a shit about anyone but himself. Plenty of women seemed to be attracted to men like that. “Could…can I see him anyway? Just for a minute?”
The man hesitated for only the briefest of instants. “Yeah. Sure. Of course.” He stepped away from them. “It’s right this way.” They followed him into a room with a door at each end. In the center of the room was a wheeled gurney with a sheet draped over it; the shape underneath the sheet looked too small to be a human being. That probably wasn’t a good sign. “He’s already been identified, so I don’t have to stay if you’d like a minute alone.”
Nick nodded. “Thank you.”
When he and John were alone, Nick reached a trembling hand out, but as soon as his fingers brushed against the cotton sheet he yanked his hand back.
“I don’t need to.” He wasn’t sure if he wanted John to talk him into it or out of it. “See him, I mean. It’s not what happened to his physical body that matters.”
John cleared his throat, his voice lowering. For most people, that would be a sign of respect, or atavistic, if unacknowledged, fear that speaking too loudly might wake the dead. Nick suspected John just didn’t want anyone to overhear him.
“I could look first. Tell you if it’s bad. It’ll bother me, maybe, but not as much. I didn’t know him, after all.”
“I don’t know,” Nick said. He didn’t. But he told himself firmly that this might be his only chance to see his father again, ever. If his dad’s ghost didn’t turn up, then this was it. “No. I think I have to.”
He could feel John’s hand settle on his lower back as he drew the sheet down slowly, only revealing the top third or so of the remains on the gurney, and stared at them. They were burned to black in some places.
They didn’t look human, and closing his eyes didn’t take away the sight of them. Nick had to turn, walk away from John and the gurney, and press himself against the wall, hands over his face. “Cover it up,” he mumbled, hoping John would be able to understand him. “Please.”
There was a rustle and then John was behind him, standing close, between Nick and what was left of his father’s body. His father’s body. That twisted, charred lump of human remains had been Nick’s father.
John’s hands were on him, the clean, familiar smell of him wiping out the reek of disinfectant and death. John was shaking a little, too, which helped, but his hands were steady as he rubbed Nick’s arms, forcing some warmth into Nick’s chilled skin.
“It’s over, it’s done,” he whispered into Nick’s ear. “Over. We can go now, love.”
Nick wanted the comfort of a real hug, but he didn’t think he could bear to turn around knowing that he’d see the sheet-covered gurney again. “But it’s not, is it? It’s not over. I mean, maybe it is, but maybe it’s not.” Maybe his father would whisper into his other ear in the very next second, or in ten minutes, or in ten hours. He’d never know for sure until it happened, and sometimes the waiting…sometimes it felt like the waiting was what was driving him closer to his own death instead of the inevitability.
“This part is over.” John pulled Nick back against him, wrapping his arms around him, a solid barrier for Nick to lean against. “Do you think you’re up to getting out of here, because I really don’t think they’ll like it if I throw up over their nice clean floor.”
That snapped Nick from his haze of self-involvement; he turned in John’s embrace, keeping his eyes shut, and hugged him. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
Somehow, between the two of them, they made it out into the hallway, which was blissfully empty. At the far end was a sign that said “Exit,” and they headed toward it without hesitating. Stepping outside into the fresh air -- even if it was too warm -- was such an enormous relief that Nick stopped and pulled John to him again, holding on.