Nick

Nick

Second floor

I am numb. I know that feeling will return at some point, and that no doubt when it does the pain will be terrible. But for now there is only this numbness. There is a kind of relief in it. Perhaps I do not yet know what to feel. My father is dead. I spent a childhood terrorized by him, my whole adult life trying to escape him. And yet, God help me, I loved him, too.

I am acting on pure instinct, like an automaton, as I help to lift Ben, to carry him down the stairs. And though I am numb I am still aware of the strange and terrible echo of three nights ago, when I carried another body, so stiff and still, out into the courtyard garden.

For a moment, our eyes meet. He seems barely conscious, so perhaps I am imagining it . . . but I think I see something in his expression. An apology? A farewell? But just as quickly it is gone, and his eyes are closing again. And I know I wouldn’t trust it anyway. Because I never knew the real Benjamin Daniels at all.