“It’s me,” Maude whispered quickly, her voice fraying around the edges. “It’s just me, dear.”
Her fingers squeezed gently—steady, human, grounding. But my arm felt like it belonged to someone else. Like I was watching her touch me from twelve feet away.
“He—”
The word scraped out of me, thin and cracked, barely a sound at all.
“He …”
“I know,” Maude murmured. “I know.”
Her eyes flicked toward the scene, then back to me, and the immediate ache in them nearly undid me. She moved closer, stepping between me and the worst of it, blocking my line of sight with her small, fierce body.
But the image was already burned into me.
A smear. A shoe. A vest with wires.
A man who was my father and not my father all at once.
Gone. Instant. Final.
A sharp tremor hit me, starting in my hands and rippling through my arms, then down my spine. My knees softened,buckling, but I didn’t fall—Maude caught me with surprising strength.
“Easy,” she whispered, supporting my weight. “Let’s get you inside.”
I couldn’t step backward. My feet were fused to the porch, welded in place by something colder than fear. The kind of cold that sinks into your bones and locks every joint from the inside.
“I can’t,” I rasped.
“You can,” Maude said gently but firmly. “Hazel, dear—you’re shaking out of your skin. Come inside before you tip right over.”
Shaking.
Was I shaking?
I looked down—my hands trembled violently at my sides, fingers twitching involuntarily, like someone had attached strings to each one and was jerking them out of rhythm. My breath came in tiny, jagged pulls. My throat felt raw and tight.
A soft, broken noise leaked out of me. I didn’t recognize it. It was animal. Small and wounded.
“Oh, honey,” Maude murmured, pulling me against her chest, her arms wrapping around me with a strength that didn’t match her size. She smelled like flour and soap and something warm that reminded me faintly of my grandmother.
My face crumpled against her shoulder, but no tears came.
Just dry sobs, sharp and silent, like my chest was trying to fold in on itself.
“He … he was …”
Gone.
He was gone.
Exploded.
Erased.
Not by me.
Not by karma.
