When she says Cap’s name, I see O’Doul clutch his own jersey, knuckles white.
The speech ends.
There’s a moment of actual silence, real and perfect, before everyone starts lighting more candles, adding to the river of flame.
I stay off to the side, letting the crowd thicken and thin, until it feels safe to leave.
I’m halfway to the parking lot when a kid, maybe ten, intercepts me. He’s got a Steelhawks cap pulled low and a parka so big it swallows his arms.
He’s shaking, either from cold or nerves.
“Mr. Webb?” he says, voice tremulous.
I crouch, make myself smaller. “Yeah, buddy?”
He holds out a marker and a scrap of cardboard. “Will you sign? For my brother. He’s in the hospital, but he loves you guys.”
My hands are clumsy with cold, but I take the marker and scrawl my name.
I add a “Stay strong, #30” because it feels like the kind of thing Cap would do.
The kid beams, thanks me, then runs off into the sea of legs.
I stand up, pocket my hands, and watch the lights blur together.
For a second I let myself imagine that all the candles, all the noise, could actually add up to something, some kind of meaning, or closure, or even just enough heat to keep us from freezing to death.
But when I walk away, the night is just as cold as before.
———
At home, I toss the keys on the counter and go straight to the bathroom. I strip off my jacket, stare at my reflection in the mirror.
There’s a streak of wax on my sleeve, orange and oily. My eyes are red, but not from crying. The skin under them looks bruised.
I wash my hands, scrubbing until the marker ink and the phantom smell of candles is gone.
I dry them off, flex my fingers, and wonder if anyone will remember this part of the story, the long stretch of nothing after the headlines.
Probably not.
I go to bed and lie on my back, eyes fixed on the ceiling.
The sound in my ears is the silence after the gunshots, thick and final.
Tomorrow, there will be another ritual.
Another piece of the puzzle.
Another day of getting up, and pretending it matters.
———
Funerals are just games where no one knows the score.
The church is overfilled, every pew jammed with bodies, the air saturated with sweat and aftershave and grief so thick you could use it to resurface the ice.
I’ve never been in a place this crowded and felt less like I belonged.
