Her face is gray. Her hands shake so hard I catch them just to still them.
Tata snatches the phone from the floor. “Halo? What’s happening?”
And I hear it—Aga’s voice, high and ragged, not words, just sound.
Then his name,Piotr. Sobbing. One word.
“Gone.”
The room spins.
Tata keeps saying, “No. No, Aga. No.” Over and over, like the word might undo it.
I take the phone. The doctor in me shoves through the daughter or sister, even though my heart is pounding in my throat.
“Aga, listen to me. Tell me what happened. Does he need help? Are they still—”
She can’t answer. Someone else does. Dominik. His voice is uneven, breathless, like he’s been running, or breaking things.
“I came over to help him,” he says. “He wanted to get the work done early. The jack... it failed. It—” His breath catches. “It crushed him, Kasia. The paramedics came, they tried but he was gone before they got there. They said it was quick. He didn’t suffer.”
They always say that. Because what’s the alternative? Through the phone I hear Amelka start crying, the thin wail of a baby that doesn’t understand grief. Then Kacper too, a chorus of it.
I swallow hard. “Go help Aga,” I tell him. My voice doesn’t sound like mine. “I’ll take care of Mama and Tata.”
He starts to say something, but I hang up. Mama and Tata are on the floor, clinging to each other, wailing like the walls themselves are breaking. Natalia’s standing by the door, frozen, her eyes wide. I go to her, pull her into my arms. She doesn’t move at first, just stares through me.
Then she whispers, “Why did he have to be so fucking hard-working? He could’ve taken a day off. Justone day offlike a normal person.”
Her voice cracks, shatters into sobs. I press my hand to the back of her head, trying to steady her. A small laugh slips out, wet, unintentional and turns into a broken cry.
“That isn’t Piotr,” I say.
Butisn’tcatches in the air. A word that should bewasn’tnow. A word I can’t bear to replace. It sits there in my throat, in the middle of my chest where his name used to live, and I can’t do anything. Except cry.
When I reach Piotr’s house, the street is lined with cars. It’s eerily quiet. The kind of quiet that comes after chaos has its own weight, neighbors standing at the edges of driveways, police tape fluttering in the breeze. The jack still lies on its side under the car, a dark stain blooming across the concrete. Someone’s covered it with a tarp, but it doesn’t matter. I can still see the shape of it.I can still feel it. Where Piotr used to be.
I park halfway down the block, hands gripping the wheel long after the engine dies. The air is haunted by oil, metal and something else I refuse to name. When I finally make myself move, my legs feel wrong, heavy and light at the same time. Dominik meets me at the door. His shirt is torn near the collar, knuckles red and raw. His face looks older, gray around the edges.
“She’s inside,” he whispers. “With the kids.”
“Are they—?”
“They’re fine. She’s not.”
He steps aside, and I go in. The house is filled with the kind of silence that feels loud, paralyzing. Paramedics pack up equipment near the doorway, one murmuring something to the other, words I don’t want to hear. The air still carries the echo of crying. Aga sits on the floor, back against the couch, clutching Amelka to her chest. Her hair sticks to her face, her eyes red and wide. A blanket hangs from her shoulders, but she’s shaking anyway.
I kneel beside her, knees hitting carpet. “Aga,” I whisper.
She looks up at me like she’s seeing a stranger, then just shakes her head. “He was right there,” she says. “I told him to wait. I said I’d bring him coffee. And then—”
Her voice breaks. I take Amelka before she drops her, holding the baby against my chest. She’s crying too, those desperate, hiccuping sounds of newborns who can’t understand why everything suddenly hurts.
“Shh,malenka,” I whisper. “Shh, it’s okay.” But it’s not.
Dominik stands in the doorway, hand braced against the frame like he’s holding the house up by sheer will. His eyes meet mine for a second, full of apology, of fury at the universe, of love he doesn’t know where to put. The paramedics leave. The door closes. The sound of it is final.
Aga starts to rock, back and forth, whispering his name over and over. I want to tell her to stop, that hearing it makes it real but I can’t. I just sit there, the baby pressed against my chest, counting the beats of her tiny heart against mine, wishing I could trade mine for Piotr’s.
