Chapter 3 Goodbye

The zipper was cheap. It got stuck as it was drawn back. The attendant pulled it forward, then back again. It didn't get caught this time.

Van could pick up every sound the zipper made in the quiet room of the city's morgue. He was transferred to a female attendant who opened the bag. He knew he was at the point of no return.

When the zipper hooked on the seams he felt some kind of relief but it didn't last.

He saw the feet first.

The cold air from the air-conditioner felt warm. Van was feeling uneasy. He felt the urge to use the bathroom. But he didn't give in. He stood there, his mind devoid of any thoughts.

Van took a step closer to the table. He could see the boy's face now. His hair, usually a wild mop that Laura fought to comb down every morning, was burnt away on the left side leaving raw flesh.

Someone had tried to clean him up.

His hair was still damp at the temple.

Van stared at the face.

There was a scar on his left eyebrow from when he was four and he fell off a swing.

Van remembered the incident, telling him to stop crying. That big boys don't cry and he was a big boy.

It was him. It was Noah.

His small hands were curled into tight fists. He was wearing the blue striped shirt they had bought for his birthday party. The birthday was supposed to be tomorrow.

Van stared at his son. He stared at the utter stillness of the boy’s chest. No rise. No fall.

Someone called Van. It was the attendant.

He didn't answer.

The white light above the room was so bright it made Noah's pale skin look like paper.

There was a bruise under his jaw. It was new. Definitely from the explosion. Van wanted to touch it but he didn't. He looked peaceful. Like he was sleeping.

But he was never going to wake up again.

He didn't deserve to die like this.

Van dropped to his knees.

He could feel the coldness of the floor through his jeans.

Noah. He was gone.

Noah was gone.

Noah-,

A sound came out. Not sobs. Broken. Smaller. Ragged.

It was a dry heave of unfiltered pain.

It embarrassed him.

His hands were gripping the edge of the metal display table.

He leaned forward, burying his face on the edge of the table, his shoulders shaking uncontrollably.

He breathed in. Then out.

The room was too loud and too quiet.

For years he kept this part locked. Neat. The broken man contained.

It slipped now.

Not with screaming. The weight of it finally landed.

Years of rigid discipline carefully constructed, evaporated straight into the air.

Now he was just a grieving father. A grieving husband.

Husband.

Something in his brain clicked.

Laura.

He had been so engrossed in Noah that he totally forgot about his wife.

He was angry with himself.

He stood and went to the next table. The bag was already open.

He was ashamed to look at her.

He hadn't meant to forget her. He loved her.

Unlike Noah, whose face had been gently wiped clean, Laura was still covered in soot and ash.

Her skin was waxy, reflecting the lights in the room.

Her face was bruised a deep purple, her collarbone was at an unnatural, broken angle beneath the collar of her favorite wool coat.

The familiar scent of her jasmine and vanilla fragrance was replaced by the stench of fire remnants.

His scarred hands hovered just inches from her ash-stained cheek, too terrified to touch either of them. Terrified to make the nightmare permanent.

He pulled his arm back. He just stood looking at the body. He glanced at Noah then back to Laura.

He looked back and saw the attendant was still standing there.

She was giving him the time he needed but also the confirmation.

Van nodded.

She gave him a half smile. The other half showing pity, empathy.

“I'm sorry for your loss.”

Van nodded slowly. He was afraid he was going to break down again if he spoke.

“If you will please come with me Sir, there are some documents for you to sign before we begin the autopsy.” The attendant said, stepping aside gesturing to Van to come with her.

Van went with her.

Time passed in a blur. The claustrophobic identification room was replaced by the wide autopsy room.

Van stayed while they conducted the postmortem.

He had stood motionless by the stainless steel examination table. He had the bags that contained his son's belongings in his hand. They were done with Noah's autopsy and his body deposited in the fridge.

Laura's had just started.

The medical examiner was buzzing around the room, dictating monotonous notes into a handheld recorder with practiced apathy.

Van stared down at Laura’s ruined coat, laid out on an adjacent metal tray.

He couldn't turn his head away from it. He looked at it for a long time soaking in all the details.

The burn patterns on the fabric were entirely wrong.

He was not a detective but with his military training, he knew the scorching was localized. Starbursts of blackened fabric were centered around the chest region. It was the result of concentrated heat. The edges of the tears were melted and fused with the distinct chemical signature of a military-grade accelerant, not domestic natural gas like the firefighters said.

A gas explosion mainly creates a wide, concussive wave of pressure and fire that pushes everything in its path. The heat damage on victims is usually consistent with broad flash-burns covering exposed skin and clothing.

He looked at the wounds on her collarbone. They weren't crushed. Those were shrapnel entry points. Small, precise, lethal.

“Standard gas main rupture,” the examiner muttered, clicking his pen and scribbling rapidly on a yellow clipboard. “Blunt force trauma, secondary flash burns. Extremely clear-cut.”

“We're done here, right?” A police lieutenant Van hadn't noticed until now stood by the door, impatiently tapping his foot. “The mayor wants a press conference at dawn to calm the neighborhood down. I need the official cause of death finalized ten minutes ago.”

“Just signing the certificates now,” the examiner replied, flipping the page with a casual flick of his wrist.

Why were they rushing? Van thought.

He watched them. No proper internal examination. They were closing a double autopsy examination case in less than three hours. The utter lack of curiosity was unnatural.

“Alright, let's bag them up for the funeral home,” the lieutenant barked, already turning his back and pushing the morgue door open. “Move it, doc. We're on the clock.”

The medical examiner turned away, walking toward the sink. The lieutenant was already out into the hallway.

He looked down at Laura’s coat again. Something caught the fluorescent light.

An uneven piece of dull, silver metal.

Van's hand went over the ruined fabric, pulling it free from the wool with a soft tear.

The examiner came back around and Van’s hand was inside his jacket pocket, his fingers tightly around the shrapnel.