One Last Goodbye -- Part 13: The Bad News -screen_writer-

Scott walked out into the kitchen, and picked up the phone, “Hello?”

On the other end of the phone line, Kayla was standing in the third floor nurse’s lounge, looking out the window. She was watching the emergency crew’s finish up their gruesome job. Red, and blue emergency lights flickered in the darkness of night, reflecting off her face. “Scott, it’s Kayla.” She said weeping. “Listen… Heather… she was in an accident… she’s… she’s dead Scott.”

Scott’s initial reaction was one of disbelieve. Then Scott thought of the way Heather was acting. He knew there was something strange about the conversation he was having with her; she just wasn’t herself, and after a long moment of quiet, Scott believed Kayla. “I know.” He said.

“You know? How do you know?”

“She just told me.” There was another moment of quiet between the two. “Look Kay, I got to go. I’ll call you back.” He hung up the phone, missed the cradle, and the phone crashed to the floor. He didn’t notice; Scott was already in the hall, walking back to his bedroom.

His door was closed; he knew that he didn’t leave it closed, but it was closed now. He reached for the doorknob, and then stopped. A million thoughts flooded his head, or at least it felt like a million. He thought about her eyes, her hair, the touch of her fingers on his face, her smell… her eyes… her eyes… her magical eyes. ‘I’m not going to see her again. She’s not in my room anymore’, he thought. Then he remembered back to his first day at school, and how nervous he was that morning. Yet, by the end of the day he felt like he belonged… because of her. She was amazing. A glimmer of hope shot through him, ‘Kayla could’ve made a mistake’ he thought. With that, he turned the doorknob, and opened his bedroom door.

Kayla had not made a mistake. Heather was gone.

The iron hissed like a snake, as Judith lifted it off the shirt she was ironing. It was her routine for the past four years; to get the ironing done on Saturday nights, and she always did the ironing in the living room while watching the television. Timmy was playing with his matchbox cars by her side. The weather forecaster was on the television letting Judith know that the road conditions were not as dangerous as was first reported. He continued by saying that there were slick spots, “so be careful if you’re out.” The apprehension Judith felt in the pit of her stomach subsided a bit, hearing the news. But the weather forecaster was still calling for a pretty big snowstorm that was going to hit Johanna soon.

Just then the phone rang in the kitchen. Judith put the iron on its bottom, walked out to the kitchen, and picked up the phone, “Hello?”

All Judith heard was the study hum of static. It sounded like a river running on the other end of the phone. “Hello?” Judith said again. This time she heard something, but couldn’t quite make out what. To her it sounded like, ‘Goodbye… I Love You.’ Then the phone went dead.

She hung the phone up, figuring it was a bad connection. ‘If it’s important they’ll call back’, she thought to herself. Judith went back to her ironing. Suddenly, there was a knock on the door.

After a few seconds of talking with two police officers, Judith shut her front door softly. Judith hated the two policemen, though she had never met them. She hated them as much as the drunk driver who took her husbands life. Later she would realize, it wasn’t the two police officers she hated, it was the news. But right now she couldn’t separate the feelings.

She walked through the living room, through the kitchen (not noticing Timmy getting up to follow her, with a matchbox in his hand), through the hallway, and into Heather’s room. The candle was burning brightly, regardless of the fact that the wax was all burned away, and there wasn’t much a wick left. It just continued to burn… magically – just like Heather’s eyes.

Judith sat down on Heather's bed, hung her head, and began to cry… then weep… then sob. Timmy came wobbling into the room. He sat down at his mother’s feet. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but it must be bad for mamma to carry on like she was. He felt like crying as well, but didn’t.

Instead, he wanted to help. And the only way he knew how to help was to give his mommy a present. So Timmy held up his toy matchbox car that he had carried in with him, to his mother, and said, “Here you go mama, this ones the prettiest one, and you can have it if you want it.”

That brought out a cry of his mother that frightened him. Then Judith picked her son up, and gave him the biggest, tightest hug he had ever felt. A hug that lasted in his memories for years… a hug that he would think of as one of his very first memories. Behind them, the candle was blew itself out again.

To Be Continued…

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