[memory] What: Memory Will characters be viewing the memory or experiencing it?: Viewing Warning, this memory contains: Sadness, talk of death
The man heads up the front walkway toward a suburban home, the day warm and sunny in disgusting contrast to the message he's there to deliver. His own heart is heavy, which is obvious from the way his steps are slow and shoulders are hunched. This is not a message he wants to give. It's not one he ever wants to deliver, but especially not now. Especially not here.
The house is well cared-for, and the windows are open to let in the late spring air. The man is almost to the front porch when childish giggles spill out from inside and a small figure goes racing past the front door, visible through the screen in a bright outfit, accented by a shock of white-blonde hair. The man's footsteps falter, pausing as he digs deeper for the strength and courage he needs to do this.
His knuckles feel raw when he raps on the screen door, even the tiny impact making itself known in a too-painful way. He already feels scraped out from the inside, and the next few minutes are going to leave bits of hit torn into bloody ribbons. But he owes it to those inside, and he owes it to the woman laying cold across town, alone in a cubby, greying skin stiff against the shiny steel drawer, her name on the tag slipped into the door's label. He knows the scent of the air where she is, and the bright blooming flowers and greening grass isn't enough to chase it from his memory.
A man answers the door with a smile on his face and the kid scooped up into one arm. "Hey man, come on in! Jinny's not home yet..." He undoes the lock on the screen door, but before he pushes it open, something seems to click and the smile drops away from his face, replaced by pain and then anger. Whether it's the oddity of the man showing up in his official-looking work suit or the fact that the man should already know where Jinny, or the expression on the man's face, the screen door remains closed and not pushed open in welcome. The kid doesn't seem to notice the change in his father, continuing to giggle and babble at the two men, chubby palm patting against the door's screen.
"Nate, I..." The man standing on the porch doesn't look away, but he does lift a hand to rub at the back of his neck, exhaling. The fingers on his other hand twitch with the desire for a drink or a cigarette. Both might be nice, once this shitshow of a meeting was in his rearview. Something to dull the memory of it and the too-current, too-present pain and guilt. "I'm sorry."
"No. You're not-- she's not--"
"Nate..."
"No! You get the hell off my porch. I knew this was going to happen when she joined your fucked up little thing. And now you're here with your sad 'I'm sorry', but it's not going to help, is it?"
The anger wasn't a surprise. He'd known that Nate didn't particularly like him from the first time Jinny had introduced them, a few years back. Before Jinny and Nate were married, before they'd gotten pregnant, and before their son was born. Their son that would now have to grow up without his mother. The rage was quick to come in place of the sorrow that would follow, and it wouldn't do anyone any good to linger and let it build even more. Instead he nodded his head.
"I am sorry. I... We're here to help you and your son. If there's anything we can do..."
"You can go fuck yourself," came the quick reply, and the man on the porch nodded and turned away. Halfway back down the front walk, he shoved his hands into his pockets and his shoulders hunched even more. Message delivered, he headed back to his car still thinking about that drink. Probably a couple.