Trevor is driving and my dad is in the passenger's seat. Korra, Sam, and I are comfortably seated at the back with the windows down and Sam's head outside.
"We're just about 5 minutes out. We should be there any minute." Trevor announces.
Just 5 more minutes till I see his lifeless body. Probably badly burnt. Everyone insisted that I shouldn't come mostly because they thought that I would pass out again but being the stubborn person I am, I took the keys and stormed to the garage with Sam right behind me.
I can't do that to him. I have to be there. Besides I'm still going to see him at the funeral so why not just get it over with now. I turn to Korra to find her already looking at me, seething. I open my mouth to ask her what's wrong but she beats me to it.
"Why are you so calm dammit?" She screams with her hands in the air.
"We're going to pick up the dead body of the love of your life, the father of your unborn child and you're just so calm about it! Why? You're even smiling for Christ's sake." She's crying now.
"Alison." My dad turns to give her a warning look.
I turn to my sister and give her a small smile as I pull her in and wipe her face with the sleeves of my cardigan.
"Korra it's okay. How can you think I'm not sad? I'm more than sad, I'm broken but you of all people know that I can't dwell on that for too long. Deep inside me I'm bawling my eyes out but you know that I can't and shouldn't do that, especially not with a little monster growing inside of me." She chuckles slightly.
A few moments of deathly silence pass with me rubbing her back and my dad staring at us. She finally sighs as she pulls away.
"I'm really sorry, I'm just overwhelmed by everything. I shouldn't have said what I said." She lets out a nervous laugh as she gets a tissue from her bag and wipes her face.
"You don't need to be sorry, you've always been the softie between the two of us." We both laugh as she playfully pushes my arm.
Trevor keeps looking at us through the mirror, sporting a confused expression. I just give him a big smile and a thumbs up. I can't start to explain anything to him.
We ride in silence for a few minutes before the car stops.
"We're here." Trevor announces and everyone instantly turns to look at me.
I ignore them and open the door for me and Sam as I attach a leash to his collar. The faster we get this over with, the better. Everyone gets out and my dad takes my free hand in his and squeezes it.
We all follow Trevor into the 4 storey building. The waiting room is already filled with people. Almost everyone is in tears. How am I supposed to get through this unscathed with everyone around me crying? This is going to be harder than I thought.
We walk straight to the receptionist's table and she greets us with a smile.
"Good morning. Welcome to Phoenix International Morgue. What can I do for you today?"
Again, everyone turns to look at me.
Geez! What is wrong with these people?
"I'm here to pick up my husband's body from the Regan plane crash. I received an email saying I should come here today." Her eyes widen slightly at my bluntness.
If no one was going to say it, I would. I'd like to leave here as soon as possible.
"Ok. Right this way please." She stands up and starts to lead us through the building.
With my hand still in my dad's, we all follow her through a very long hallway. We pass a few rooms and I hear people shouting from one.
"What do you mean you didn't find his body? This is my son we are talking about? You have to do something." A woman said between sobs.
"I am truly sorry ma'am but we did the best we could." A staff member – I guess – comforts her.
I am not going to break down crying when I see Ash. I promised myself that and I intend on keeping my promise.
The receptionist turns left into a wide room and just as we enter, a man with a long white coat on – probably a doctor – walks out with a brown briefcase in his hand.
It looks so much like Asher's briefcase, the one he took with him to Berlin. I gave it to him for our first marriage anniversary.
The man bumps into me and rushes away without a word. Sam starts to bark at him and tries to go after the man.
"Sam calm down." I tug on his leash but he continues barking at the man.
After a few more barks, the man looks back. He had very large-framed glasses on and a scar ran down from his left eye to his cheek. It wasn't until the man was out of sight that Sam stopped barking.
"I know boy. All he had to say was sorry. People can be so rude sometimes."
I finally enter the room and everyone is waiting for me. There are two men in the room too and they have light blue uniforms on and they resemble nurses.
"Ma'am would you like to have a seat?" She points at an office chair in front of a desk with her eyes glued on my protruding belly.
"No thank you I'm fine."
"Ok so you'll need to fill out this form." She hands me a clipboard with a paper attached to it.
"All I need is your full name, the name of the deceased, your relationship with him or her, and a form of identification."
I quickly fill out the form and hand it back to her. I check my bag for my passport – which I take everywhere for certain reasons. I find it and hand it to her. She scans through the form and flips through my passport.
"Thank you. Please excuse me for a few minutes. I'll just check the system for your husband."
She walks over to a desktop stuffed in the far corner of the room and types away. I look around and it dawns on me that it's caskets that are in the shelf spaces on the wall. I didn't even notice it before. The line stretches from one side of the room to the other. There must be at least a hundred caskets in this room.
"Ok I've got it. Number 34. Will you be taking it with you or you want it transported to you?" She walks back to where everyone is standing with her signature smile still plastered on her face. Doesn't she get tired of smiling?
Working in a place like this, I'm surprised she's still sane.
"No thank you, we're taking him with us." Thank goodness we took my old pickup truck.
"Ok that's fine." She turns to the nurses who are standing behind her, "Could you please get number 34 and take it with them to their vehicle."
"The caskets are complimentary on behalf of Regan airlines. They send their condolences and sincere apologies."
As the men get the casket from the shelf and follow Trevor and my dad, the woman goes through a door and comes back with a briefcase in bubble wrap – Asher's briefcase.
"This is all we could recover that belonged to Mr. Daulton. I am very sorry for your loss." She hands me the briefcase and for the first time, she loses her smile.
"Thank you very much." Korra says and drags me with her.
As we reach the car, the casket is already in the trunk, strapped down. Without any words, we all get into the car and head back home.
Every 5 minutes, I turn around to look at the casket. Apparently it doesn't really hit you until you see a casket. I rest my head on Korra's lap and she strokes my hair. Sam looks at us and places his head on my lap, Korra and I laugh as he just stares at us.
"I'm really sorry for what I said earlier. I don't know what came over me. I can't even begin to understand how you're feeling."
I raise my head and place my hands on her face. She looks away avoiding my eyes.
"Hey look at me. You shouldn't be sorry okay. I thought I told you to stop apologizing to me." She laughs at the memory.
We were just 12 when I realized that I was crazy. Not jokingly crazy, I mean batshit crazy.
I ran home with blood all over my uniform and climbed into our room through the window. She was horrified at the sight of me but she still helped. She lied to my dad and stepmom that I ate some bad candy and was feeling sick and needed rest as I was in the bathroom crying and trying to get the stench of blood off me and my clothes.
She's the only one that knew the truth. That wasn't the first time she's covered for me and it definitely wasn't the last. Since then I made her promise never to apologize to me ever again no matter what she did to me.
"Fine. I take my apology back then." She laughs and swats my hands away from her face.
The car stops again and Korra and I look out the window to see that we're already in the underground parking garage of my apartment building.
"Ok so I think it's best if I took it with me." With more than needed emphasis on the 'it'.
"Him, dad. Him." I correct.
"I'm sorry. I'll take him with me and keep 'em in the garage and bring 'em back for the…" He trails off.
"The funeral. Geez dad, he's already dead. He can't hear you." I roll my eyes and slam the car shut as I stormed away.
What's wrong with everyone? I know he's dead, it's not like it is or ever was a secret.
I get into the empty elevator with Sam and press the button to the 4th floor as the others stand by the car just watching me.
I reach my apartment and pull on the door before I realize that it is locked and I left my bag in the car. Unfortunately for me, my keys are in my bag. So much for a dramatic exit.
As I turn around to head back downstairs, I find everyone standing behind me and Korra is dangling my keys in the air.
"What an exit." She snickers as she throws me the keys.
"Shut up." I open the door and head straight to my room. As usual, Sam is right behind me and he gets on the bed as I sit and take off my shoes and cardigan.
To be honest, I don't even know how I feel anymore. I don't know what is going on in my head because for the first time in my life, it was silent up there.
I hear a slight knock and mutter a 'come in' without breaking my stare out the window.
"Edan?"
It wasn't until I felt the bed sink that I realized that my dad had entered the room.
"Honey I don't like seeing you like this. Don't do this to yourself. I know you think I don't know how you're feeling but I do. How do you think I felt when your stepmother, Maya, died? I was beyond devastated. I felt numb. I didn't want to accept what had happened so I didn't allow myself to grieve and it was slowly killing me. She was the love of my life." I still don't look at him, I'm scared that I'm going to cry if I do.
"But do you know what brought me back from that dark place?" He gently turns my head so I'm looking at him.
"It was you girls. It was killing me but I remembered that I couldn't let myself die just yet. My girls still need and love me and I love them too. I love you girls more than anything and I don't want anything to happen to you." Tears slowly make their way down my face. Darn it!
"I don't know what to do dad." I don't even recognize my own voice.
"Allow yourself to grieve Edan. Don't hold it in. It's going to kill you. You have people around you that still love you and need you around." With that, he gets up and checks his watch. It's just 1 pm.
"I have to go now. I have a client coming in by 2 and I can't cancel now. Love you." He kisses my head and heads out.
"I'll get the keys to your truck back to you by tomorrow or I'll just give it to Alison."
"Okay dad. Love you." I whisper after the door shuts.