To Keep Her Safe is All I Know

Chapter 1

"Honey, we have to look." The man says.

"I don't want to."

"It's the only way..."

The woman swallows, then takes a breath in attempt to regain her composure. The man and the woman step forward, then force themselves to look down at the body.

The woman screams and falls to her knees. The man puts a hand over his mouth as tears form. He looks up at Melanie, who simply stared at them with a blank expression, as much as her heart was breaking for them. The man nods as the woman just sobs uncontrollably on the floor. Melanie steps forward and goes to put the sheet back on the body, then stops. The loved ones usually liked a few minutes to say "goodbye" to the deceased.

"Would you like a minute?" Melanie asks.

The woman continues to sob, not responding. The man just nods.

Melanie nods in return, "I'll be back shortly...I'm sorry."

The man just nods again. Melanie walks out of the room.

Melanie steps out into the hallway, shuts the door and exhales. She leans against the wall and shakes her head to herself. Melanie had never been much of a crier, but if she were, she definitely would be crying right now for this poor couple. Melanie takes a couple of breaths to relax herself, then pulls out her cellphone. She panics a bit when she sees the time, realizing that she was extremely late to pick Sadie up from school. Melanie then looks through her text messages and sighs in relief at finding that Chris had picked Sadie up from school. Melanie then dials Chris' number and puts the phone to her ear.

"Hello?"

"Hey, it's me. Do you have my kid?"

"I do indeed. She's sitting right next to me. Sadie, say 'hi' to your mother."

"Hi, Mommy!"

Melanie manages a smile, "Hi, sweetie." She says, feeling extremely guilty for talking to her daughter in the same vicinity as people who had just lost their son.

Chris' voice returns, "See? Safe and sound just like always."

"Thank you. Are you guys doing okay though? I feel like my daughter loses ten IQ points whenever she gets done hanging out with you."

"Hey! I will have you know that I am teaching your daughter to be a charming, poised, sophisticated young lady."

"Uh huh." Melanie deadpans, "So what are you two doing now?"

"Watching Magic School Bus and drinking chocolate milk like reasonable adults."

"Well, I guess that's a step up from SpongeBob and Vanilla Coke."

"And that was a step up from South Park and Redbull. See? I'm learning!"

"Uh huh." Melanie again deadpans.

"Come on. You've been making fun of me for twenty-five years, but admit it, I'm really good with Sadie."

"I never said you weren't. You're just fun to make fun of." Melanie says, "Look, I just got done showing these parents their dead son and they're still crying, for obvious reasons, so this may be a while. I should be there by 5 though, 5:30 at the latest."

"Take your time, we're fine."

"Did she have any homework?"

"Yeah, just some spelling and vocab stuff."

"Did she do okay?"

"Well, we had a little bit of a debate on how to spell the word 'triangle', but other than that, we were fine."