All That Remains: Day 2

Word Count: 12,018

Summary of Events:

Chloë did her best to enjoy the breakfast her mother made the next morning, as it was one of her favourite breakfasts. Later in the morning she was invited to join all the other family and friends of her husband's teammates, who were gathering at the home of one of the players and his wife to await any subsequent news together. In the late afternoon, a trio of police officers arrived and sorted the family and friends into three groups, one small group, and two larger groups. Chloë was a member of the second-largest group, who were instructed to seat themselves according to the players they were family to or friends of…

Excerpt of the Day:

All the other people settled themselves into groups, and once they were all seated — by which time the other two groups had left the room — the officer surveyed them.

As he did, Chloë noticed that his eyes seemed to be glassy, and his jaw seemed to be trembling. Not good signs.

“It is my duty,” he said after a long moment, his voice wavering with emotion. “But it is by no means my pleasure, to carry out the task… of informing you that… by every means of identification possible…” He read off the names again, in the same alphabetical order by surname that he’d read them the first time. “…have been determined to be deceased.”

Keening wails and sobs immediately erupted from a good deal of the group, with Elle seeming to be the loudest of them all, but Chloë wondered if that wasn’t partly because of the fact that Elle was the one sitting closest to her.

Chloë herself, on the other hand, didn’t really know what to feel. She mostly felt numb. The theatrics would have to continue.

She felt Mamie’s hand close around her own and squeeze it tightly. She made herself look at Mamie, whose eyes were misty as she looked sympathetically in Chloë’s direction.

Squeezing Mamie’s hand in return, Chloë hoped everyone’s eyes were too misty to notice that hers weren’t misty at all. She didn’t feel like a widow, despite the fact that she technically was. The life she’d been living with Tristan over the last three years hadn’t been the life of a married couple. It’d been far more like they were actors in a film playing the roles of man and wife for the unsuspecting audience around them.

None of the people around her — not even Mama and Mamie — had any clue what life had been like for her of late, and they, as much as anyone else, would be expecting her to play the part of the widow they all believed she was.

She startled slightly at a touch to the opposite side of her and saw Papa misty-eyed beside her. She shifted over so he could sit down and leaned against him as he embraced her gently.

Turmoil stirred within her as she listened to everyone else mourning the losses of those about whom they’d cared so much. She couldn’t pretend to weep. What she had been dreading had happened, and now she was left to keep up the act alone.

“Officer,” the emotion-strained voice of a man Chloë supposed was father or father-in-law to one of the other deceased players said. “What news is being given to the other two groups?”

“The larger of the two groups is being informed that their loved ones are in critical condition and there is the chance that they could die as well,” the officer replied. “And the smaller group is being informed that their loved ones are in stable condition and will likely be transferred to a local hospital in the next few days or weeks.”

Pronunciation:

Mamie: mahmee (French for Grandma)