Singing In The Wire
Fiction
This story is included in the Capsule Stories Fall 2019 issue.
My dad called to tell me Theo had been taken off life support. I can recall the weather the moment the phone rang — clouds had gathered, but not enough for rain. My reaction to the news was the same. I was upset, sad, but I didn’t feel the need to cry.
“That sucks,” I said. Not exactly the best words, but they were the first ones to come to mind.
“Yup,” my dad replied.
There wasn’t much else to say about Theo after that. Instead, we talked about hockey and food. Then we said our goodbyes, and life continued.
“Who was that?” Marnie asked, still in her pajamas. She sipped at a mug of black coffee.
“My dad,” I said. “He told me that this guy I knew back in Lowell died today.”
Marnie held me tightly and I rested my head on her chest. “I’m so sorry,” she said.
“We weren’t really close.”
She pushed me away gently, hands on my shoulders. “Then why would your dad tell you?”
I shrugged. “He just wanted me to know.”
Back in high school, when I couldn’t sleep, I would sneak out of the house with my baseball bat and take practice swings at the diamond across the…
