Member-only story
Whispers of Indifference
A rant, a pain, and a truth
It was at 2 AM when we heard that Mabel died. But I think she died long before.
I had just said goodnight to my wife. She was already in bed, cozy under the blanket, and I was setting aside my Kindle to lie beside her when her phone rang. Her face fell as she answered —the life drained from her, slow and visible like a flower folding in on itself. The phone slid down from her ear as if it, too, bore the weight of the news she had just received.
“Mabel’s dead,” she said.
“What? Is that not your friend — the one you visited just days ago?”
“Yes.” Her voice was hollow and almost detached.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. They don’t know.”
My wife booked a Bolt. Minutes later, she was gone — off in the middle of the night, headed for the hospital.
Deaths, even sudden ones, no longer shock me as they used to. But it always finds a way to gut you when it's close to home. Just days earlier, my wife had been at the hospital, spending time with Mabel — a church member, a friend, a young mother of one. Mabel had been complaining of persistent headaches for weeks. Migraines that no medication seemed to help. When her condition worsened, her father and her pastor…
