FISHER HOME
The rain pelts Claire
hard as she
pulls herself from the car. She can't remember when it started coming down
like this -- the day is too much of a blur to try and remember. Even this,
now, feels like a blur. She sees herself sliding out of the car, crossing
her arms in front of her and pulling her coat tightly over her body as
she hurries through the rain, up the driveway and the front steps, but
it is all so hazy -- like a dream, a bizarre whirlwind of events swept
together without rhyme or reason ... a dream, a nightmare, that will end
when she wakes up.
But in the back of her mind, she
knows she won't wake up. She has tried too hard to fall back on that in
the last few hours, and the reality of this all is strangely clear to her.
She watches herself ring the doorbell,
feels her finger push the button, but still feels somehow removed from
it all.
The door is opened in a flash. A
frantic Paula, looking weary from a day of uninformed worry, stands before
Claire. "Claire!" she exclaims. "Is there any news?"
Claire purses her lips. She sees
the rest of the family -- at least, Bill,
Molly, and Jason -- assembled
behind Paula. She moves forward, letting herself into the house and out
of the rain. She had hoped that maybe, somehow, coming in here would make
everything go back to the way it was, would erase this last horrible day
of her life.
But it doesn't. Even this house feels
different now. This house, always so safe and welcoming, feels cold to
her, somehow.
"Claire?" Bill asks, his voice strong
and filled with concern.
Oh, God, Bill, she thinks,
feeling that mournful bleeding swell up inside her once again. Oh, God
...
"Did you find out anything?" Paula
asks. "About Tim?"
Claire swallows the hard lump blocking
her throat. She takes a breath, a breath that she finds to be strained,
heavy, difficult. The breath repeats itself, giving her the chance to steel
herself for the words that have already changed her life, as much as she
would like to leave them completely unacknowledged. And finally, with one
last breath, she forces them out.
"Tim's dead."
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