: : Summary : : A dramatic story set just before TMR in which Alex is lost and feared dead
Rick had not finished lunch more than 20 minutes ago when he began to seriously regret his decision to stay at home and not go out looking for Alex. He was a man of action; he hated just sitting around. So he paced. As did Jonathan. Evy sat on the couch, reading the same sentence in an Egyptology book over and over while her brother and husband prowled the parlor around her. Every once in a while, Rick and Jonathan would cross each other�s path�Jonathan always letting the younger, but larger man have the right of way. The phone rang twice, Rick hurdled furniture to pick it up both times. The first call was for Jonathan: a lady angry about something that happened last night. Not an unusual type of call for Jonathan. He promised to call her back. The second call was for Rick: Marcy needed his approval to sign for an order of Venetian glass. The afternoon ticked by. When the phone rang a third time, Rick was next to it and picked the receiver up. �Hello? � Yeah, Barton. What�s up?� Rick paused, then said, �No, I�m not alone.�
Something was clearly wrong. Jonathan and Evy watched the color drain from Rick�s face. Jonathan stopped pacing. Evy gripped the back of the couch.
�What?� Rick said. �Where?�
�What is it?� asked Evy.
�Are you sure?� Rick said into the phone.
�Jonathan�.� Evy reached out for her brother but Jonathan didn�t move.
�I understand,� Rick said. �I�ll be right there.� He tried to hang up the phone but missed and the receiver fell to the floor. Rick ignored it. His vision had narrowed to a tunnel and he could hear nothing but the blood rushing in his ears.
Jonathan rushed to pick up the telephone and checked to see if anyone was still on the line. It was silent. �Rick�� he said putting a hand on his arm.
Evy was too horrified to speak. Something was terribly, terribly wrong.
The physical contact brought Rick back to the room. �I have to go,� he said distractedly.
�What�s happened?� asked Jonathan.
Evy was rooted to the couch but managed to find her voice. �Did they find Alex?�
Rick didn�t want to say it. If he said it, it would be real. It couldn�t be real.
�Rick�� prompted Evy, beginning to cry.
�They found� a boy,� Rick managed to say.
�A boy?� echoed Jonathan. �Alex?�
�I have to go.� Rick said. �I have to identify him��
�Why?� Evy pushed the obvious answer out of her head. �Why can�t he say who he is? Is he hurt? Where did they find him?�
�The river,� Rick said. �They pulled him from the river.� The words were out, he said them and now it was true. He fell against the wall for support. His little boy was dead.
�No!� cried Evy standing up. �NO! It isn�t true!� She flew across the room and attacked her husband, beating his chest with her fists. �Say it isn�t true! You bastard! You liar! Say it isn�t true!�
Rick didn�t try to fight her. The minor pain she was causing momentarily distracted him from the agony he felt inside. His little boy was dead. Rick�s legs lost their strength and his slid down the wall to the floor, his face contorting with grief. Her anger spent, Evy went down with him, moaning and the two of them clung to each other in anguish.
Jonathan watched them, helpless. This couldn�t be happening, he thought. Not to his family. Not to people this good: not his baby sister, the man who was devoted to her, not to his nephew. He knelt on the floor beside the distraught couple. He had to do something. Something had to be done. What could he do? Rick had asked the person on the phone �Are you sure?� He said something about having to identify him; that meant they weren�t sure. There was a chance it wasn�t Alex. Please, God, let there be a chance. �Listen,� he said. �I�ll go get the car. I�ll go to wherever needs to be gone to and see if it�s really Alex. It might not really be Alex.�
�Get the car,� Rick said, his face buried in Evy�s hair. �I�m going.�
�You stay here,� Jonathan told him. �I�m a relative. I can do this. You don�t need to see��
�Yes, I do,� said Rick. �I�m his father.� He sat back from Evy and wiped her hair and his tears from his face.
�I�m going to,� Evy said.
�Sweetheart� no,� Rick told her.
�I can�t let you do this alone,� she said. �And if I don�t see it I�ll never believe it�s him.�
Rick stared into his wife�s eyes. There was a strength there, a strength that he needed. �Alright,� he relented. �We�ll both go.�
�I�ll get the car,� said Jonathan. He paused to embrace Evy and Rick, then rushed from the room, glad to be of use.
*~*~*~*
Jonathan drove them to London Hospital. The city morgue was located in the basement there. Rick and Evy were silent the entire trip, clutching each other�s hands and lost in their own thoughts, each determined to be strong for the other. Rick blamed himself. If he had been the man� if he had handled Alex in the first place� if he had told him about taking him to the exhibit Saturday� there were so many ifs. Evy clung to the hope that it wasn�t her baby in there. She taught her baby well. Her baby knew how to cross the street safely, how to not talk to strangers�how to swim. Alex knew how to swim. He couldn�t have drowned in the river. Alex knew how to swim.
The three of them walked numbly through the hospital lobby, Jonathan in front, Rick and Evy arm in arm behind him. Jonathan inquired at the front desk as to the location of the morgue. The clerk pointed to a bank of elevators. They got inside one and pressed the button for the basement. The elevator car moved down slowly, just as a coffin would be slowly lowered into a grave, Evy thought. No. It wasn�t her baby. He knew how to swim. Rick wondered how he was going to do this. How was he going to look at the lifeless body of a child and say �Yes, that�s my son.� How could anyone expect him to do this?
The elevator door opened to the smell of formaldehyde. At the end of a long, dim hallway was a door marked �CITY MORGUE�. �So much for subtlety,� thought Jonathan. He led the way through the door and opened it for his sister and brother-in-law. They stepped through into a waiting room lined with chairs. A man looked up from the desk in the center of the room.
�We�re here to see�� began Jonathan.
�Are you the O�Connells?� asked the man behind the desk.
�Yes,� said Jonathan. �Well, they are. I�m the uncle. Her brother.�
�We�re expecting you. Have a seat, the doctor will be with you shortly,� the man told them.
�Can we please get this over with?� asked Rick quietly.
�Yes,� said Jonathan. �This isn�t something we�d like to draw out.�
�It will just be a moment. I�ll let him know you�re here. Please have a seat.�
�We�ll stand,� Evy said knowing she�d have a hard time getting back up.
�Alright,� the man said. He went into the back room, leaving them alone. The silence was deafening. Just like it would be in a grave� �No. My baby can swim,� Evy firmly told herself.
�I can�t fall apart. I have to be strong for Evy,� Rick repeated in his head for the thousandth time. �How? How do I do this?� he wondered as he held her tightly, hoping she wouldn�t notice that he was using her to keep himself from falling to the floor.
The door finally opened. A man in a long white coat appeared. �Hello, I�m Dr. Halloran.�
�Can we just do this?� Rick asked.
�Yes,� said the doctor. He had done this so many times he knew that families just wanted to get on with it. He led them into a cold room with several metal tables, each occupied by a body covered by a sheet. The place smelled like death. Evy�s eyes were immediately drawn to the table with the smallest body. Rick followed her gaze and stiffened. This wasn�t happening. This couldn�t be happening. He wanted to run from the room. He wanted to drag Evy with him and take her someplace where they would be safe, where there would be no phone call suggesting something unthinkable, no trip to a room that smelled of death and a doctor who wanted to show them the lifeless body of their little boy. He wanted to run but he couldn�t move. The doctor approached that table and waited.
Jonathan, wanting to shield his sister and brother-in-law from whatever anguish he could, said, �I can do this. You don�t have to��
�Yes, we do,� Rick heard his own voice say though he couldn�t remember saying it. He tightened his grip on Evy and together they walked up to the table.
�My baby can swim, my baby can swim, my baby can swim�� repeated Evy to herself.
Jonathan took his place next to Rick and Evy at the table. �Ready?� asked the doctor.
Rick found himself nodding but closed his eyes as the doctor reached for the sheet. He heard the soft whisper of the sheet as it was pulled back. He heard Evy gasp, �My baby can swim!�
�What?� said the doctor.
Rick opened his eyes. It wasn�t Alex. It wasn�t Alex! He took an unsteady step backward and would have fallen down if not supported by Evy and Jonathan. �That�s not Alex,� he said, more to convince himself than inform the doctor.
�Are you sure?� asked the doctor.
On the table lay the body of a young boy Alex�s age. He had blonde hair, but it was shorter and darker. His blue lips were the wrong shape and his half open eyes were greenish and not blue. �Yes, we�re sure!� exclaimed Jonathan. �Please cover that up!�
The doctor pulled the sheet over the boy�s face again. He didn�t share their relief. This only meant he�d have to see the torment on another couple�s faces when he showed this body to them later. �Thank you,� he told the O�Connells. �You can take a moment if you need to��
�No,� said Rick. �We�ll leave now.� Only his feet wouldn�t cooperate. He stood rooted to the tile floor. Jonathan had hold of his left arm and Evy his right. They both began to move and he moved with them, out into the waiting area and then the hallway, not pausing until they reached the elevator. Forced to stop and stand still while they waited for it, the three of them embraced each other and cried.