Tomorrow they had a baseball game. Ty was pretty sure the meat had to marinate for a while, and he’d lost his enthusiasm for grocery shopping. “Maybe Thursday.”
He got them both home and set Theo up with his homework in the games room while Ty went to have a very fast breakdown in the shower.
Theo hadn’t asked him any questions, at least not about what Ty had been doing. Based on his level of calm, Ty would bet he didn’t know a woman had died in the store today. He did ask why Eliza wasn’t still Ollie’s aunt, or how that worked, which Ty admitted ignorance to. He didn’t have any personal experience with relatives beyond parents. If he had to guess, it had more to do with Ollie’s family not having moved to town until after his uncle was dead than anything.
But just because he hadn’t asked this afternoon didn’t mean he wouldn’t ask. News was bound to get out. Sooner or later Ty was going to have to explain—
Fuck. He needed to text Ollie.
He closed the toilet lid and sat down as he pulled out his phone. Where did he even start with that?Hey, remember how you trusted me to look after your kid? Well today he almost got to watch someone die because of me.
But it was a small town and gossip traveled fast. Ollie needed to hear it from Ty before he heard it from anyone else.A lady had a heart attack while Theo and I were at the grocery store today. I asked Eliza to look after him so I could go do CPR. I don’t think he saw anything but I wanted you to know.
There. Now he could sit here on the toilet with his guts churning while he waited for Ollie to text him back and tell him he had fucked up and they were moving out and he was going to be alone again.
Ty’s hands shook. Dealing with a death on the job was easier. The uniform let him keep some distance between Ty and Paramedic Morris. Not that he hadn’t done first aid while off duty before, but he’d never done it in his hometown.
He’d never lost a patient while a kid he was looking after was within spitting distance.
He felt like he might puke.
Finally the phone vibrated.Oh my God. Is she ok? Are you ok? Is Theo ok?
Ty blinked suddenly stinging eyes. Ollie wasn’t mad at him—yet.
Mrs. Sanford didn’t make it. I’m fine.That much was, if not exactly true, then only a little white lie.I don’t think Theo knows she died.But he would find out, if not at school tomorrow, then probably sometime this week.
I’m really sorry. I know he’s been asking a lot of questions about death since his mom passed. I hope this isn’t triggering for him.
His hands were still shaking when Ollie’s reply came through.Like you said, he doesn’t know yet. But even when he finds out, it was going to happen sooner or later. People die.Then, before Ty could think of another way to frame this mess as his fault,You were doing a good thing. Theo willunderstand.
Something inside Ty unclenched. Okay, so Ollie really wasn’t mad. Good. That was—good.I hope so, Ty wrote back, and then he turned the shower heat up as high as he could stand and tried to melt the guilt from his shoulders.
He’d done everything he could. Right? Mrs. Sanford had been bleeding from a head wound on top of her cardiac event. He couldn’t have done anything else to save her. He only had one pair of hands. Maybe if he’d gotten the aspirin from the store’s first-aid kit, if he’d crushed that up and gotten it into her system—
Had he not done it because she treated him horribly?
No. He wouldn’t have let her die. He’d done everything he could. Some people couldn’t be saved.
The patch of dried blood on his thigh turned pink and washed down the drain. He willed his guilt to go with it. It didn’t work, but it was worth a shot.
He got out of the shower and put the clothes he’d been wearing in a garbage bag. It wasn’t like he couldn’t afford new ones, and he didn’t want to deal with the bloodstains. He didn’t want to look at the evidence. He’d never wear them again even if by some miracle it did all come out.
Then he dressed in sweatpants and a T-shirt and took the garbage bag out to the garage. Not that he thought Theo might go through the garbage or something, but… just in case.
But something was weird when he returned to the house.
“Theo?”
There was a decisivesnapfrom the games room, followed by the sound he’d heard before—a stifled hiccup of a noise, all the more distinctive for the fact that Ty hadn’t heard it in years.
The unmistakable sound of a boy trying to hide his tears.
Had Theo found out what had happened? Had he been crying the whole time Ty was in the shower. “Theo, are you—”
He stepped into the games room to see Theo holding an iPad to his chest, the cover closed tightly over it. The source of the snapping noise, no doubt. Theo’s eyes were red-rimmed, his cheeks streaked with tear tracks, even if his skin was dry now.
“Hey,” Ty said gently, feeling awkward and out of his depth. But he couldn’t leave Theo alone. He pulled out the chair next to Theo at the poker table and folded himself into it. “Is, uh, is everything okay?”
