Why?

            The man was true to his word.  My mother stopped breathing at 11:59 a.m.  The doctor called time of death at 12:05 p.m.  She never made it to the hospital.

            Chandler broke.  Tears streamed down his face.  I wished the man would've talked to him too.  The dark circles under my brother's eyes made him look like a walking skeleton with flesh colored plastic stretched over his bones.  Chandler wouldn’t speak to me, wouldn’t look at me.  I wanted to help him, to comfort him in some small way, but he wouldn’t let me.  He wouldn’t let our father try to comfort him either.  My brother was lost to the world, and I couldn’t help but to blame that trench coat.

            My father looked like he'd been hit by a Mac truck.  His eyes sank into his skull.  The blank stare never left his features while his hands shook.  The tears would come for him later, but he was working hard to hold it together for Chandler.  The poor man just lost everything, but he tried his damnedest to keep his grim grip on reality for his children.  I wanted to comfort my father too, but I didn’t know how.

            I felt a sense of peace.  My heart filled with sadness, but his words eased it a little.  "I do not condone unnecessary human suffering.”  My mother couldn't fight any longer, so he saved her, took her away.  I saw him climb, unnoticed, in the back of the ambulance behind my father.  He gave me a slight nod; that reassured me.  She felt no more pain; however, that didn’t make up for the suffering Chandler felt, the suffering my father felt.  I wondered, suddenly, if I was the one that caused Chandler’s pain when I altered his fate that night.  Was it my fault my brother hated me, hated living?

            The reassurance he left me evaporated almost as quickly as it came.  I remembered the rest of his words, the coldness in his eyes.  "I will see you a month after I collect her," he stated; his eyes never left mine, "but I will not visit you again."  Questions shrouded my mind.  Am I going to die?  Is another family member going to leave me?

            The only question I really wanted, really needed, answered is why would he see me again?