I put the phone back in the cradle and sigh, feeling my breath catch in my throat. I close my eyes and try to even out my breathing, focusing on deep breaths in and slow breaths out. The last thing I want to do is have a minor breakdown at work.

"Sleeping on the job?"

My eyes fly open and I see Josh standing there, eyebrows reaching for his hairline. He looks mostly amused though I think I can see some concern there, too. I try to smile at him but, to my horror, feel my eyes start to well up. Josh immediately looks terrified and at any other moment, I'd be wildly entertained at how bad he is at handling emotions. I clear my throat and take deep breaths, trying to compose myself, but the damage has been done. Josh is now on high alert. He nudges my shoulder carefully, getting me to stand, then carefully grabs my upper arm and steers me into his office.

"What's going on?" he asks, his voice in that strange, sort of high register he uses when he's not entirely comfortable with the situation.

I sniffle, pressing my fingers into the corners of my eyes as I try to stifle the tears I can feel prickling. "My mom just called. My…my grandparents died."

I keep my eyes shut but I can feel Josh move to me, gently guiding me until I'm sitting down. I hear a chair scrape and when I finally manage to look up, I'm only a little surprised to see him sitting next to me. His head tilts quizzically.

"Your grandparents? Was there an accident?"

I stare at him blankly for a while until his question sinks in. "What? Oh. Oh, no. No, my grandpa died yesterday morning but I guess my grandma wasn't doing so well with it and my parents have been with her since then and…uh…she died, too, very early this morning. My mom didn't have a chance to call me until now."

His face collapses in sympathy and I shut my eyes again. I feel his hand on my back, rubbing my shoulder blades gently. I bite the inside of my cheek, willing myself not to lose it completely. I can hold it together at work, or at least until I can slip into the ladies room for a few minutes.

"They died within hours of each other?"

I shrug helplessly, trying to clear my throat around the lump that's formed there. "I guess. I'm sure there are other causes but my mom says it was a broken heart. They'd been married for close to seventy years and had been together since high school. They'd known each other even longer, I think. I don't know that either of them knew how to live without the other one."

Josh continues to rub my back, the contact more comforting than I'd like to admit. "How's your mom doing?"

"My mom?" I ask, my eyes finding his again. "She's okay. She—oh. These were my dad's parents. My mom is making the calls for him. She said he's taking it pretty badly and I can't blame him. I don't want to imagine losing my parents at all, never mind within hours of each other." A shudder works through my body and I have to stop talking. I don't even want to put that out in the universe. I feel a few tears leak out of my eyes despite my best effort, and Josh looks pained. He jumps up and scrabbles around on his desk for a few moments, finally producing a napkin for me. I'm not surprised that he can't find his tissues, but I appreciate the gesture. I dab at my face, trying to get myself under control.

"When are you going to head out there?" he asks softly.

"As soon as I can find a flight, I guess—" I pause, looking at him curiously. "You don't care if I go?"

He looks shocked—genuinely, truly shocked. "Donna…I know I can be a bastard about keeping you at work all hours and making you cancel your plans, but this is your family. I'm not going to stop you. You need to go. I'll get you to the airport myself if you need me to."

My breath heaves in my chest as I try to smile at him, but it's a lost cause. A sob bubbles out of me and I bury my face in my hands. I feel Josh tug on my arm again a few seconds later, pulling me up. Once I'm standing, he wraps his arms around me, holding me tight. All I can do is weep onto his shoulder, feeling lost. I'm glad I got to see them a couple of months ago at Christmas, but before that, I hadn't seen my grandparents in close to a year—it can be hard to find time to get to Wisconsin—but I called them all the time. They liked to write me letters so I'd do that with them, too. But now they're just gone. Without any warning. I know they weren't young, and I know they can't live forever, but I guess I took them for granted. All the summers my brother and I spent being shuffled between our house and both sets of grandparents, making sure to spend time with them every chance I got because they always had some cool story about their lives before any of us ever existed, Christmases and Thanksgivings and Fourth of July picnics…all of it just gone.

Logically, I know a lot of that has been gone for some time. I haven't been the little kid camping out in her grandparents' barn for a long time now, but at this moment, I feel like I'm that age again."I'm sorry," I finally manage to whisper. I'm in the middle of the White House blubbering on my boss's shoulder. I shouldn't be doing this. I shouldn't be—

"Don't apologize," he whispers back. "It's okay." I nod a little and cling a bit tighter. Josh is loathe to admit to anyone, but he's actually a really sweet guy. He cares so deeply about the people in his life and would do anything to spare them pain, and you'd have to pull out his fingernails before you'd get him to admit that to pretty much anyone. "I'll square away your bereavement time, all right? Just worry about getting to your family and I'll handle it here."

"You're sure? I can make sure everything is—"

"Donna, we have a building full of moderately intelligent, somewhat competent people. One or two of them should be able to help me hold down the fort until you get back. Don't worry about it, okay?"

"Okay," I repeat softly, a fresh wave of tears overtaking me. I need to get myself in gear—putting it off isn't going to make it any easier—but I need just a few more moments of this. I need to be held. I need to be weak and a mess now so I can try to be strong for my parents when I get to Wisconsin.