Prologue I

The hallway is chocked with people and words of comfort but I look to my right, his whole tall frame seated on the bench beside me, I wonder if he even cares. I watched as he stared at the floor. I felt him shaking through the bench and reached out to touch his broad shoulder.

He jerked from my grasp and thrust his face into his hands; his shoulders were violently shaking beneath my tender grip. I watched him as he slowly turned to his right where his wife sat. Her dark brown eyes swam with unshed tears. I saw this woman I hardly knew with her face ashen with grief and my whole body ached for her.

"I Just..." He said but his voice was strangled and hoarse. I waited. He swallowed. His wife leaned into him with a sob. He wrapped his arms around her but turned looked over at me looking me right in the eyes. I winced and turned quickly away.

"I just don't understand, how he could do that to them!" I nodded glumly, still looking at the floor in front of me.

I clenched my eyes shut but I could feel it when he looked away. I peeked over my shoulder: He rubbed his wife's back slowly and carefully as she fell asleep in his arms but I couldn't say anything.

He sighed and I saw in him more of the man he was supposed to be at the age of 35 and less the naive wild-boy I met so many years ago. I looked down to the ground at my feet and stared there, twiddling my thumbs.

"Why? We could have brought them back...but now..." he whispered. My tears leaked down my face and hands and dripped onto the cold tile floor.