Chapter 1~The Last Goodbye
The grass was wet beneath John Wick's shoes. The sky had not decided whether it wanted to cry, but the clouds hung low enough to press on his chest. He stood at the edge of a hole in the earth, a wooden casket suspended above it by straps, its polished surface slick with the suggestion of coming rain.
A handful of people were gathered neighbors, old acquaintances, people who had known Helen in ways John never could. Their voices were hushed, words of condolence murmured into the damp air, phrases that slipped off him like water over glass. He didn't look at them. He couldn't.
His eyes stayed on the casket.
The priest's voice rolled over him, solemn, measured, meaningless. Something about eternal rest. Something about God's plan.
Helen's plan had been different. She had smiled through her sickness, smiled until the end, because she wanted him to believe in something past it. She wanted him to believe in peace. But the hole in the ground did not speak of peace. It spoke only of endings.
John's hands flexed at his sides. He wore a black suit, perfectly cut, though the fit felt foreign now. The weight of the tie against his throat was a reminder he was still alive. Every breath was a betrayal.
A woman touched his arm. A neighbor. Her eyes were soft, her pity suffocating.
"If you need anything, John…"
He nodded once, mechanical, and she faded back into the blur of faces.
The straps lowered. The casket descended slowly, far too slowly. Every inch of its fall scraped across the hollow inside his chest. When it finally reached the bottom, the priest made the sign of the cross. John didn't move.
The people began to leave, one by one, their cars crunching over gravel in the distance. Soon the cemetery was empty except for him and the raw patch of dirt at his feet.
He stayed until the workers came to shovel earth onto the box. The first dull thud of soil against the wood echoed like a gunshot. John flinched subtly, but he felt it tear through him.
When he finally turned away, the sky broke open. Rain followed him to his car.
The rain didn't let up. It hammered the roof of the black '69 Mustang, smeared across the windshield in sheets, and hissed under the tires as John steered onto the highway.
The wipers kept time back and forth, back and forth mechanical, unrelenting. The sound of them was the only rhythm in the silence. He didn't turn on the radio. Didn't want music. Didn't want words.
He gripped the wheel tighter than he needed to. His knuckles whitened, and once, he loosened his fingers as if realizing he was choking the leather. A brief exhale fogged the window. His jaw ached from clenching.
The city passed by in streaks of neon and halogen. Red tail lights bled across wet asphalt, faceless traffic carrying lives he wasn't part of anymore. He drove as though each mile between the cemetery and his house was an obligation, a duty he had to finish.
By the time he pulled into his driveway, the rain had slowed to a drizzle. The house stood in silence, windows dark, the porch light off. A neat, suburban home sterile, ordinary. Too ordinary.
He cut the engine. For a long moment, he didn't move. Just sat in the dark, hands resting useless on the wheel. His reflection in the rearview mirror was a stranger's eyes sunken, hair damp, skin pale. A man hollowed out.
Finally, he stepped out, the gravel crunching beneath his shoes. The house loomed like a museum exhibit behind him, a place that once held life.
Inside, the air felt wrong. Too still. He let the door close behind him, the sound echoing louder than it should have.
Helen's shoes were still by the door. Her sweater draped over the back of the couch. A coffee mug sat on the kitchen counter, the faint stain of her last sip inside it. He hadn't moved them. Couldn't.
John walked deeper into the house, past the living room into the kitchen. The refrigerator hummed. The clock ticked on the wall. But the place was void of presence.
He leaned against the counter, head bowed, and pressed his hand over his mouth. He hadn't cried at the funeral. Not once. But now, in the stillness, the weight pressed down on him until his shoulders trembled.
The sound he made wasn't quite a sob. More like the crack of something breaking inside.
The house swallowed it whole.
The sound startled him.
The doorbell. A sharp chime cutting through the hush of the house. He straightened, swallowing hard, brushing at his face as if wiping away something he didn't want the world to see.
No one visited him. Not anymore.
John walked slowly to the door and opened it.
On the stoop sat a small crate. Plain cardboard, damp at the corners from the rain. A delivery van idled at the curb, its taillights bright red against the dark. The driver gave a quick wave through the window before pulling away, leaving the box alone on the porch.
John bent down. There was a neat envelope taped to the top. His name written across it in Helen's handwriting curved, deliberate strokes he hadn't seen in weeks.
His breath caught. He tore the tape with careful fingers and slid the letter free.
John,
You need something to love. So love this. Please. Find peace.
Helen
The words blurred. He blinked hard, jaw working. His hands shook slightly as he set the letter down and opened the crate.
Inside, two wide eyes stared up at him. Brown, innocent, wet with fear. A tiny beagle pup shifted against the blanket, ears too large for her small head. She whined once, soft and uncertain.
John exhaled, a sound halfway between a laugh and a sigh. For the first time in days, something in him loosened.
He reached in, carefully, and lifted her out. Warm fur, fragile heartbeat against his chest. The puppy wriggled once, then nestled in as though she already belonged there.
A small tag clinked against his hand. Her name engraved in brass: Daisy.
He stood in the doorway a long time, rain misting across his shoulders, the pup pressed to him like something impossibly breakable. His eyes went back to Helen's handwriting on the letter.
It was her voice in the silence. Her hand reaching from the grave to place something alive in his arms.
John closed the door. For the first time since she died, he didn't feel entirely alone.
The puppy's paws tapped against the hardwood as she explored the living room. Tiny nails clicking, nose to the ground, Daisy sniffed the edges of furniture, darting between the legs of the coffee table as if she owned the place.
John watched her from the kitchen doorway, arms folded. The sight was foreign life moving freely where silence had reigned.
She paused near the sweater Helen had left on the back of the couch, pressing her nose into the fabric. Her tail wagged once, hesitant, as though she recognized a trace of something.
John felt it too.
He exhaled and went to the counter where a small bag of puppy food had been tucked inside the crate. Instructions neatly folded inside, Helen's planning woven even into this. He poured a small pile into a bowl, the dry rattle loud in the quiet kitchen.
"Come on," he muttered, his voice rough from disuse.
Daisy scampered over, ears flopping, nose buried in the bowl before he could even set it fully down. The sounds she made snorts, little huffs, the determined crunch of kibble were almost comically loud.
John found himself standing there, watching, something tugging at the corner of his mouth. Not quite a smile. Something softer, rarer.
Later, when he set a blanket down in the corner of his bedroom, Daisy had other ideas. She circled it once, sniffed, then padded after him as he sat heavily on the bed. Before he could protest, she scrambled up the side, nails scratching at the quilt, and collapsed in a clumsy heap against his ribs.
He looked down at her, half ready to push her away. But her body was warm, her breathing steady, and in the rhythm of it he felt a quiet he hadn't known since Helen.
"You're stubborn," he said, low, almost amused.
Daisy gave a small sigh, already half asleep.
John leaned back, one hand resting against the small rise and fall of her chest. The clock ticked on the nightstand. Rain tapped faintly at the window. For once, the silence didn't hurt.
In the dark, with the puppy pressed against him, he let his eyes close.
It was the first night since the funeral that he didn't dream of the hospital.