He wasn’t sure if he should apologize again or not, so he kept quiet.
“It was fast,” Hugo said, staring off into the darkness. He let his hands hang over the edge of the railing. “The roads were slick. Sleet and freezing rain had been falling all day, and Mom and Dad were going out on a date. They’d been thinking about staying in, but I told them to go ahead, so long as they were careful. They worked hard, and I thought they deserved a night out, you know? So I pushed them. Told them to go.” He shook his head. “I didn’t … it’s weird. I didn’t know it was the last time I’d see them as they were then. Dad squeezed my shoulder, and Mom kissed me on the cheek. I grumbled about it and told them I wasn’t a kid anymore. They laughed at me and told me I was always going to be their little boy, even if I hadn’t been little in a long time. They died. Car hit a patch of ice and slid off the road. It rolled. I was told it was over in an instant. But that stuck with me for a long time, because it was over for me in an instant, and yet it feels like it’s still happening, sometimes.”
“Shit,” Wallace breathed.
“I fell asleep on the couch. I woke up because someone was standing above me. I opened my eyes, and … there they were. Just standing there, looking down at me, wearing their nice clothes. Dad hated his tie, said it felt like he was choking, but Mom made him wear it anyway, telling him he looked so handsome. I asked them what time it was. You know what they said?”
Wallace shook his head.
Hugo laughed wetly. “Nothing. They said nothing at all. They flickered in and out, and I thought I was dreaming. And then a Reaper appeared.”
“Whoa.”
“Yeah,” Hugo said. “That was … something else. He took my parents by the hands, and I demanded to know who he was and what the hell he was doing in our house. I’ll never forget the look of shock on his face. I wasn’t supposed to be able to see him.”
“How did you?”
“I don’t know,” Hugo admitted. “I’m not like Mei. I’d never seen ghosts before or anything like that. I never had any kind of touch or sight or whatever it is that makes people like Mei who they are. I was just … me. But here I was, trying to grab onto my parents, to pull them away from this stranger, but my hands kept going right through them. I reached for the unknown man, and for a moment, it worked. I felt him. It was like fireworks going off in my head, the explosions bright. They hurt. By the time my vision cleared, they were gone. I tried to tell myself I’d imagined it all, but then someone knocked on the door ten minutes later, and I knew it wasn’t only in my head because the police were there, saying things I didn’t want to hear. I told them it was a mistake, it had to be a mistake. I screamed at them to get the hell away from me. Grandad showed up shortly after, and I begged him to tell me the truth. He did.”
“How old were you?”
“Twenty-five,” Hugo said.
“Jesus.”
“Yeah. It was … a lot. And then the Manager came to see me.” His voice hardened slightly. “Three days after their funeral. One moment I was going through things in the house I thought could be donated to Goodwill, and the next he was standing in front of me. He … told me things. About life and death. How it’s a cycle that never ends and never would. Grief, he said, is a catalyst. A transformation. And then he offered me a job.”
“And you took it? You believed him?”
Hugo nodded. “The Manager is many things, most of which I can’t even begin to describe. But he’s not a liar. He speaks only in truths, even if we don’t want to hear what he has to say. I didn’t trust him right away. I don’t know if I do even now. But he showed me things, things that should have been impossible. Death has a beauty to it. We don’t see it because we don’t want to. And that makes sense. Why would we want to focus on something that takes us away from everything we know? How do we even begin to understand that there’s more than what we see?”
“I don’t know the answer to that,” Wallace admitted. “To any of it.” That troubled him, because he felt like he should know, like the answer was on the tip of his tongue.
“Faith,” Hugo said, and Wallace groaned. “Oh, stop it. I’m not talking about religion or God or whatever else you might be thinking. Faith isn’t always … it’s not just about those things. It’s not something I can force upon you, even if you think that’s what I’m doing.”
“Aren’t you?” Wallace asked, trying to keep his voice even. “You’re trying to make me believe in something I don’t want.”
“Why is that, do you think?”
Wallace didn’t know.
Hugo seemed to let it go. “The Manager said I was selfless, which is why I was under any consideration at all. He could see it in me. I laughed in his face. How could I be selfless when I would have given anything to have them back? I told him that if he put my parents in front of me along with a random person and said I had to choose who lived or died, I would pick my mom and dad without hesitation. That’s not how a selfless person acts.”
“Why not?”
Hugo looked surprised. “Because I would choose what made me happy.”
“Doesn’t mean you’re not selfless. If we never wanted something just for ourselves, what would that make us? You were grieving. Of course that’s what you would say.”
“That’s what the Manager said.”
Wallace wasn’t sure how he felt about that. In a way, he’d been a manager of sorts, and that comparison didn’t sit well with him. “But you still said yes.”
Hugo nodded slowly, picking at the string of lights on the railing. “Not right away. He told me he’d give me time, but the offer wasn’t always going to be on the table. And for a while after, I was going to say no, especially after he told me all it would entail. I couldn’t … I wouldn’t have a normal life. Not like everyone else. The job would come first, above all things. It was a commitment, one that if I agreed to, would be binding for as long as I drew breath.”
Wallace Price had been accused of many things in his life, but selflessness was not one of them. He gave little thought to those around him, unless they stood in his way. And God help them if they did. But even so, he could feel the weight of Hugo’s words, and it was heavy on his shoulders. Not necessarily because of what he’d said, but what it meant. They were alike in ways Wallace hadn’t expected, choosing a job and putting it above all other things. But that was where the comparisons ended. Perhaps, when Wallace was young and bright-eyed, he’d started out with noble intentions, but those had fallen by the wayside quickly, hadn’t they? Always about the bottom line and what it meant for the firm. For Wallace.
Maybe on a surface level, he and Hugo could be considered similar, but it didn’t go much further than that. Hugo was better than he could ever be. Wallace didn’t think Hugo would make the same choices he had. “What changed your mind?”
Hugo ran his hand over his hair. Such a small action, and a wonderfully human one at that, but it gave Wallace pause. Everything about Hugo did. He was struck by this man and the quiet power that emanated from him. Hugo was unexpected, and Wallace thought he was sinking once again. “Curiosity, maybe? A desire to understand that bordered on desperation. I told myself that if I did this, I might find answers to questions I didn’t even know I had. I’ve been at this for five years now, and I still have questions. Not the same ones, but I don’t know that I’ll ever stop asking.” He laughed, though it was strangled and soft. “I even convinced myself I might be able to see them again.”