Page 46 of The Sniper

After a while, a nurse or an assistant—I didn’t catch her name—knelt in front of us and spoke gently.

“Your mother didn’t feel up to the identification,” she said softly, apologetically, like she was confessing something shameful. “She asked if someone else could do it. She … wasn’t in any condition.”

I swallowed hard, guilt lancing sharp and sudden through my chest.

“Where is she?”

“At home,” the woman said. “Someone from the church has been sitting with her.”

Of course, she hadn’t come. Of course, she hadn’t walked into this room. Mama had never been good with death. Even when Daddy would visit hospice patients from the congregation, she’d stay in the car or wait in the foyer, fingers wound tight in her Bible and a too-bright smile stretched across her grief.

Noah stood with me still in his arms, setting me gently on my feet like he knew I didn’t trust them to hold me yet. I leaned into him as we walked out, past the morgue door, past the lowered eyes and murmured condolences of people who didn’t know what else to say. Back out into the parking lot where the sky hung low and the clouds pressed down.

I slid into the passenger seat of his truck, and this time, I didn’t bother to buckle in. Just pulled my knees to my chest and pressed my forehead to the window, hard glass grounding me for the few seconds I needed not to fall apart again.

“We need to go to Mama’s,” I said after a moment, voice almost gone.

He nodded once. “What’s the address?”

I told him, and we pulled away from the station, the road to my childhood home stretching out in front of us.

The drive was short, but it felt endless. I watched the town pass by like it had betrayed me. The church steeple in the distance, the diner where Daddy took me for pancakes on my birthdays, the old gas station he always swore had better fuel than the new one across town. It was all still here.

And he wasn’t.

Noah reached over and rested a hand on my thigh, warm and steady. He didn’t say anything—just touchedme like I was still real. Like I hadn’t disappeared into the hollow my father left behind.

Mama’s house came into view, black shutters and a porch swing creaking in the breeze. Nothing looked the same.

As we pulled up, I saw her—my mama—sitting out front in the rocking chair by the window. Back straight, eyes fixed on something far away. Her hands were folded in her lap, unmoving.

I opened the truck door slowly. Noah moved with me, silent, keeping close without crowding.

When Mama saw me, she didn’t stand. Didn’t wave. Didn’t smile. She just looked at me like she wasn’t sure if I was real.

I climbed the porch steps one at a time, and when I got close enough to touch her, I dropped to my knees and pressed my head into her lap like I was six years old again.

“I’m here,” I whispered. “Mama, I’m here.”

She broke.

Her hands, trembling and birdlike, sank into my hair as she bent low over me and wept. Not loud, not like me. But deep. Shuddering. Silent sobs that rocked her whole body.

Noah stood at the edge of the porch, head bowed, giving us space he knew we needed. But I felt him there.

And I knew—when I could breathe again, when I could stand without shaking—he’d still be standing right beside me.

Because I’d called him.

And he came.

And now, in the wreckage of everything I’d ever known, he was the only thing that felt sure.

The screen door creaked behind us.

Noah turned, his posture straightening subtly, his expression shifting into something harder—less open, more watchful.

A man stepped out onto the porch—older, probably in his early sixties, with gray hair swept neatly back and a funeral suit already on like he’d known from the start he wouldn’t change out of it today. I recognized him instantly—Deacon Eldridge. One of Daddy’s oldest friends. He’d been at First Baptist since before I was born, always the one to lock up the sanctuary after night services and walk the building with a flashlight like some kind of holy sentry.

---