Worlds Apart by Daniel Kelley

an animal. He walked into the living room. It was so dark in the silent house that the police car parked by the curb appeared to be lit with spots. One officer was smoking; the other was making notes of some sort on a clipboard.
    Kurt pulled himself together as best he could: shoes tied, shirt tucked in properly, hair pushed as neatly into place as he could manage.
    He opened the front door. Cold air brushed past him, nipping at his ears, face, hands.
    The officers had noticed. The cigarette was stubbed out, they strode toward the house with precise steps, caps tucked formally under their arms.
     
    * * * *~
     
    And now Kurt had to call Sonya. The policemen had discussed with him the identification process; he was well familiar with it by this point, but had allowed them to detail everything without interruption.
    They had tossed in more condolences, more stiff ‘sirs’ and such, but Kurt had let it all wash by. They were merely doing their job; no reason to make it more difficult for them as he had earlier in the day.
    He held the telephone in his lap as he sat, exhausted, in his armchair. He’d asked the officers to give him fifteen minutes, and after he called his daughter, he’d allow them to drive him wherever it was they needed him to be.
    Should he have just gone to Sonya’s apartment? Kurt didn’t know if he could face her with this in person. Was calling her the cowardly approach? Kurt had no idea, but the thought of dragging his hangdog self up three flights of stairs to darken Sonya’s doorway and tell her that yet another death, another pair of deaths had occurred , was the last thing he felt either of them could handle.
    If either of them could truly handle this latest blow, anyway.
    Kurt lifted the receiver and began to dial.

Five
    As Kurt had dreaded might happen, lunch was turning out to be a sad, sorry affair. Even his idea of bringing Sonya to one of her favorite restaurants near the center of town had backfired; her bleak gaze kept sweeping the establishment, a mournful despondency coloring her features as she no doubt remembered better meals, better times in the familiar locale.
    Kurt had carefully driven his Maybach Cabriolet through the slushy streets, thinking that maybe a ride in his pride and joy would set a brighter tone for the day. It hadn’t. He’d felt ridiculous driving the big red car by himself, picking Sonya up so that then it was just the two of them sitting silently side by side in a vehicle that could easily seat six.
    “Tell me again about you and Mama,” Sonya said while looking down at the tablecloth, her untouched main course cooling in front of her.
    “What would you like to hear?” Kurt asked. He’d eaten a few bites of his beef filet, but it was tasteless, like everything else that had been set before them today.
    “How you met. How you courted her.” Sonya hadn’t shifted her gaze at all. “You used to tell us stories all the time about your younger days. I want to hear them again.”
    Kurt didn’t want to talk about the past. It could only create frightful comparisons with the present.
    “You know how we met, right?” he asked gently.
    Sonya nodded. “A tennis court. You were someone’s guest at a club, and you saw her playing.”
    Kurt sensed a bittersweet smile making its way onto his face. “Yes. She was playing. And laughing. More laughing than playing, actually.”
    “You stopped to watch her.”
    “I did. I couldn’t help myself. My friend, Phillip, he kept tugging at me, trying to pull me along to the court he’d reserved. He had a pair of sisters with whom he’d arranged for us to play doubles.”
    “Were they as beautiful as Mama?”
    Kurt shook his head. “No. No one was. I’d never seen anyone so full of life, so incandescent. She stole the sun out of the sky, she was so radiant.”
    “But you didn’t talk to her then, did you?”
    “No! Oh, no! I couldn’t, I could only stare. Phillip whispered in my ear – I think he was