Who was I kidding? Mom was still huddled on the stairs. We couldn’t care for ourselves. One of the care team members took Gus a snack and assured me he was still engrossed in Angry Birds. I couldn’t tell him. I couldn’t do it.

The casualty assistance officer knocked quietly an hour later, and I opened the door. April walked Mom to the couch and sat her down, bracing her with pillows to keep her upright. Her eyes changed focus from the carpet runner to the blank screen of the television deep within the recesses of the armoire. She refused to look at any of us. I’m not sure she was capable of understanding what had truly happened. Then again, I’m not sure I was capable of understanding what had really happened, either, but I didn’t have the luxury of going catatonic.

“My name is Captain Adam Wilson,” he introduced himself. He wore Dress Blues just like the notification officers had, but he seemed uncomfortable in the role he had been assigned to play. I knew I would be. His frame nearly filled the loveseat across from the couch my mother sat upon, and he dragged the coffee table toward him, softly scraping the carpet. “Did you want someone to take notes?” He glanced at Mom. “For when she’s feeling up to it?”

“I’ve got it,” a woman from the team said softly, pen and notebook ready.

Captain Wilson gathered a stack of papers from his leather briefcase, and tugged at his tie, making a minor adjustment. “There’s another child, correct?” He shuffled through a few of his papers until he selected a form. “August Howard?”

“Gus is upstairs,” I answered, taking the seat on the other side of Mom, closest to Captain Wilson. I clutched the black binder I’d gotten out of Mom’s office. It was the very last item in the filing cabinet, just like Dad had told me before he left. “I haven’t told him yet.”

“Would you like me to?” Captain Wilson asked softly. I briefly considered it. Mom was in no state to discuss it with him, and Captain Wilson had probably been trained to deliver information like that. I couldn’t do it though, let a stranger alter the universe of my little brother.

“No. I’ll do it myself.”

April began crying again, but Mom sat as still as ever, vacant, not really here with us. “I want to give him as long as possible before I have to. His world is still normal. He doesn’t know that nothing will ever be the same for him.” I bit back my own sob. “He’s seven years old and everything he knows just ended. So I think I’ll give him just another few minutes.” Before I tear him to pieces. My skin flushed as new tears came to the surface. I supposed that was the way things would go for a while. I needed to get better at pushing them back.

Captain Wilson cleared his throat and nodded his head. “I can understand that.” He explained his role to us, that he would be our guide to Dad’s casualty process. He would help us through the paperwork, the ceremony, the things no one saw coming. In a way, he was our handler, sent here to be a buffer between our grief and the United States Army. I was thankful for him just as much as I hated his sheer existence.

He would be with us until we told him we no longer needed him.

After he finished his explanation, the barrage of questions began. April excused herself, saying she had to lie down. There was no doubt in my mind that within a few minutes, this would all go public on Facebook. April was never one to suffer in silence.

The questions started, and I opened the black binder. Dad’s handwriting was scrawled all over the pages of his will, his life insurance policy, and his last wishes, all the paperwork carefully organized for this exact moment. Did we know where he wanted to be buried? What kind of casket he wanted? Was there anyone we wanted with us? Was the bank account correct for the life insurance money to be deposited? Did we want to fly to Dover to meet his remains while the army prepared him for burial?

Dover. It was like crossing the army’s version of the river Styx.

Mom remained silent, staring at that blank television as I found the answers to what he asked. No question pulled her from her stupor, no tug of her hand, no whisper of her name could bring her back to where I was desperate for her to be. It was becoming blatantly obvious that I was alone. “Is there someone we can call to help make these decisions with your mother?” His mouth tightened as he slipped a discreet glance toward my mother. I was unsure how many shocked widows he’d seen in his career, but Mom was my first.

Grams was a day away. Because she was Dad’s mom, I knew the army had officially notified her, just as we had been. No doubt she was already on her way, but until she got here, there was no one else. Mom’s parents were dead. Her brother had never been around much in our lives, and I couldn’t see a good reason to bring him in now. “There’s just me,” I replied. “I’ll take responsibility for the decisions until she can.”

“Ember?” Gus’s small voice came from the steps where he stood. “What’s going on?”

I placed Mom’s hand back in her lap. It wasn’t like she noticed I was holding it anyway. After the deepest breath ever taken, I walked over to my little brother. I sat down next to him on the steps and repeated everything we knew in seven-year-old terms, which wasn’t anything really. But I had to repeat the one thing we knew for certain. “Daddy isn’t coming home, Gus.”

Little blue eyes filled with tears, and his lower lip began to quiver. “Did the bad guys get him?”

“Yes, baby.” I pulled him into my arms and held him, rocking him back and forth like I had when he was an infant, our parents’ miracle baby. I brushed his hair back over his forehead and kissed him.