Healing Touch

One evening, as she turned on the television, a news bulletin broke into the program. The picture of Jake's face splashed across the screen. The caption read that a prominent attorney had been gunned down in the city by a client. Kat felt her whole world falling apart. She flipped off the news show hoping it would all go away if she couldn't see the gory details flashing across the screen. When she finally turned it on again to make sure she hadn't imaged what she'd seen, the other stations carried the same gruesome report.
She fell to the couch bursting into tears. She hadn't imagined it and now second loss of a loved one sunk in devastating her. She felt her life was over. Losing her parents and then Jake was almost too much for her to take in. She cried with hiccupping sobs pressing her face into the cushions to block out the sight of Jake's face still pictured on the screen. When she controlled her crying, Kat dialed Jake's parents' home.
As someone answered, Kat didn't recognize the voice of either parent. It must have been a relative or friend. "May I help you?" the voice asked in an impersonal tone."I'm Katrina Anderson, Jake's fiancée. Are his parents at home? I need to talk to them about what happened to Jake.""No, there out making arrangements for Jake. Would you like for them to call you when they get back?""Just tell them I called and will contact them later, " she said between the sobs that erupted again."I will, " the person told her in a sympathetic voice.
The next sound she heard was the dial tone. She didn't have a clue to any of the funeral arrangements for Jake, so she sat back and stared blankly at the television screen. Surely his parents would let her know about coming to Wisconsin. She needed to be there for him. But Kat had waited for the next few days and the call never came. Maybe they were having a private ceremony and didn't want any intrusions on their grief.
She felt so devastated she didn't try to call them again with the thought that if they wanted to speak to her, they had her phone number. The privacy motive was the only reason she could come up with over why they weren't contacting her. She resigned herself to a life without her parents and Jake.