Heretics book 3 - The Apocryphile Press

THE KINGDOM :: 245
enough. He had also uttered a few choice anti-gay epithets in
Richard’s direction on more than one occasion. Mr. Kim was
not someone Richard particularly felt like ministering to. But
as he took in the scene, his heart softened, and he saw not an
intolerant businessman, but a man bereft of someone he
truly loved.
Richard entered the garage uninvited, and sat down on the
floor next to Mr. Kim. The balding man’s face was flushed as
he almost choked on his emotion. He continued to rock back
and forth, apparently oblivious to the friar’s presence.
Richard put a hand out, and laid it gently on Kim’s arm, giving
it a light squeeze and then releasing it. The man choked
on his words. “I heard...on radio...but I didn’t believe it
until...until...she’s gone. My baby is gone....”
Richard looked around for signs of what sort of dog “she”
must have been. It was a large cage, so that told him something.
The water bowl might have held half a gallon, and
there was a femur lying in the cage that might have belonged
to a rhino. “She” had been a good-sized dog, he reasoned.
For a brief moment, Richard struggled with what to say.
He tried “It’s going to be okay” on for size, as well as
“There, there,” but they both seemed so outrageously lame
that he bit them back and kept his silence.
And it was silence that was the proper thing. There was
nothing to say, because, Richard realized, he had nothing to
promise. All he had to offer was presence, empathy, and support,
and he gave those things without reservation, and without
words.
He didn’t know how long he sat on the floor beside Mr.
Kim. Until the other had stopped crying, and lay on the floor,
the cold concrete of the garage cooling the businessman’s
fiery cheek. He sat there until the sun was long down, until
Mr. Kim finally rose, pulled him to his feet, hugged him
briefly, and went inside his house.