Case Point: The Unclaimed
The Oakmont coroner’s office was a small, quiet room with the scent of old paper and sterile disinfectant. I walked up to the counter, the air thick with an unspoken sadness. A tired-looking man with a neatly trimmed beard and a name tag that read “Coroner Harris” looked up at me.
“Jack Hammer,” I said, my voice as flat as the linoleum floor. “I’m here about a Jane Doe. Found a few years back.”
He nodded, a silent acknowledgment of the sad, familiar story. He pulled a file from a drawer and laid it on the counter, its cover stained and worn. “We have a single photo on file,” he said, handing me a small, faded picture.
I looked at it. A woman with a face ravaged by addiction, her eyes hollow, her skin sallow. She was a ghost of the girl I had known. My heart felt like it was breaking all over again. I remembered Angela’s last letter, her words echoing in my mind: “Don’t come looking now Jack… You wouldn’t recognize me if you found me.” She was right. The years had been cruel. The drugs, crueler.
But in her eyes, behind all the wreckage and the pain, I still saw her. I still saw the girl who had shared a summer with me, a girl who had once been full of so much light.
“It’s her,” I said, the words a raw whisper. “Angela.”
Case Point: A Locket
The coroner nodded, a sad look on his face. “Her remains were cremated years ago,” he said, his voice soft. “Unclaimed. They’ve been stored here in our office ever since.” He reached into a box and placed a small, wooden urn on the counter. Next to it, he placed a plastic bag containing her personal effects.
There wasn’t much. Just a small, tarnished silver locket. I took the locket in my hands, my fingers trembling slightly. I popped it open. On one side was a faded, grainy picture of a young man, a kid with a defiant sneer and a look of trouble in his eyes. Me. On the other side was a photo of a young girl with a bright smile and deep blue eyes. Jackie Angel.
My daughter, my first love, my life. All gone. All in a small, cheap locket.
I closed the locket and put it in my pocket. I took the urn in my other hand. I wasn’t just bringing her ashes back to the city. I was bringing her home.
