It was early December, time for Cal's parents to vacation down south. Since Cal had had quite possibly the greatest holiday season of his life last year, they decided to vacation early this year so they could be back in time to celebrate together as a family.

They were due back in town that day. Cal was excited, running around all hyper and talking nonstop. As much as he enjoyed staying with his aunt and uncle, he loved his parents more than anything. He couldn't wait to tell them all about the fun things he'd done in the last week.

Strip looked out the window at the dreary sky. It had been spitting ice pellets all morning. He expected to get a call at any moment from his brother asking if they could keep Cal one more day so the roads would have time to clear.

"Cal, I'm gonna put you in time out if you don't calm down." Lynda threatened him. "You gotta stop running around like this."

Strip turned around to see Cal darting back and forth between the kitchen and the living area. He was purposely trying to avoid being caught by Lynda, who just couldn't keep up with him.

"I'm gonna siphon your gas, and then you'll be stuck, buddy." Strip assisted his wife, moving forward to cut Cal off from rocketing towards the front door.

"Nooo!" Cal yelled, turning abruptly to avoid running into Strip's side. He turned too hard on the carpet and managed to flip up on his side. He tried to push himself back over with his tires laying against the floor, but was unable to.

"I say we leave him like that." Lynda said, herself unsure if she was joking or not. She'd done nothing but chase him around all day, and it was exhausting.

Strip smiled as Cal grunted and flailed around, refusing to admit defeat. The kid finally sighed and said, "I'm stuck."

Just then, Strip heard the popping of gravel under tires and went to look out the window again, expecting his brother and sister-in-law to be coming up the drive.

"Is that them?" Lynda asked from across the room.

Strip saw flashes of black and white. Neither his brother nor his brother's wife had black or white paint.

"No." Strip said, watching the figure through the tree line at the far end of the yard. "It's someone else."

The car finally emerged into the open. It was a cop. Strip felt uneasy. The police had no reason to come this far out of the way for no reason. He turned from looking out the window, gently pushed Cal back on his wheels, and looked at Lynda.

"Can you keep him occupied in here while I go see what this is about?" he asked her.

She looked a little confused at the request, but nodded. Cal, suddenly better behaved, followed her into the living room and settled for playing a game of tic-tac-toe. He liked to play with her because she always let him win.

The officer pulled onto the porch and knocked on the door. Strip immediately opened it and greeted him.

"Afternoon, officer. Something I can do for you?" he asked.

The officer shook himself. "No, not at all. Mr. Weathers, my name's Officer Grilles. I regret to say this, but I'm here to inform you about an accident that happened this morning."

Strip felt the dread creep through him, as cold as the hardened rain outside. The officer paused and took a breath. Relaying news like this was never easy, no matter how much experience he had.

"At about ten o'oclock this morning, the mountain passage iced over. The county did not have time to issue a travel warning before the accident reports came in. We went and investigated the accident to find that an oil tanker took a turn too fast in the ice, lost control, and flipped over into the opposing lane. Maurice and Sadie Weathers were making their way up the mountain in the opposing lane when it happened. I'm - I'm sorry to report that Maurice was declared dead on site. Sadie was rushed to the nearest hospital, but passed soon after she was admitted."

Strip couldn't believe what he was hearing. Gone? Was his little brother really gone? Sadie too? He stared off into the middle distance in a dissociated state. The officer looked genuinely distraught, but after a moment of hesitation, continued.

"Before she passed, Sadie did manage to say something that she wanted passed on to you. 'Make sure they take good care of Cal.' That's their son, I presume?"

Strip backed up a little and looked into the living room, where Cal was intently focused on making his next move. That small, sweet little boy… an orphan now? Strip had to blink back a few tears as he tried to find his voice.

"Yeah." Strip said in no more than a whisper. "Yeah, that's him."

Officer Grilles followed Strip's stare and saw the kid sitting in the next room, oblivious to the tragedy. It was heartbreaking.

"Would you like me tell him?" Grilles asked, fulfilling his obligation to help. "I'm qualified to break news like this to youngsters like him."

Strip took a deep breath and shook himself. "No. I'll tell him."

Grilles respected his choice, and turned his attention back to the racer. "Their bodies are being held at Memorial Hospital. The morticians there have made them suitable to be viewed if you want to go say goodbye."

"Thank you." Strip said unevenly. He wanted to say more but couldn't find the words.

Officer Grilles slid him a business card. "Here's my contact information. Please call me if you need anything. I'll do what I can. Best of luck to you."

"Thank you." Strip repeated, taking the card and placing it on the counter to his left.

The officer bowed out of respect and turned to leave. Strip closed the door and sat in silence for a couple of moments, fighting his own emotions. He had to stay strong for Cal. If Cal saw him break down, it would make everything so much worse than it already was.

"What was that about, dear?" Lynda asked from the next room.

Strip closed his eyes for a moment, not responding. Lynda sensed something wasn't right and turned to look through the doorway. She saw her husband sitting before the closed door, not moving.

"Strip?" she asked more hesitantly.

He took a deep, ragged breath and opened his eyes. How was he going to do this?

"Cal, go to your room for a bit." Strip said in the sternest voice he could muster. "Don't come out until I tell you to."

Cal could feel the tension in the air, and knew that this wasn't a time to argue. He quietly drove up the ramp to the second level and went into his room. As soon as Strip heard the door shut, he turned to look at Lynda. She drove up to him, and saw a wet streak down his fender. She suddenly realized she'd never seen him cry before.

"Oh, no." she whispered, having put two and two together. "Please, don't tell me what I think you're goin' to."

"They're gone, Lyn." he whispered without making eye contact. "Moe and Sadie both. Gone."

There was silence. Neither one of them wanted to believe it.

"What?" she was in tears. "How? Both of them?"

Strip closed his eyes again and tried to control his breathing. It wasn't helping. Lynda had started to quietly sob, and hearing her cry made him feel even worse.

"The officer said there was a semi haulin' a tanker trailer. He went around a corner too fast and lost it on the ice. They were comin' the other direction," he explained briefly.

He drove forward towards her, and pressed his front right fender against hers in an attempt to comfort her. She tried to comfort him back, but she was shaking. They spent several long moments like that, trying to wrap their minds around the tragedy. Strip felt like he was suspended in a nightmare. It hurt, but it wasn't quite real. His brother was like a best friend to him, and even Sadie for that matter. They were all so tightly knit. How could they be gone, just like that?

The implications of the situation finally found their way through the emotions clouding Lynda's judgement. She gasped through her tears and managed to form a coherent sentence.

"What about Cal?" she asked. "He's so young and innocent - he doesn't deserve this. He's such a - "

Her sentence trailed off into more broken sobs and soft whimpers. The thought of this sweet child not having a family anymore tore her up inside.

"Are you ready to try our hand at parenting?" Strip asked, knowing it's what his late relatives wanted. "We've got to do what we can. We can't lose him to the foster system."

Lynda nodded and thought about it a little. "Yeah, yeah I am. This ain't how I pictured it, but yes."

A few more moments passed, and Strip sighed. "Their bodies are at the hospital in town. They've fixed them up enough for a viewing. I need to go tell Cal what happened, and we need to go over there. He needs to know what to expect before a funeral."

"Yeah, okay." Lynda tried to collect herself. She stopped shaking so much, but the tears were still rolling. "Do you want me to come with you? To tell him?"

"Do you think you can keep it together?" he asked her, not wanting Cal to be worried right from the start. He needed to break it to him slowly and in a way he could understand.

Lynda considered it and shook herself. "No. I'll wait out in the hallway."

They went up the ramp to the second floor. Lynda hid outside the room, parked against the hallway wall so she could listen. Strip knocked on Cal's closed door.

"Hey, Cal." he said in as straight a voice as he could. "Can I come in?"

Cal opened the door and looked up at his uncle, confused as to why he was sent to his room. He hadn't done anything wrong, had he?

"Cal, come park over here next to me." Strip said as he drove over to the window overlooking the front yard.

Cal slowly crossed the room to look out the window. He was still trying to figure out everyone's odd behaviors.

"Am I in trouble?" he asked shyly.

"No, no you're not in trouble." Strip managed to briefly smile at him. "Not at all. Cal, listen. I have some bad news for you, but I want you to be strong. You think you can be strong for a little bit?"

Cal frowned, but nodded, raising himself on his little struts and making a determined face.

Strip gestured out the window. "Cal, do you know what ice is like on roads?"

"Slick and dang'rous. Daddy always said to never drive on ice!" Cal answered.

"Right. Do you know what can happen if you drive on ice?"

"You can crash and really hurt yourself." Cal answered.

"You're a smart kid." Strip complimented him. "But do you know what the worst thing that can happen is? What's the worst thing that can happen in a crash?"

Cal thought about it for a moment. Hurting yourself seemed pretty bad. But was there something worse than that? Cal remembered something, it was fuzzy in his mind, but it was there.

"Dying?" he asked, unsure if that was the word he was looking for.

"Yes. Cal, do you know what death is?"

This was a harder question for Cal. He tried to explain it the best he could.

"That's when something can't move or think or speak, and it gets all cold and has to be buried, right?" Cal remembered seeing a dead tractor in a field once, and his parents had to explain to him what happened.

"Well, yeah, that's right." It wasn't the answer Strip was looking for, but it would do. "When someone dies, their body stays behind but they can't feel or think anymore. It's like their mind is gone, and that's the end of their life. We can't do anything to bring them back, so we bury them. Does that make sense?"

Cal frowned but nodded. It was a tough concept to wrap his mind around, but he thought he got it. "They get buried and we don't see them again."

Strip felt the emotions coming back, but managed to push them away long enough to get to the point of the conversation.

"Cal, I'm telling you this because something bad happened this morning." Strip looked down at his nephew to find him staring back up at him with a worried face. "Your mom and dad were driving home on the icy roads. A big semi truck lost control because of the slick roads and crashed into them. They both died because of the crash, Cal. They're gone now. They're not coming home."

Strip watched in pain as Cal's stare drifted from him to the window. Lynda quietly entered the room and drove up on the other side of Cal to give him a little affectionate nudge. Tears welled up in Cal's eyes and he started to cry. He didn't wail or scream, but quietly shuddered and leaned against Lynda as he let the tears flow.

"You're going to live with us, okay Cal? We're going to take care of you now." Lynda told him. "We won't let anything else bad happen to you."

Cal just leaned against her harder and kept crying. They let him air his emotions for as long as he needed. Lynda looked up at Strip through her own tears. He was staring absentmindedly out the window again. He felt hollow.

They made sure the main road was cleared of ice, and after Cal seemed to run out of tears they took him to the hospital, telling him he'd have a chance to say goodbye. One of the doctors met them in the waiting room and drove with them down to the morgue. Cal stayed situated in between his aunt and uncle, scared of the big white rooms that smelled funny.

"They're there, behind that curtain." the mortician pointed to a sectioned off area of the room. "Take all the time you need."

He exited the room and left the three of them to themselves. Strip took initiative to drive up to the curtain first, but found himself unable to pull it back. Lynda pulled up beside him with Cal next to her.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" she asked him, unsure if this was something they should let a child see.

Strip didn't have an answer. He didn't know. He had no clue what was behind that white sheet.

"I want to," Cal said in a small voice. "I want to say goodbye."

Lynda tried not to cry, but she couldn't hold the tears back. Resistance was futile.

"You're brave, Cal." Strip told him, getting choked up himself. "Remember what I told you about stayin' strong."

Cal nodded. Strip reached out and pulled the curtain back.

They looked like they were sleeping. Strip's younger brother sat there, gleaming Hemi-orange paint job shining in the light, with his eyes closed. His wife was right next to him, sleeping, emotionless. Strip and Lynda could both tell they'd just straightened their bodies out a little and put replacement sheet metal over the damage, but it was convincing enough for Cal.

His eyes widened and he drove up to them. Lynda reached out to stop him, but Strip caught her.

"Let him do what he needs to do." he whispered, staying back.

Cal drove up in front of his parent's bodies and looked at them. He kept a serious face, but he couldn't stop the tears.

"Mama." he whimpered, going up to his mother first and touching her. When she didn't respond, he nudged her again and said, "Mama, it's me, Cal!"

Of course he got no response. He started to realize what death really was. This was her body. This was the car that would tuck him in at night and sing him lullabies. But she, her mind and her spirit, was gone. There would be no more of that. She couldn't feel him or hear him. And she was very cold.

Cal started to panic. He turned to his father and nudged him with his nose like he had with his mother. He began crying so hard he could barely speak.

"Daddy, please wake up." Cal begged, breathing raggedly. "It's me, Cal. I love you."

Strip and Lynda stood by, brokenhearted. Lynda was back to sobbing again. She couldn't bear to see Cal in such a mess. He was so small, so pure and innocent. No one should ever have to experience something like this, let alone him. He didn't deserve to feel this kind of pain, especially at this age.

"Please." Cal turned back to his mother's body, but backed up a little. "I love you, too, Mama."

"Cal," Strip called to him, seeing him start to panic. "You need to say goodbye."

Cal heard his uncle's voice waver and break. He looked over at him, and suddenly felt like the world was caving in on his tiny body. His parents were gone. His aunt and uncle were upset, and he'd never seen them upset. He remembered Strip telling him he needed to be strong. Cal choked back his tears and looked at his parents again.

"Mama, Daddy, this goodbye is hard." Cal told them in a whimper. "I know you can't hear me, but I love you - very, very much. I always will."

Strip quickly drove over to close the curtain as Cal went back to cry all over Lynda. Before pushing the sheet completely closed, Strip took one last look at his brother.

I promise you I'll take care of him. Strip swore to him. If it's the last thing I do, I'll make sure he's given the best life we can give.