White Space Season 1

on new properties — ordinary made special, mundane made magic, and junk turned to treasure imbibed with memories — somehow transformed by the absence of their owner.
    It gave Alex an idea for a short story about a dead man’s possessions mourning their owner. He filed the idea away to mention to Milo, and then wondered if he and Milo would ever write together again.
    Or was their friendship as dead as the bodies being buried this week?
    Alex picked up an old baseball off the ground and placed it back on a wooden stand on the bookcase. Alex wondered what the ball meant to his dad. It wasn’t signed by anyone, nor did it appear to be from a professional baseball game, at least as far as Alex could tell. Alex had seen it a hundred times, yet never thought to ask his dad what made the ball so special.
    Alex was surprised to find so many books by authors he liked, such as Stephen King, Clive Barker, George R.R. Martin, Ray Bradbury, Neil Gaiman, and Phillip K. Dick, among the tomes of classic literature.
    Alex had never known his dad was into so many of the same authors as he was, and felt the same hollow thud that had been thrumming through his body all morning. He should have known more about his father; a few minutes here and there might have made all of the difference in the world.
    It wasn’t as though they never discussed fiction.
    They’d talked about writing a lot, in fact. His dad had always wanted to be a novelist, and had started a few books over the years, but he’d never let Alex read them. He said he wanted to wait until he’d written something he could be proud to show his son.
    Though Alex’s dad was a harsh critic of his own work, he’d always been supportive of Alex’s efforts. He seemed to genuinely enjoy many of Alex’s stories, though he didn’t shy away from offering constructive criticism. Alex regretted not showing his dad the scripts he and Milo had been working on. He had wanted to wait until they were polished, more mature, something which Milo could feel proud of.
    But now …
    Alex closed his eyes, wanting to cry, to let it all out.
    But he couldn’t.
    He hadn’t cried since the shooting, even though he was sad, devastated, and all the things that should make you cry. But the tears hadn’t come.
    Why?
    Alex wondered if that meant he didn’t really love his dad.
    He picked up a photo from the box, of him and his dad down at the shore on the north side of the island before it was fenced off. They’d spent the weekend, just the two of them together, camping and fishing. Alex was eight and holding the tiniest fish you could probably catch with a hook. It was his first fish and the bobber almost dwarfed the thing, but to Alex, at the time, it had been the size of a whale. His dad had held the camera outstretched to squeeze them both into the frame, and though the picture was slightly out of focus, it managed to capture the magic of the moment. The photo was in a thick brown frame, placed prominently on his father’s desk. His dad said he put it there to remind him why he worked so hard, and so he’d remember the things that were truly important.
    A man like that doesn’t shoot up his classroom.
    Not my dad.
    The sound of the doorbell repeatedly ringing broke the silence, and sent a fresh panic flooding through Alex.
    Someone was pressing the doorbell over and over, as if the house were on fire.
    “What the hell?” Alex said, racing downstairs to reach the door before the noise woke his sister.
    He threw the door open and saw a short, beefy man in a dark blue tee shirt, jeans. Bruce Henderson, father of Teddy Henderson, one of the victims of the shooting. He was holding an aluminum baseball bat in his hands. Before Alex could even gasp, Mr. Henderson started swinging and screaming.
    Alex ducked, but just barely in time, and the bat caught him in the back, sending him sprawling to the porch crying out in pain.
    “You’re gonna pay!” Mr. Henderson screamed, his face an angry red, eyes wild.
    “Please, Mr. Henderson,” Alex cried, “Don’t hurt me.”
    The man froze, bat over his head, poised and ready to strike. Then something shifted in his face, as the rage turned to confusion, as if he were shaking off cobwebs from the thick of a dream. He looked down at Alex, as if he was surprised to see him there, and then up to the bat, seemingly surprised again to find the weapon in his hands. He lowered the bat, looking around, as if lost.
    Alex breathed a sigh of relief and