I see dead people

It's been fourteen days since mother mentioned Nice, every syllable still echoes in my mind like the high frequency noise of unanswered questions. I only dream in short fragments about heavy rains on the Promenade des Anglais, my father wearing black as he disappears in the distance and the haze. Why didn't he tell me?

I browse through his photographs again, the colors have faded and the paper feels like polished fabric on my fingertips. He's never in them but they help me remember the way he talked to me, always as if I was so much older.

Chloe sleeps next to me, sometimes she wakes up and grabs my insomniac hands in the dark. "Don't worry" she says, "I know that he loved you". I do too but I have a feeling I won't sleep through an entire night again before that echoing subsides.