Part 11

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Joy Rossi's POV

I enter the room, followed by JJ. The woman gets up with a little girl and a boy who seems older than the girl.

"Hi. I'm SSA Jareau. But you can call me Jennifer. Here's SSA Joy Rossi," JJ says, shaking the woman's hand.

"Hi. I'm Elise Smith. Jay's wife. Here's my daughter Mary and my son Jeremy," she responds, releasing her hand to shake mine.

"I'm sorry," I declare.

Elise shows a little smile.

I sit on the couch in front of the little family. JJ sits beside me. She takes the file.

"I'll talk to Mary and Jeremy alone," JJ says to me.

"No, I'll go. But before I wanna talk to the whole family."

JJ approves and I start.

"I'm sorry for what happened to Jay. But I have a few questions to ask you. First, did Jay start acting strangely lately?"

"Uh... Not at all. He was such a good father. He was doing a lot in the house. He was doing a lot for the kids too."

"What was he doing for them?"

"After school, he didn't want to let Mary and Jeremy take the bus. Every day, he was going to pick them at school and he was going to bring them to school too. And while I was at work, he was watching Layla."

"Who's Layla?"

"The last one. She's 3 years old. I didn't want to bring her, so she's at her aunt's house."

"Okay. Mary and Jeremy. When he was driving you to school and back home, was he acting strange?"

"Uh... No," Jeremy answers.

"Mary, did you notice something that seemed to bother him?"

"No," she simply answers.

"Okay. I'm gonna go with Mary and Jeremy, while you'll be talking with JJ about things more serious," I declare.

"Okay..." She says.

I beckon to Mary and Jeremy to follow me. I go out of the room with them and I close the door. I look back and I notice that Elise is crying. She was waiting for her children to be outside to start to cry because she didn't want them to see her like that.

I ask them to follow me to the Break Room. They follow me and I let them enter the room and take place. They sit beside each other around the round table. I take place in front of them.

"How old are you?"

"I'm 14," Jeremy says.

"I'm 8," Mary responds, looking around her.

"Do you want something to eat or something to drink?"

"No, thank you," Jeremy says.

Mary seems lost in her thoughts.

"It's a beautiful baby," Jeremy declares.

"Thank you," I respond, trying to figure out what's going on in Mary's head.

"Is it a boy or a girl?" He asks.

"It's a girl. Her name's Zoe," I answer, smiling.

Mary looks down but doesn't look at me.

"Are you okay?" I ask her.

"What happened to Daddy?" She asks.

Jeremy looks at me as if nobody told her and as if he didn't want me to tell her. But I have too. I look at Jeremy, sorry.

"He left, but he's watching you."

"Where did he go? Will he come back?"

"He won't come back. He went to the most beautiful place on Earth."

"Where it is?"

"When it'll be dark outside and that you'll see the stars, your daddy's there."

"He's in the space?"

"Kind of."

She looks a bit confused. She looks up and look in my eyes.

"He's dead, isn't he?"

"Sweetie..."

Tears start running down her cheeks.

"I knew it. Why aren't people telling me the truth?!"

She gets up and I try to get up too before she leaves, but with Zoe, it's a bit more difficult.

She leaves. Jeremy gets up and looks at me before saying:

"Thank you."

And he leaves too.

I sit back. I don't know how to react. Why?

I let my head falling into my hands.

I hear the door opening, but I don't look up. I feel a hand on my shoulder.

"Are you alright?"

I recognize JJ's voice. I look at her.

"Yeah. I'm fine."

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