All the Lucky Time

"She's sleeping."
"Jesus."
"She cried for eight hours."
"That's--"
"I've never actually seen someone cry themselves to sleep."
"God."
"And that's what just happened.  I just watched our daughter cry until she passed out from sheer exhaustion."
"You should have let me go in for a little bit."
"She wouldn't let me go, Steve."
"I know."
"I wasn't going to call you in and hand her off to you like you had the night shift or something."
"Hey."
"I'm sorry, I'm just--she's in so much pain."
"I know, I know."
"And I can't do anything.  I can't do anything.  And it's just..."
"I keep thinking of Matt's parents."
"We should call them, or go over there, or--God, I don't know what we should do.  What's appropriate."
"We should bring Annie."
"No.  Not yet."
"This is part of life, Jen.  People die."
"Not when you're sixteen.  People don't die when you're sixteen."
"My father died when I was fourteen."
"This wasn't her father.  This was her boyfriend.  Another kid.  This isn't natural.  This isn't some natural part of life she should have to deal with.  Your high school boyfriend doesn't die of some undiagnosed heart condition.  That just doesn't happen."
"Well, it did, and I think...I think it would be good if she paid her respects."
"Do we have to talk about this now?"
"The funeral's in three days."
"She's not going."
"Jen--"
"She's hysterical, Steve.  She's a wreck.  I can't take her to that funeral.  I have to--"
"Have to what?  Protect her?  Maybe she'll want to go.  Maybe she'll want to say good-bye."
"She's too young to be dealing with this."
"There's no age limit on dealing with grief.  You deal with it when you have to.  And, just in case you missed it while she was crying herself to sleep, she's already dealing with it.  Tomorrow she'll wake up and she'll be a little bit better.  And then the next day she'll be a little bit better and one day--"
"What?  She'll be over it?  She loved him."
"They're kids."
"Okay, so she puppy loved him, but she still loved him."
"All the more reason she has to go to the funeral."
"I don't even want to think about it right now."
"Out of respect."
"Steve, I'm not even sure I can go to the funeral."
"What?"
"What am I supposed to say to them?  His parents?  What do you say?"
"You say you're very sorry.  That it's awful.  That if they need anything--"
"I should call the doctor.  I can't remember the last time Annie had a check-up."
"Jen--"
"Just, you know, to be sure."
"They wouldn't have caught it."
"Caught what?"
"His heart condition.  They wouldn't have caught it with just a physical."
"It'd be a nice precaution."
"There are also brain aneurysms, you know.  Boating accidents.  Spontaneous combustion."
"Why do men always have to joke about everything?"
"I'm not joking.  I mean, I am joking, but I'm not really joking.  Things happen.  Let's not turn into human cushions and smother our daughter to death.  Matt dying was this--It was a fluke, okay?  Nobody could have planned for that."
"I just feel so...I feel so strange about this whole thing."
"Why strange?"
"Because it doesn't feel like anything that I should have feelings about and yet I still have these intense feelings of...Oh God, I'm sick of saying 'feelings.'"
"Hey, our daughter is going through something terrible.  It's normal to feel upset."
"No, but I feel like...like I've lost something."
"Well, we have."
"What?"
"Our sense of security.  That bad things won't happen to us.  That we have this perfect little existence with our good marriage, and our nice house, and our daughter who gets straight A's and--We've done everything right.  And shit still happens.  And more shit can happen.  This time it was someone else's tragedy.  But it makes us realize that it could be ours.  It could be ours next time."
"God, don't even say that."
"I'm saying we're lucky.  And we have to appreciate that."
"If anything happened to Annie, I don't know what I'd do."
"Me neither.  If I lost you or her."
"How long do you think we can stay lucky?"
"I think if you think about it too much you waste all the lucky time."
"Is this it?  Is this the lucky time?  I don't mean now, with our daughter devastated, and a funeral coming up, and all of us just...But I mean, like before that?  Before that happened?  Was that the lucky time?  And when all this is done, and we move on with our lives, will that be the lucky time?  When exactly is the lucky time?"
"It's hard to tell, I guess.  It's really hard to tell."