I love you.

The last thing he told her before taking a drink from his soda, setting it down, taking a deep breath and then wandering straight into the traffic that killed him. Family legend says that he'd lost a lot at the tracks that afternoon and then on the final race, he'd won the mother load.

Happiness like that for a compulsive gambler can be too much. The take was huge but the win was too much and he went out on the highest of notes. Plastered to the front of a dump truck.
The newspaper clipping has it only as, "Pedestrian Killed Jaywalking."

Some people said that there was a dog across the street. Alone. Tail between it's legs. The dog had set its paws on the street. He'd run for it. He'd been killed.
No one knows what happened to the dog.
That was another legend.

I don't imagine he'd have gone to save a dog after spending an entire day betting on the speed of enslaved greyhounds. He was never even nice to Caeser, that dog was never so happy as he was after Dad died.
In truth, Mom never answered the phone that day because she wasn't even at home. Working job number two.
I was by myself, about eight years old and under orders never to answer the phone or door for what might be a stranger.
I'm jealous of the kids with Caller ID.
I sat there watching the phone ring until it stopped.
I still wonder what would have happened if I'd picked it up.