My legs buckle and I go down.
Chapter 28
No.
Vinnie’s wrong.
He has to be wrong.
Oh God, I can’t breathe.
My father wouldn’t do that.
I can’t stop crying.
Mommy, no, don’t believe him. Please, please don’t believe him.
It’s a mistake. He doesn’t understand that Daddy wouldn’t do that to us.
He would never leave us.
Never.
Oh God, please.
Please.
Chapter 29
Time stops.
The house fills with people.
Every time the door opens I know it’s going to be my father, and it isn’t.
But it will be. I know it.
Because this isn’t real. It can’t be real.
It can’t.
My grandparents are here.
I don’t know who called them.
Auntie Kate who is my mother’s sister and Auntie Brooke, who is my father’s, hugging my mother and sobbing.
I don’t know who told them.
Hugging me and sobbing.
Saying they can’t believe it, over and over again.
Neither can I.
Chapter 30
My grandfather takes my stunned and weeping mother to police headquarters to be questioned for the report. Then they will identify my father’s body. There is going to be an autopsy to establish the method of death, and then there will be a funeral.
My phone is broken and I don’t care. My laptop is upstairs and I can’t summon the energy to go get it. It doesn’t matter. There’s only one person in the world I want to see right now.
I sit and gaze at my father’s chair, willing him to appear.
He will.
He has to, he hasn’t finished his new Stephen King book yet and he never stops reading midbook. I stare at that, too, left open to mark his place, spine up and lying on the end table with his reading glasses. See, there is proof. He never goes anywhere without his reading glasses.
My grandmother makes coffee and breakfast, and cries. My damp-eyed uncles arrive and can’t eat it. My aunts make phone calls in hitched and quavering voices. Pace the room, crying, and pause to hug me. Bring me coffee. Bottled water. Stop and gaze tearfully at our family portrait hanging over the mantel. Tell me he loved me so much, more than anything on earth, and I should never doubt that. Should never forget it. Wash the dishes. Answer the phone and the door.
My mother’s best friend, Kelly, arrives from out of state and the crying begins anew.
They are everywhere and they have taken over our house.
I want to hide under the couch with Stripe, watching but not involved, waiting for my father to walk in and put an end to this nightmare.
This day has to start over because I just don’t understand it.
I don’t understand why I didn’t wake up earlier, hear my father stirring downstairs, and instead of turning over and sinking back into a dream, get up, go down there and stop him from taking his off-duty .38 and driving one last time to headquarters, parking in the back lot, putting that pistol to his head and pulling the trigger.
Because that’s what they’re saying he did, and I swear to God I don’t understand how I could be sleeping while he was dying.
While he was killing himself.
So all I need is a chance to do it over, just one chance, and this time, this time I won’t go to the prom. I won’t go anywhere, I’ll just stay home and sit here with him all night, won’t leave even if he tells me to, will stay up all night waiting and be there at dawn.
I didn’t know my chances were limited.
I didn’t know they could run out but now I do, I really do, and so all I need is one more chance to change it. In a world where anything can be bought, sold, stolen, begged or bartered, reversed or advanced, it’s not a lot to ask. It really isn’t.
It’s just one chance to save one man.
“Please,” I whisper as the tears well and overflow.
Just one.
Chapter 31
My grandfather returns alone, his face haggard, walking like each step exhausts him. He goes straight to the kitchen table and sinks into a chair.
“Did they find a note?” my grandmother says, setting a steaming cup of coffee in front of him and resting a gnarled hand on his shoulder.
“No,” my grandfather says, and begins to weep. “Jesus, Edie, I can’t. Not now.” He waves her away but she doesn’t go, just wraps her arm around him and rests her cheek against the top of his head.
“Where’s Mommy?” I say.
“Outside,” he says without looking up.
It’s slow going. My knees are weak and heavy. I plod through the porch, push open the screen door and spot her standing in the driveway smoking a cigarette, her arm wrapped around her waist like she’s been gutted and her own grip is the only thing keeping everything inside of her from spilling out. “Mom?”
She lifts her head and finds me. “Rowie.” Her eyes are swollen and desolate, her nose red and her shoulders bowed just like Grandpa’s, just like the aunts’, just like mine. “Oh, honey.” She holds open her arm and I wobble over, tucking myself close and burying my face in her shoulder for a long, agonizing moment.
“Did you see Daddy?” I ask finally, stepping back and wiping my eyes. Not that it matters; the tears pulse like a heartbeat now, starting and stopping on their own. There’s no controlling them. I don’t even try.
She shakes her head, mouth trembling. “I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. They said he shot himself here”—she touches her temple—“and there was impact trauma to his face . . .” She takes a hitched, steadying breath. “Grandpa saw him.” She drops the smoldering cigarette butt, steps on it and lights another one.
“And it was really him?”
“Yes,” she whispers, taking a drag off the cigarette and huddling into herself. “Did you call Nadia?”
“No,” I say. “My phone’s broken.”
“Use mine.” She reaches into her jacket pocket and pulls it out.
Her screen saver is an old photo of me, Daddy and Stripe as a kitten, snuggled together on the couch. I shake my head, the photo blurring, and look away.
I can’t call Nadia, or Eli or even Eva.
Cannot imagine saying the words aloud, putting them out there as if they’re true.
Not yet.
“You know, your father and I quit smoking when we found out we were pregnant with you,” she says after a moment, staring absently at the smoke curling up around us. “We were determined to do everything we could to make sure you were a strong, healthy baby.” She takes a drag off the cigarette and, turning her head, blows the smoke away from me. “Isn’t it funny; add a person to the family and smoking stops. Lose one, and it starts right back up again.” And then she crumples, her body wracked with great, shattering sobs, and she drops the cigarette and takes me in her arms, holding me like she’ll never let me go.
| | |
This day is a hundred years long and there is nothing to do but wait for it to end.
Only it won’t.
I can’t make myself say the words, so after lunch, which no one eats, I drag myself up the stairs for my laptop.
Typing them is worse.
My father is dead.
I erase it. Type it again. Erase it.
Over and over and over.
Finally send it to Nadia.
Remember that my father said he’d called Eli once, so he must have his phone number. Get up and plod back downstairs to the kitchen. “Mom, where’s Daddy’s cell phone? I need to find a number.”
“On the windowsill with his wallet,” she says.
And that’s when I know something really is wrong, because my father never goes anywhere without those two things, ever, anywhere, and yet there they are.
I reach for the phone, hands shaking, and hold it to my cheek. It smells faintly of fresh-cut woo
d, aftershave and his dear, familiar person scent, and the pain crashes over me with a force so strong that it steals my breath and it’s only because my parents quit smoking to make sure I was healthy that I know I’m not dying.
| | |
I find the number but don’t call from my father’s phone. That doesn’t seem right, to have his name show up on caller ID when it’s not really him.
I use the portable landline instead.
Eli’s phone goes right to voice mail.
“Hi,” I say, and clear my throat, but it’s no use, this girl’s hoarse and terrible voice isn’t mine. “It’s Rowan. Eli . . . my f-f-father is d-d-dead. I’m sorry. I have t-t-to g-g-go.”
I look up to see Nadia in the kitchen, crying and hugging my mother. Her parents are right behind her, and like a slap I realize that I will never have both of my parents right behind me ever again.
| | |
She hugs me, crying. Can’t stop saying, Oh my God, what happened? Rowan, I thought he was doing okay, you never said anything, oh my God why? I can’t believe it, it just doesn’t make sense! Row, there’s no way. Oh my God, why?
“I don’t know,” I say helplessly, pulling free and sitting back down on the couch. “I . . . I don’t know. The depression, I guess.”
“Well, what happened last night when you got home? Did you guys have a fight or something?” She sinks down beside me, gaze locked onto my face. “I mean did he say anything?”
“No,” I say, rubbing my forehead and trying to think.
“Well, something must have happened,” she says, sitting back and giving me a frustrated look. “People just don’t kill themselves for no reason!”
I stare at her, at a loss. “I don’t know. I swear to God, I don’t. Nothing happened.”
“And he never said a word?” she says, giving me a penetrating look. “People always drop hints, Row.”
The ones who don’t tell anyone beforehand . . . They’ve already made their decision and planned it all out to make sure they succeed. We find them after the fact, when it’s too late.
The words, my father’s, flow unbidden into my mind but I can’t speak them, only stare back at her, stricken.
“What did his note say? Can I see it?”
I gaze down at my hands, barely able to speak the words. “He didn’t leave one.”
“What?” she says, pulling back in shock. “That’s impossible. Out of all the people in the world who would leave a note, Row, your dad is like number one.”
I start to cry.
“I’m sorry,” she says, hugging me again. “I just can’t even believe it! Do you want me to tell Danica and Bree and all? I can, don’t worry. It’s okay. What about Eli? That was him last night, right? Did you tell him yet? What’re you guys going to do now?”
“I don’t know,” I say numbly, huddling smaller and smaller, and then Nadia’s parents come in, hug me and tell me they’re sorry. And in some odd, twisted corner of my mind I notice that they’re all dressed up, that her mom is in full jewelry and makeup and so is Nadia, that they took the time to do all of this before coming over, not like my grandparents and the aunts who dropped everything to get here, and that their gazes move constantly around the room, taking everything in.
I step in front of my father’s chair and shield it, block the sight of his Dollar Store magnifying reading glasses and the remainder mark on his book because he’s ours, not theirs, and it’s none of their business.
They linger a moment, say that if we need anything all we have to do is call and that they’ll see us at the funeral.
I say, Yes, thank you, okay.
Nadia hugs me and says, Call me, Row.
I say, Yes, thank you, okay, and finally, they’re gone.
| | |
Eli calls.
I gaze at the number for a long moment and answer it. “Hello.”
“I just got your message.” His voice is low, subdued. “Rowan, I’m so sorry.”
I nod even though he can’t see me. Take a short, hitched breath. “Thank you.”
“Do you have people with you? Your mom? Family?”
Everyone but my father. “Yes,” I whisper, covering my mouth so I don’t burst into tears. “They’re all here.”
“Yeah,” he says softly, as if he remembers, and exhales. “Row . . . I can be there in five minutes but I have to ask . . . Do you want me to come now or is today better for you with just your family?”
“I don’t know,” I cry, closing my eyes as the tears slip out from beneath my lids. “Nothing is better. I j-j-just w-want him to c-come h-home.” The pain in my chest cracks wide open. “That’s all I w-want, Eli. I j-just want him to come h-home now and then I w-want to go t-to sleep and w-wake up all over again.”
“Oh, baby girl,” he says with a sigh. “I am so, so sorry.”
And for some reason the knowing in his voice makes it worse, the empathy is too awful and I can’t bear it, can’t handle the fact that he isn’t shocked and denying it, that he can just accept this obscene and inconceivable thing as true instead of rejecting it in violent disbelief, and so I choke out, “No, don’t come. Not now. I’m sorry but—”
“It’s all right,” he says quietly. “I understand. That’s why I asked.”
No, he doesn’t understand. No one can. “Okay.”
“I’ll call you later and if you’re up to it, I can come by tomorrow,” he says, and it sounds like he’s near tears himself. “Or if you change your mind, or you need me, call. I’ll be there, Row. It doesn’t matter what time it is. Just call and I’ll come, okay?”
“Okay,” I whisper, reeling. “Bye.”
He hesitates and then says softly, “Bye.”
Chapter 32
Later that night, after my grandparents and my uncles have given in to their exhaustion and gone home, after a three-minute phone call with Eli where the few, sad words we exchange vanish as soon as they’re spoken, after fielding three calls from Nadia—I can’t, I just can’t—and endless discussions about where my father might have left us a note if he wrote one, the aunts, my mother and I gather in the living room to write my father’s obituary and his eulogy.
My auntie Kate builds a small fire in the fireplace to cut the chill in the air.
My auntie Brooke pours us each, even me, a glass of wine.
My honorary aunt Kelly brings a pad, a pen and her laptop, my mother her worn, well-loved copy of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations.
We settle in on the floor around the coffee table, my mother and I in spots close enough to lean back against my father’s recliner. None of us knows how to start so Aunt Kelly goes online and finds the newspaper’s questionnaire, which makes it easier and lets us condense a beloved man’s whole life into several medium-sized paragraphs.
“You have to put Stripe in it, too,” I say when they get to the Survived by blank. “You can’t leave him out, Mom.” I cuddle Stripe close, his fur damp with my tears. “He wouldn’t even be alive if it wasn’t for Daddy.”
“I know,” my mother says with a small smile, and adds Stripe to my father’s survivors.
The eulogy, it turns out, is much harder to write than the obituary, and it doesn’t fall into place until my mother, paging feverishly through her Bartlett’s, stumbles across an epitaph for someone named Sir Philip Sidney, a quote that makes her catch her breath, pries a small, pained whimper from her lips, and when she reads it to us, we know it’s perfect.
Death slew not him, but he made death his ladder to the skies.
The rest of the eulogy, all those proud, beautiful, heartbroken words we weave together to pay tribute to my father, come easily after that.
Chapter 33
Every day that passes is worse than the one before it.
I wake up each morning with a jolt of hope so huge that I’m certain it’s all been a nightmare, a mistake, that none of this is real and if I lie there very still and listen very hard, I’ll hear my father whistling downstairs, hear my mother laughin
g again, and it will all be over.
And every single morning I’m wrong.
The funeral home calls. The autopsy has been completed and the body—my father—is being released to them. Would my mother come down please to discuss the cremation, discuss a viewing casket and the funeral service?
Auntie Kate, her sister, goes with her.
Auntie Brooke and Aunt Kelly have been left in charge of finding a place for the small, post-funeral luncheon, so they make a short list of restaurants near the church, ones with private rooms, and head out to book one.
My grandmother cleans our house; my grandfather cuts the grass.
My father’s Blazer isn’t home yet because Vinnie, with his dear, devastated lion’s heart, is going to clean it for us before he brings it back, wash away all of my father’s blood and pain and whatever else remains of the last few moments of his life.
My mind can barely touch this thought before it swerves away again, seeking refuge in the numbing, growing fog.
We need black clothes for the funeral.
I stare into my closet for far too long, because everything looks jumbled and foreign and I’m unable to decide.
Eli calls and dully I say yes, sure, come over.
He does, face soft with compassion, eyes red with sorrow, and holds me in his arms for a long time. He brings me coffee from the coffeehouse and I stare at it blankly for a moment, as if it all happened in another world and to someone else.
And so slowly, in words that scrape my throat raw, I tell him what happened.
He gathers me close and strokes my terrible, stringy hair. When was the last time I took a shower? I don’t know. I brushed my teeth this morning, I know that, but my eyes are too swollen for mascara, my cheeks too raw for blush, and I don’t care about them, anyway. I’m still wearing the clothes I slept in, the T-shirt wrinkled and the black leggings dusted with Stripe’s fine gray and black hairs.
And still, Eli holds me.
He doesn’t say much, which is good because there is nothing to say.
“I’m here for you, Row,” he says when I walk him to the door. “Anything I can do, I will. Okay?” He touches my cheek, gentle, fleeting. “I’ll be there tomorrow at the funeral home but if you need me before then just call.”