Cause of Death

by Laura Dembowski

  As time ticks by, more and more people show up. First, my sister Beth, her workaholic husband who barely put his phone down even when paying his respects, and her bratty kids, running amok. But at least they showed up.

  Seeing them makes everything hit me hard. I can’t breathe, can’t stop the tears. Dave’s right; I do wish I was dead, right along with Lana. I want to be with my daughter, not all these people who want to hug me and say how sorry they are and look at me with those sad, pitiful eyes. I can’t do this. But I have to. I force myself to be brave, for Dave. For Lana.

  The floral arrangements are overwhelming. There are the callas, of course, and then dozens more from our friends, Lana’s friends from college, even from Lana’s former employer, who always liked her. Liked her. It’s nice he sent flowers. Pretty ones, too; a big bouquet of pink roses. Lana would have found roses mundane, but at least they aren’t red. She would have died all over again at how clichéd that would be, and I would have died of embarrassment.

  Dave’s a sniveling mess in the corner, barely able to stand upright; I’m not sure if that’s from the grief or all the alcohol he’s consumed. I don’t dare look in the mirror to see if I’m looking any better.

  I can’t believe after all this time that she actually went through with it. In some ways, I’m impressed. It took balls, and planning. I wouldn’t have the courage to kill myself even if I wanted to die. I guess if I somehow found the strength, I’d kill myself in a car. You know, get a little drunk, go sit in the car in the garage. Turn on the engine, roll down the windows, and let it ride. I’d just drift off peacefully into another land.

  But Lana didn’t ask for my advice, now, did she?

  Prepared for a long day, one in which it would be totally and completely unacceptable for me to pull out my cell phone, no matter how badly I needed a distraction, I walk over to the wall of windows overlooking a well-landscaped area and stare.

  A waiter walks over and jars me out of my meditative state. “Would you like a mini Kobe beef Wellington with shaved truffles, ma’am?”

  “Sure,” I say, grabbing one off the untouched tray. I might as well eat the food I paid for; no one else is.

  I notice Dave still sitting in the corner, his head in his hands. I grab another mini beef Wellington and walk over to him. I sit down right next to him, his slightly itchy, cheaply made suit jacket rubbing against my bare arm, and offer him the food.

  To my surprise he takes it. He leans back in the chair and slowly starts eating. I follow suit.

  “It’s a good turnout,” he says. “She was a sweet girl, really, and it’s nice to see that people care.”

  He’s right. She was a nice girl, with a giant heart. It’s too bad none of these people are her friends. If she’d gotten out in the world, met people, made connections, maybe things would have turned out differently. Maybe we wouldn’t be sitting here. I can’t do anything about it now, but I enjoy my Wellington, knowing I tried when she was alive.

  She tried, too; oh my, did she try. She’d invite kids, and then later, teenagers, young adults, and adults, to dinner and movies and concerts. Sometimes people said yes and then ignored her the whole time, other times they said yes and canceled at the last minute, but most of the time they said no, laughing in her face, as if they didn’t belong in the same world as her.

  “Maybe people aren’t as awful as I thought,” I say, putting my hand on his.

  “Where did we go wrong?” he asks, looking straight ahead at her casket, adorned with enough calla lilies to cover three weddings.

  “I’m not sure we did. She was a different, unhappy person. It was just how she was.”

  The waiter with the Wellingtons walks over to us.

  “Just set the tray down,” I say. He places it on an end table next to me, and I hand Dave another before grabbing one for myself.

  “I don’t know how to move on,” he says.

  I want to cheer him up, so I say, “We’ll figure it out together.”

  We sit devouring the plate of food, accepting the condolences of all the guests. I feel more connected to Dave than I have since . . . well, since Lana was born.

  As the sun is setting outside that giant wall of windows, some of Dave’s friends from work walk in. They are kind and full of hugs, and some unwelcome kisses, even though we have never met before. It makes the time pass quickly, and I soon realize it is the most human interaction I have had in years. I’m not crying anymore; neither is Dave. We are tired and possibly numb, but I will take what I can get.

  We make plans for them to come over to the house for a party one day soon. I honestly can’t remember the last time we had a party. When Lana was too young to protest, most likely. Once she was old enough to understand, she raised questions about inviting people we didn’t like, just to be fair. She protested not being invited, but refused to attend when offered the chance.

  The thought of having people over fills me with a bit of dread and anxiety, but I push it aside. I won’t be fated to share the same terrible life, and end, as Lana. Plus, it’s easy to say we’ll have a party. It’s much more difficult to follow through. Figuring that out is a hurdle for another day, far, far in the future.

  Once they leave, Dave grabs my hand. I’m not sure if Dave has ever grabbed my hand in public before. I suppose this can’t really be considered public, since by this point, it’s just the two of us, the manager, a couple other employees, and the waiter. Oh, and the cellist, who has been taking requests all afternoon.

  “Maybe we should take that vacation,” Dave says. “A party, a vacation—it might help us heal.”

  “I’ll plan something. We can’t die just because she did.”

  “I know, but right now I want to,” he says, and I want to cry. How am I supposed to hold us together when everyone around me wants to die, including me? Is this how everyone thinks?

  “Don’t say that,” I reply, squeezing his hand in mine so he knows without a doubt that I am with him; we are together; we are one. “Let’s go.”

  I don’t know where the words come from. I mean, I do want to leave, particularly knowing that tomorrow we have another long, lonely day, with the burial and all, but I know Dave won’t want to go, and I’d really like the day not to end with a fight.

  “Okay,” he says, and still holding my hand, he leads me out the door and to the car. He doesn’t grab any of the flowers. He doesn’t say thanks or good-bye to any of the funeral home workers. We just leave. He seems in an okay mood, though not very chatty, during the ride home and for the rest of the evening.

  That all changes the next day. Even my jolt of positivity from the night before has vanished. Putting our daughter in the ground makes everything so final. She is gone and never coming back. I can’t believe we’re here, in this position, burying our daughter. Lana was supposed to bury us. Why have the tables been turned in this vicious way?

  Before this, I’d spent my days questioning my life, wondering what I had done to deserve a daughter who couldn’t function on her own as a normal human being. Now, I’m standing in my closet, putting on my nicest black dress that Lana helped me pick out a few years ago, wondering what I could have possibly done to have my daughter taken away from me.

  I wonder if there’s always going to be some tragic event, some horrible hurdle, for me to traverse. My life is not destined to be one of pure happiness, of that feeling of accomplishment, of doing something right, of leaving my mark on the world. My mark has been left: I have failed as a mother, and my child killed herself. That is my legacy.

  I walk past Lana’s room. Even with the door shut, it sends a shiver down my spine. I turn too quickly away from it and place a hand on the wall to steady myself. Once I’m able to walk down the stairs, I find Dave in the kitchen.

  He tossed and turned all night and got out of bed even before the birds were awake. He is already dressed in a shirt and tie, his s
uit jacket hanging over the chair. He has his fingers tightly wound around the handle of his favorite mug, one that Lana gave him. I assume there’s coffee in it, though I can smell alcohol. I don’t blame him. I’ve already taken a Xanax so I can get through the day. I make a mental note to put the bottle in my purse in case I need another pill or two later.

  I wonder if either of us should be operating a motor vehicle today, considering we’re both under the influence in addition to our grief. But then I realize I don’t much care if we crash, because then we can die and end this nonsense.

  I sit down next to Dave and realize there’s more alcohol, maybe whiskey, in his cup than actual coffee. I wouldn’t care so much, but his level of drinking since Lana’s death has been staggering. I’m worried about him. I don’t want him to drink himself to death. I need the money he provides. I’ll let a few more days pass, let him process all of this, and then we’ll have a chat about it.

  As we prepare to leave—could we ever be really prepared?—it begins to rain. Hard. I grab a couple of umbrellas, and the keys. I’m in a better state to drive than Dave is.

  I trust that by some strange miracle the clouds will part before long, and the sun will come out, but that does not happen. In fact, it just rains harder. The windshield wipers are on full blast, but I can barely see. I’m actually frightened we’re going to crash. Maybe I don’t want to die after all.

  We arrive safely at the cemetery. I hold one of the umbrellas out to Dave. He shakes his head no. “I don’t want it.” I look at him and he looks at me. He knows I want him to take the umbrella. He knows he should take it, but he refuses.

  I grab the Burberry one Lana always used, even though it’s broken, and we walk, several feet between us, to the chairs set out for our use. Even though a small canopy has been set up, the chairs are still wet.

  Dave sits. I stay standing, not wanting to feel all the rainwater soaking through my clothes. Even though it’s raining, it’s sticky and humid out, almost hot. I feel like I am in a tropical rain forest and my clothes are suffocating me. My umbrella is doing the best it can, but I can feel the back of my jersey dress becoming heavy with water. The blustery wind whips the rain into my face, like needles sticking me over and over again. My waterproof mascara has proven to be no match for this deluge. My perfectly curled hair is sticking to my neck and ears and face. I am a mess both inside and out.

  The spiritual advisor begins the nondenominational ceremony ten minutes late. Lana would have told Dave about such people, and he wanted to respect her wishes by having this idiot rather than just calling a priest for a religious ceremony. The crowd is thin today—no wonder, with all this rain—but there are a few people here, including a young man who keeps glancing in my direction.

  “We are here today to honor the life of Lana Moore. Though taken far too young, she lived a life full of adventure, love, and friendship,” the officiant says.

  Dave cries out and walks over to her casket, covered in a brand-new swath of callas. He kneels down in the mud and leans his head on the glossy wood as rain pelts the top of the canopy. It has several leaks, apparently, as I can’t tell where his tears end and the rain begins.

  “Her parents, Margaret and Dave, gave her life, and unconditional love and support through the ups and downs that came her way.”

  I sob loudly. I don’t know where it came from; it’s like I am not myself today. The officiant’s words make everything clear and show me the hole that will now be permanently inside my heart. I can’t stop crying. I can barely hear the officiant’s words, what with the rain and the sounds akin to puppies dying coming from Dave and me.

  It’s all just as well. Nothing can be said to make anything better. Nothing can be said that can give us closure. This is the beginning of the rest of our lives, and I’m not sure I want to be a part of it at all.

  Chapter 6

  Ryan

  Oh, good, it’s Monday again. Not that it really matters, since I worked all weekend.

  The moment I walk into the station, I know it’s not going to be a good day. The air-conditioning is out. Did the air really have to break on the hottest, most humid day of the whole year?

  I take off my jacket and hang it on the back of my chair before I turn on my computer.

  “How was your weekend?” my partner Kate asks me.

  “I was here, remember? While you were off at your brother’s wedding.”

  “Right. How was working with Will?”

  “He’s great. You’d better not take any more time off or he’ll be my new partner.”

  “You wouldn’t do that to me.”

  We chat for a few minutes about the wedding, and then hit the paperwork.

  No matter how many hours—or days—I work, there’s a never-ending pile of paperwork. It’s not my favorite part of the job, but I love being a detective so much that I don’t really mind. I take after my dad. He was a detective until he was killed in the line of duty. My mom didn’t speak to me for a year after I told her I was going to the academy, but we’re good now. I try to be careful, but you never know what’s going to happen. I could be killed in a car accident or a freak vending-machine accident, so I have to follow my heart.

  “Did you get any breaks on that robbery last week?” Kate asks.

  “Which one?”

  “The jewelry store.”

  “We talked to the witness again, but she doesn’t remember anything. One of those things. At least no one got hurt. Put it aside. Maybe something will come up one day; maybe not.”

  Detective Kate Hutchinson hates when cases go unsolved. She actually used to think she could solve every case that came her way. She quickly figured out that that’s not how things work. I admire her dedication, though. I mean, I tease her about missing work, but she never uses all her vacation time, and she’s here pretty much every day when I leave, ready to work a couple more hours. I try to tell her to take some time off and enjoy life, but she has trouble leaving the job behind.

  I don’t blame her. It’s hard. Sometimes I can’t get a case off my mind. I go over the evidence again and again. I talk to the witnesses until we’ve both lost our voices. I have dreams about cases, nightmares, too. That’s the worst. When I can’t even leave them behind to get a good night’s sleep. Those are the times I hate the job. Those are also the cases that teach me how to be a better detective, so I can solve the case the next time.

  Jim—we all call him Sarge—walks over to our desks. I know the heat is getting to me even though I have the fan blasting on high and keep rubbing my forehead with an ice-cold bottle of water, but Sarge looks like he’s just run a marathon. His face is beet-red and sweat is dripping from it, soaking through his entire shirt. He looks like he just went swimming.

  “I should have listened to Robin when she told me to go on a diet last year. I feel like I’m carrying another person on my back.”

  “Robin says you never listen to her, Sarge,” I say, glad I have a friendly relationship with my boss.

  “I’m not letting her come to any more station events. She tells you too many of my secrets.”

  He throws a file on my desk. “Look into this,” he says.

  I flip the folder open and turn to talk to him, but he’s already on the way back to his office.

  “But this was a suicide,” I say, quickly catching up to him. “I saw it on the news. Terrible story.”

  “We got a tip that maybe it wasn’t a suicide.”

  “From who?”

  “Whom?” Sarge says. He has this thing about grammar, and he’s always correcting mine. Some of the tips have stuck, but I swear I’ll go to the grave not knowing the difference between who and whom.

  “From whom?” I ask with extra emphasis.

  “An anonymous tip, so I can’t tell you. Just check out the damn case. I have a weird feeling about this one.”

  I gl
ance through the file. Cases that seem cut-and-dry rarely are.

  “So you want us to poke around a little because you have a feeling?”

  “Poke around and see what you get,” Sarge says. “Keep me posted.”

  He walks into his office and shuts the door, which can only make it hotter in there, despite the three fans he has going.

  I toss the file onto Kate’s desk.

  “Why does he do this to us?” she says. “All these wild goose chases.”

  “Got a tip, have to follow up.”

  “Where do you want to start?” Kate asks, fanning herself with the file.

  “Maybe we should talk to the parents.”

  On any other day, maybe I would have looked at Sarge and told him it was just some crazy tip. We get crazy tips all the time. But I really want to get out of the station and into the car’s air-conditioning. It couldn’t hurt to talk with the parents for a while, maybe grab a bite to eat. It’s my turn to pick the place, and I’m in the mood for tacos.

  The parents live in a typical suburban house. I don’t spend much time in these nice, upper-middle-class parts of town when it comes to investigations. Not that bad things don’t happen to people with money, but they deal with things differently. Lawyer up before we even know what’s going on. Typically, they are involved in white-collar-type crimes instead of murder, and that’s not my department.

  The street is tree-lined. Every yard has beds of blooming flowers. None of the cars are rusted out, and the windows aren’t busted. The houses look like they have all been freshly painted the day before, and the cars washed each day to remove any trace that they have been used. This is the kind of neighborhood my girlfriend Tracy wants to live in, once I propose and we get married, something she has no problem telling me is about a year overdue. Nag, nag, nag. That’s all she does.