by Rio Youers
He composed himself by taking frequent deep breaths, and whenever he felt like crying he imagined the links in a freighter’s anchor chain: solid and strong, able to keep things from drifting away. Finally he reached the last two sentences—“You’ll feel her in the wind, see her in the moonlight, hear her in the river. She was everything precious, everything good”—and his voice cracked but he kept it together. He stepped down and walked past Laura’s coffin on the way to his seat. He wasn’t sure if he was expected to touch it or not, so he didn’t.
It was mainly family and close friends in attendance, but there were a few fellow teachers and a couple of Martin’s work colleagues, offering their support, which Martin appreciated, even though it felt like a thimbleful of lukewarm water on the hottest day of the year. Hundreds of students had gathered outside. The press, too, with their tongues hanging lower than their camera straps. Flint Wood had provided good material over the past few days. There’d been gun protests and NRA rallies, candlelight vigils and joint funerals. The vice president had visited, solemn-faced, and promised nothing that hadn’t been promised by the previous administration, and the administration before that. The high school was still closed. Its front steps were a mountain of flowers, wreaths, and assorted mementos. It had made the front page of every major newspaper in the country.
All this had been white noise to Martin, who’d concerned himself only with his daughters, and with arranging his wife’s funeral. And now that it was here, he was determined to get through it—to do so with strength and dignity, to be a role model to Edith and Shirley, the way their mom would have been.
And he almost—so damn close—got to the end without crying, but when “If You Leave Me Now” by Chicago piped through the funeral home’s speakers, he felt a blurry heat in his head and tears brimmed in his eyes. It was Laura’s favorite song, and, of course, the first song they’d danced to as man and wife. Martin recalled the way they’d melted into one another on their wedding night, and how he’d whispered into her ear that if they lasted longer than eleven years and eight months, they’d last forever.
The biggest part of me, he thought, echoing the lyric, and that was it. It didn’t help to imagine the links in a freighter’s anchor chain; the tears came fast and heavy. They poured down his face. He didn’t hide them.
He looked at his wife’s coffin and held his girls’ hands.
* * *
Martin supposed there was always something good to come out of a death, however brutal and unfair that death might be. The silver lining theory rang true most of the time, and for Martin it came in the form of community support. He was genuinely touched by his neighbors’ many acts of kindness—small but important things like mowing the lawn, buying groceries, cooking meals. Services were offered at no charge, from haircuts to housecleaning, and “no” was not an acceptable answer. On a larger scale, fundraisers were set up to aid all the victims’ families, and the money came not just from the local community, but from all over the world.
His family stepped up, too. Jimmy took the girls when Martin needed some alone-time, and his mom helped him sort through Laura’s belongings—her clothes, mainly, deciding what was okay to consign and what should be trashed. She offered a shoulder to cry on, too, and he took it.
“I’m sorting through my dead wife’s things,” he said to her incredulously, holding up the small purple bottle of Curate, recalling how Laura would spritz her throat with it every morning before work. “I think every husband imagines doing this at some point, but they don’t truly believe they’ll ever have to. The guy dies first, right? That’s how it works. Because men are selfish bastards. And whenever I have imagined doing this, I’m always an old man, mumbling and farting and grateful for the many years I got to spend with my soulmate. Jesus, Mom, I’m young enough to still get carded on occasion.”
He sprayed a little Curate into the air and immediately regretted it; the smell was beautiful-painful. Laura could have just breezed through the room. He sat on the edge of the bed and wept.
“Some people never get to know love,” his mom said, holding him the way she used to when he’d scraped his knee or broken one of his toys. “Remember how it feels. Hold on to it. That’s Laura’s gift to you. And those beautiful babies, of course.”
The babies, yes, who, at ten and fifteen, were old enough to understand death and heartbreak. The family and community support was a blessing for so many reasons, not least because it gave Martin time with the girls. It was too early for healing, but not for talking … for accepting.
Not that they were accepting. Shirley often talked about Laura in the present tense, and got pissed at Martin for taking a box of shoes to the thrift store, as if she expected her mom to appear barefoot one day and start looking for them. She amped up her adolescent obnoxiousness (what Laura had called her “teenage quills”), cranking her music to eleven, slamming doors with a little extra vim, smoking marijuana in front of Martin (he didn’t respond positively to that particular quill). On one occasion, she disappeared for the day and didn’t return home until after dark, challenging Martin with a “what are you going to do about it” expression. He felt powerless. Any reaction would be the wrong one. So he said nothing, just gave her a look of grave disappointment. “Fuck this life,” Shirley responded, and went to bed.
Conversely, there were times when only Dad would do, when she held him like she used to when she was two years old. He wiped her tears and stroked her hair and sometimes they cried together. It was something to share, special in its way. Shirley confided a deep guilt to him, that if she’d attended Flint Wood High, instead of the Catholic high school across town, she might have altered the outcome in some way.
“You know, like the butterfly effect,” she said. “One small decision changes everything, and maybe—maybe—Mom would still be alive, because she would’ve reacted differently if I was there, too. But I had to go to St. Mary’s, didn’t I, because I thought it was weird to go to a school where your mom was one of the teachers.”
“I love you. You’re amazing. But you’re wrong.” Martin held her close as she trembled and cried. Her pain added another layer to his own. “Decisions are made, things happen. Some good, some not so good. You can call it the butterfly effect, or you can call it by its proper name: life. Looking for reasons is a dangerous business. The only way to go is forward.”
“I miss her, Dad. I could have been a better daughter.”
“I miss her, too. And I’ll say it again: you’re amazing.”
Edith didn’t often cry, or even talk. She dealt with things in her own way: by not dealing with them. She refused to go into her own room—spent most of her time in the basement, not watching TV or playing videogames, just huddled in blankets, staring into the gloom. Martin brought her food and drink, which she occasionally accepted. He tried engaging with her, but she was lost in her own world.
“Tell me about your garden,” he said on one of the rare occasions she emerged. She was playing her guitar on the back stoop—a note-perfect rendition of The Beatles’ “Blackbird.” Not bad for ten years old.
“It’s beautiful,” Edith replied.
“How so?”
“Nobody gets killed there. The trees are tall and you can climb them all the way to the top. The flowers never die. The leaves are always green.” She played as she spoke, her gaze flicking between Martin and the fretboard. “Mom’s there, too. Not really there, but I’ve noticed the river is brighter and warmer. The clouds smell like her.”
“That does sound beautiful,” Martin said. “I wouldn’t mind having my own garden to visit.”
“You can make one.” Edith let a note carry while she tapped her forehead. “You start with one leaf. The only leaf in the world.”
“Maybe I’ll do that. But hey, listen, this is important.” He dropped an arm around her and leaned close. “It’s great that you have somewhere to go, and I know it helps with the bad things, but don’t lose yourself in there, babygirl. We’re out
here. We love you, and we need you.”
Edith didn’t respond for a long time. She just played and Martin listened, half-remembering the lyrics. Something about broken wings and learning to fly. He played with her hair, the same color as Laura’s, watching the way it fell between her narrow shoulder blades.
“It’s scary out here,” she said.
* * *
Martin had talked to Shirley about moving forward, painfully aware of the hypocrisy. His default condition was static, brooding in silent anger and misery, although he was prone to backward steps: he smashed shit up, chopped down a perfectly healthy tree, drove into the country and screamed at the sky. In front of the girls, he endeavored to show progress, to lead by example. It was all rather sad and desperate. He bought new bedding for himself, something modern and horrible and befitting a middle-aged widower. He replaced the Kandinsky print in the living room with a picture of a tiger running through water, the word ATTITUDE emblazoned across the bottom in motivational uppercase. Shirley took one look at it and suggested he find a new therapist.
He painted Edith’s room. A month had passed since Laura’s death and he finally faced all those red 16s and jagged lines. He tried scrubbing them first with bleach and hot water—he wanted them off the walls, not just painted over—but they wouldn’t budge, so he used an electric sander and that did the trick. It left a lot of ugly bare spots and he rolled over them with a primer, then a shade of blue he thought Edith would like. The only symbol he didn’t paint over was that single red love heart. He emphasized it, in fact—painted a cloud around it.
Edith watched him do this from the doorway. He didn’t notice she was there until she sighed and said, “It’s a good color, Dad.”
He turned with a start. “Oh … hey.”
“Hey.” She smiled, then looked at the heart on the wall. The heart in the cloud.
“How much do you remember?” Martin asked.
“None of it.”
“Good.”
Her eyes flicked to him and filled with tears, then she ran across the room and threw herself into his arms. “I love you, Dad. I love you so much.” And he said that he loved her, too, that she and Shirley were more than the world to him, and they cried together until their chests hurt.
“What do you want, baby?” he asked later, when their tears had dried but their eyes were still puffy. “You want to get out of here? Move somewhere cool and beautiful? Or maybe we can buy a camper van and drive cross-country. No work or school. No rules.”
She blinked brightly and smiled.
“Whatever you want. You tell me and I’ll make it happen.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
She lay her head against his chest. “I just want to be safe.”
The summer evening dimmed. The heart in the cloud was the last thing to fade.
* * *
And throughout all of this—the funeral, the community support, the screaming at the sky—Martin was never once aware that he was being watched.
12
Alcohol was a bad idea. Its (temporary) healing properties made it extremely dangerous—an ill-advised remedy that could devolve into habit. For this reason, Martin rarely imbibed, and never in front of the girls. But when he did, he went all out.
Usually, with the girls at Jimmy’s, a bottle of bourbon and something loud on the stereo sufficed. Tonight, though, Shirley’s friend Claudette Palazzo was sleeping over, which Martin saw as an encouraging sign, and Jimmy’s wife, Felicity, was holding the fort.
“I’ll be home at a horrible hour,” Martin said to her. “And by way of taxicab. That’s a promise. Keep an eye on Ede. She might want a hug before bedtime.”
“I can do hugs,” Felicity said, flapping a hand at him. “Go. Have fun. Be careful.”
There were a couple of bars within walking distance, but even now, seven weeks after the shooting, he couldn’t get through a single drink without someone offering condolence or advice. They were always well-meaning, and Martin was grateful, but he wasn’t in the mood. He wanted a place where nobody knew him, and where he could drink himself senseless.
He wanted to be like everyone else.
No hope of that in Flint Wood, so Martin drove to Clear River, thirteen miles east. The setting sun colored everything behind him, so he didn’t see the white pickup truck in the rearview. He focused on the road ahead, mumbled along to the radio, and finally pulled into the parking lot of a bar called Banjo McCoy’s.
Moments later, the white pickup followed.
* * *
Friday night but it wasn’t busy. A few folks were posted around the bar and several tables were occupied. The clientele was predominately male, an even mix of white and blue collars. The banjo theme was realized through the dozens of banjos affixed to the walls. A plaque declared one of them to have been used in the movie Deliverance—not one of the main banjos but a stand-in, which Martin decided wasn’t as interesting as having Sally Fields’s stunt double for a therapist.
He sat at the bar and handed his keys to the bartender.
“Don’t give them back to me. No matter what I say.”
The bartender was thirty-something and pretty, with penciled eyebrows and a tongue piercing that she tapped against her teeth out of habit.
She said, “You sound like a man who needs a drink.”
He said, “Like you wouldn’t believe.”
He ordered a double shot of Jack with a Sam Adams chaser—downed the Jack in one, then drained half the beer. The door behind him opened. Three people walked in: two women, dressed in blue jeans and cowboy boots, who took a booth by the window, and a middle-aged man in slacks and a peach golf shirt. Martin assumed he was with the women, but he walked past their booth and joined Martin at the bar, taking the next stool but one. He ordered a sparkling water with a slice of lime and asked to look at a menu.
Martin went back to his beer, his eyes flicking between the banjos and the clientele. The man in the peach shirt perused the menu and ordered a chicken wrap with the salad. Martin emptied his glass and nodded at the bartender. She brought him another shot, another beer. He emptied these quickly, too.
“You weren’t lying,” the bartender said.
“Keep ’em coming.”
The bar had started to fill. Most of the tables and booths were occupied. Several long-haired dudes carted instruments and speakers to a small stage in back. A young couple looked for seats at the bar and the man in the peach shirt made room by scooching onto the empty stool beside Martin. They nodded at one another. Martin downed his shot and his vision blurred momentarily. Good.
“Those guys look loud,” the man said, gesturing at the long-haired dudes and their instruments. “I was hoping for a quiet bite to eat.”
“You came to the wrong place,” Martin said. “It’s Friday night. I think everybody here wants to let off some steam.”
“Right.” The man nodded. “Take a breath after a week at the grindstone. Chill the hell out.”
“Something like that.”
“Jesus, everybody’s wound so tight these days.” He shrugged and sipped his water. “It’s funny how all these hi-tech devices—smartphones, tablets, and such—are designed to make life easier, but nobody has a lick of time to spare.”
“Welcome to the digital age,” Martin said.
“Yeah, well, the digital age can kiss my ass.” He chuckled at that and his eyes shone. He had a wide face chiseled with lines, a graying brush cut, and sloping, muscular shoulders. The peach shirt wasn’t exactly in keeping. Martin thought he’d look more at home in military fatigues. Maybe a prison warden’s uniform.
“Nolan,” he said, extending his hand.
“Martin.”
They shook. Nolan’s hand was dry and characterless. Like the shirt, it didn’t match the rest of him. Martin got the impression he was cobbled together—had rebuilt his life but wasn’t sure which pieces to use. Maybe he’s a widower, too, Martin thought, and had to wonder if, in a cou
ple of years, he’d be the same: thrown together with mismatched pieces.
“It’s like this,” Nolan continued. “The moment you swipe your cell phone’s screen, you remove yourself from your environment. You’re no longer looking at the scenery or interacting with the people around you. The time you spend in your phone, whether it’s ten seconds or ten hours … that’s dead time, you don’t get it back.”
“I guess,” Martin said. “But they’re useful, so…”
“Agreed. For important calls and emergencies.” Nolan took a glug of water. “But people are buried in their phones. Look around—jeez, those two ladies who walked in ahead of me have barely exchanged a word all night.”
Martin glanced at the booth by the window, where the two women sat opposite each other, faces bathed in the glow of their cell phones.
“Maybe they’re having a good time. Who are we to judge?”
“That’s not quality of life, Martin. I read a report in the Washington Times that the average American spends a third of their waking day on their smartphone. You and I both know that most of it is nonessential bullcrap. It’s social media and pointless texts.”
“Again, welcome to the digital age.”
“Again, it can kiss my ass.” Nolan didn’t chuckle this time. His gray eyes were narrow and serious. “I mean, Jesus, go for a walk, breathe the air. This country wouldn’t have so many problems if people had a greater appreciation of how beautiful it is.”
“Maybe,” Martin said. “But you can lose yourself in a good novel—remove yourself from your environment—and it’s generally regarded as a good thing. What’s the difference?”
“The difference is that books inspire, challenge, and enrich you in a way that social media or videogames never will.” Nolan jabbed the bar with one finger, as if adding an exclamation point. “And hey, it’s not that I actively dislike devices. It’s more that I love life. After what I’ve been through, I want to make the most out of every day.”
“Shit, I’ll drink to that.”
