by J. Thorn
“How did you—?”
“No,” she said. “Forget the how, okay?”
Hank nodded.
“I know you feel as though her departure was premature, unjustified, maybe even criminal.”
“It was. The guy who hit her went to jail. Hanged himself there.”
“Which has nothing to do with you, Corey or Michelle, and everything to do with him. He'll enter the reversion, rest assured.”
Hank looked at Estelle, not understanding what she meant. Before he could ask, she spoke again.
“That is his concern, not yours. It is your guilt that troubles me, gives me doubt about whether you'll be able to handle what is coming your way.”
“The last thing I said to her...” Hank trailed off, the memory too painful.
“That isn't the last thing. Yes, it was the last thing to leave your mouth and enter her ears, but it is not the last communication between the two of you. That is eternal. There is no first and there is no last. It just is.”
He wanted to hear about Estelle's grandkids or her bunions or her book club back home. He craved conversation about anything but his dead wife, yet he knew the woman was trying to help him. Hank swallowed the bitter taste in his mouth like it was powerful medicine.
“Do you know why I'm here?” she asked.
“You're going to Rochester to see your son.”
Estelle shook her head and leaned back with a shallow smile.
“I'm here to warn you. I'm here to tell you not to mess with what the universal powers have made, the existence they created. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.”
“Corey. It's about Corey.”
“That's not true and you should stop telling yourself that. It's about you as well. You miss Michelle. That desire is natural. Even the guilt is natural. Acting upon it in a way that violates spirit is not. Remember that.”
The train's whistle bellowed. Hank looked out the window to see a purple band of light glowing on the eastern edge of the Sierra Nevadas.
“It'll be morning soon,” Hank said.
“There's plenty of darkness before the light,” Estelle said.
“I need to use the restroom.”
Hank pulled his hand from Estelle's and felt his equilibrium return. Whatever connection they had was now broken. He stumbled past Estelle and toward the bathroom in the adjoining car. Hank stepped into the bathroom, urinated and walked back to the dining car. It was empty and Hank was not surprised. He shook his head and wondered how many more conversations he would forget before he sought a shrink.
As he passed the booth where he was sitting with Estelle, Hank paused. The train rumbled around a corner, forcing him back into the booth. Sitting between the napkin dispenser and the salt shaker was a piece of folded paper. He grabbed it and read the shaky handwriting inside.
Let her go.
Chapter 5
1 Week Later (August 20, 2014)
The truck's air conditioning surged through the dashboard, although the steering wheel was as hot as an iron skillet handle. Hank put his sunglasses on and felt the steel rims burning into his forehead. The morning coffee sat like a lake of acid in the pit of his stomach. He glanced into the rearview mirror at his son in the backseat. Corey was old enough to ride in the front, yet he always climbed into the back.
“Pap says the clinic has the best doctors in the country. Of course, he worked maintenance there his entire life, so I’m not sure how much I’d believe his propaganda.”
Hank looked at the road to see the traffic light ahead turn red before throwing a weak smile at Corey through the mirror. The boy was staring out the window, squinting from the powerful glare of an August sunrise. He wore a tangled mess of bed head along with a brown and orange T-shirt in support of the city’s football team.
“Everything okay, Corey?”
Corey looked at Hank through the mirror and returned an equally half-hearted grin.
“Pap will pick you up when the session is over. I’m heading over to the campus to meet with the chair of the department. There’s a good chance they’ll hire me this fall.”
The light turned green. Hank glanced both ways and moved through the intersection. The engine in the old Dodge Dakota rattled and the cool air coming through the vents smelled like old French fries and antifreeze. The tires slid on acceleration and Hank knew he'd have to replace them before winter arrived.
He crossed the intersection of Coventry and Mayfield roads with Lake View Cemetery coming up on his right. The trees stood behind the wrought iron fence like sentinels, their branches pulled toward the earth by the weight of their leaves, soon to drop and leave bare, spindly arms. The stone tower of an unknown tomb burst through the blue sky like a lone, shining obelisk of pearl. The gates were open as they always were during business hours. People walked or jogged along the sidewalk.
Hank turned right and headed down the hill and into Little Italy. The week before, the streets were filled with the aromas of homemade tomato sauce, Italian pastries and expensive cigars. The cafes and restaurants opened their doors to fill the neighborhood with the sound of laughter and Frank Sinatra. The street festival of the Feast of the Assumption was held every August. Now thoughts would be of clambakes and football season. Several school children entered the crosswalk on their way to school at Holy Rosary Church in the north end of Little Italy. Hank watched them skipping and laughing at each other, overjoyed with the first few weeks of school.
As the truck approached Euclid Avenue and the heart of University Circle, Hank turned left. The college kids were still sleeping, leaving a handful of hospital employees waiting for the bus, all of them wearing the same aqua scrubs. He continued down Euclid and turned right into the visitor parking lot of the Cleveland Clinic. He stopped before pushing the button on the parking lot gate.
“If I drop you off at the main door, can you get to Dr. Singleton’s office?”
Corey unbuckled his seat belt and nodded.
“Third floor, suite 306. Right? You have to sign the clipboard and remain in the waiting room until they call you.”
Corey rolled his eyes.
“I know you know,” Hank said. “I’m just being a dad.”
Corey nodded, opened the door and pointed at the main doors. Hank rocked the power window switch on the passenger side several times until the cranky motor forced the glass free. The window came down with a dry wheeze and Corey hunched over to look back inside the truck.
“I’ll tell Pap to wait for you outside the main door. You got my credit card for the co-pay, right?”
Corey nodded.
“Great. I’ll see you at dinner tonight. Have a good session.”
Corey turned away from the truck and Hank hit the horn. It reverberated off the building’s concrete walls and Corey stumbled before turning back around. The passenger side window was still open and Hank yelled through it.
“I love you, son.”
Corey waved as the automatic glass doors opened, then he stepped inside. Hank sighed and pulled the truck back into traffic toward Case Western Reserve University.
Hank glanced at the Cleveland Clinic as he proceeded down Euclid Avenue back toward Cleveland Heights. He imagined Corey in an office deep within the labyrinthine corridors. Hank envisioned Corey sitting in a chair with wires and monitors attached to his head while a team of doctors with glasses and bad hair scurried around him, taking notes and speaking to each other in code.
“Fucking stop it,” Hank said to no one.
He turned the radio on and looked back to the road in front of him. He had to tell himself to quit letting the anxiety take control. When that didn’t work, he resorted to loud, brash heavy metal. Hank punched the radio presets and realized nothing on the dial would satisfy his craving, so he hit the CD button and hoped he left something heavy inside. A sledgehammer of distortion filled the cab of the truck followed by the undecipherable screams above the thundering double-bass.
The university ne
eded to staff several courses and Hank had taught long enough to understand how the game was played. He would accept the job and be paid well below the going rate. In return, he’d get a shot at tenure. He had references from his department chair at San Francisco State which would almost guarantee him a spot on the Case Western Reserve faculty.
He would say what needed to be said in the preliminary interview to diffuse the social awkwardness that seemed to trail his wife’s accidental death. Hank would try his best to make light of the situation or place it into a fabricated “distant past” to put people at ease. Each time he did, he felt a little piece of his heart break off. But there was no way to navigate that landscape. Death made people uncomfortable, uneasy and scared. Michelle was dead, yet Hank felt as though he was death’s ambassador, greeting people and their own insecurities about the inevitable.
Hank went through the motions of the interview process, saying what the university administrators expected him to say. He shook the department chair’s hand and walked to the parking lot where his truck sat in the far corner. He got in and drove through the gate and on to Euclid Avenue.
The sun rose higher, baking the dashboard of the truck and forcing Hank to turn the AC to max. People pedaled by on bicycles with beads of sweat dripping from their bodies. Hank felt a grumble in his stomach and the traffic light in front of Jorge’s Burritos turned red, tempting him further. Hank screamed along with the music while tapping the steering wheel with his fingers. He was hungry and he could feel the beginnings of a headache blossoming behind his eyes, but the meal would have to wait. He was thinking about the lightning strike that almost killed his son and robbed Corey of the ability to speak. Hank wondered what the bacteria and microorganisms were doing to his wife’s decaying body now six feet in the ground.
The light turned green and Hank slammed the accelerator, leaving Jorge’s in the rearview. He turned the music down and then off. The thoughts came rushing back. He drove through Little Italy and the only thing on his mind was a visual depiction of his wife’s flayed skull, her jaw open in a scream, the same one caused by the drunk driver who took her life. He came to the light at the top of the hill and glanced to his left at the gated entrance to Lake View Cemetery.
Hank looked at the dashboard clock. 12:37. He had already finished at Case Western Reserve University and Corey would not be home for another four hours. He turned left and drove the Dodge through the gates of Lake View Cemetery and into a city built for the dead.
The grass was moist, an underground sprinkler system preventing the grounds from turning brittle and brown like most suburban lawns in late August. The tombstones stretched into the distance in a haphazard pattern, while the trees huddled above them. The hazy, thin clouds cleared enough to show Hank the razor sharp line where Lake Erie met the beach, several miles from the cemetery that bore its name. Hank pulled his truck to the side of the asphalt path, stepped out and looked around. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and rubbed the hair of his salt and pepper goatee. No one was around as far as Hank could see, although he thought he heard heavy machinery in the distance.
Gravediggers ain’t what they used to be. Back in the day, they did it with a shovel, not a backhoe.
He smiled, but his own joke wasn’t enough to lighten the heaviness he felt behind the gate. The cemetery was carved from another universe, suffocating, as if it existed at the bottom of a deep swimming pool. Despite the stifling August air, Hank felt the skin on his arms prickle and he shivered. He thought of all of the horror novelists he read. King, Koontz, Mayberry. He imagined them standing on the same ridge with the same view and wondered what they would make of it.
“Just a place to store the dead,” he said. “Nothing more except in the movies.”
Hank felt compelled to walk deeper into the cemetery, in the opposite direction of Michelle’s grave. The wind changed and now pushed at his back, encouraging him to go deeper. He looked at his truck and heard the engine block pinging as the compressor dripped moisture to the asphalt where it sizzled like bacon. Several gulls flew overhead, shadows chasing them on the ground.
He left the Dakota atop the hill as he descended into the graveyard and down the winding path where the oldest burial sites remained. He passed two picnic tables covered by pigeons and their droppings. Hank wrinkled his forehead, trying to imagine the appropriate social graces involved with a picnic in the middle of a cemetery. He came around a bend where the cemetery flattened out and the residential homes of East Cleveland stood against the stone fence surrounding Lake View Cemetery. The fountain in the middle of the pond shot water ten feet into the air and ducks swam beneath it. Hank looked to his left and saw three tombs built into the side of the hill. He approached the one in the middle.
Ivy crawled around the iron gate and over the entranceway, guarding the tomb. The name “Brainard” was carved in relief within the arch above. Behind the gate, the entranceway was filled with brick, the mortar bright white even though the granite itself was weathered and dark. Hank reached out through the gate and touched it. The brick was cold and lifeless even in the August heat. Hank wasn’t a mason, but he couldn’t imagine why the mortar would be so pristine when the brick it held together wasn’t.
“What the fuck am I doing here?” he asked.
Hank pulled his hand back, releasing whatever mental control the tomb had on him.
He walked backward and looked at the tomb on each side of Brainard. They also had the entranceway bricked up, but with lines of mortar as white as polished teeth. Hank felt a vibration on his left thigh. He reached into his pants pocket to grab his phone. He saw Fred’s smiling face on the display.
“Hey, Fred.”
“Hi, Hank. Listen. I’m going to grab Corey a bite to eat. Are you going to be home soon?”
“I was just on my way to grab some lunch,” Hank said.
The pause felt longer than it should have been and Hank thought the call disconnected until Fred spoke again.
“It's almost four, buddy. I was talking about dinner.”
Fred followed the comment with a forced chuckle. “Yeah, yeah. I know,” Hank said. “Dinner. Right.”
“You okay? You sound flustered.”
“I’m fine. Thanks for calling. I appreciate the offer. I need to meet with HR here at Case and then I’ll be home.” The freight train rumbling behind the cemetery hit its horn, exposing Hank’s lie.
“No problem,” Fred said. “I’ll see you back at the house.”
“Okay,” Hank said and hung up.
He shook his head and checked the time on his phone. Hank put it back in his pocket, took one last look at the Brainard crypt and turned to walk back up the hill to his truck. The tomb had been drawing him near but Hank did not know why.
Chapter 6
“I can be there around five.”
Hank nodded, even though he knew she couldn’t see him.
“I appreciate it, Lori. I won’t take but an hour of your time.”
“Hank, please. How long have we known each other?”
“Too long,” he said.
“Exactly, you smart ass. Too long. So shut up, have another Great Lakes beer and I’ll see you in about thirty minutes. I’ve got to pick the kids up and swing past the pharmacy and then I’ll be there.”
“I know why Michelle loved you like a sister.”
“Stop, Hank. Drink your beer.”
He set his phone down on the bar and smiled. The Winking Lizard was one of their favorite places. Hank and Michelle made it their regular date night, back before cell phones were around to pull you out of any moment. A lone gentlemen sat at one end of the bar and Hank was at the other. He looked at the Cleveland sports memorabilia on the walls and realized most of it went up after he moved to California.
Michelle won’t ever get to see the new stuff, he thought. Then was immediately angry at himself and decided Lori was right: A Great Lakes Summer Ale would help him cope.
Twenty minutes passed like seconds. His be
er sat untouched on the bar, moisture running down the sides like a melting Popsicle. He felt a light touch on his shoulder and turned around to see Lori pulling out the barstool next to him. Her auburn-brown hair fell to the top of a slender neck and her cheeks blushed from the heat outside. Lori’s high cheekbones and piercing green eyes made her the envy of every mom in the PTA. She managed to stay slim and hid her wrinkles better than most women her age. She placed her purse on top of the bar and swung sideways on to the stool, smiling at Hank.
“How are you?” she asked.
Hank waved a hand in the air and shrugged.
“Time heals all—”
“Stop,” Hank said, interrupting. “You weren’t seriously going to say that to me.”
It was Lori’s turn to shrug. She gave the bartender a nod and he walked over.
“Vodka tonic.”
The bartender turned to fix her drink.
“Damn,” Hank said.
“I don’t get out much. On my own. Quit busting my balls about hard liquor and tell me what’s up with you.”
“You’ll think I’m insane.”
“I was Michelle’s best friend her entire life. I know you almost as well as she did. What the fuck do you care what I think of you?”
The bartender slid the glass in front of Lori. She gave Hank a devilish grin before raising it in a silent toast.
“Okay. I get it,” Hank said.
“Get what?”
“The fact that you want me to trust you. You know I do.”
“That’s not it at all. I want you to quit being coy and tell me why you’re sitting at the Winking Lizard by yourself, during the week, in the middle of the afternoon. And then decide to call your deceased wife’s best friend.”
Lori cringed and immediately spoke again, as if fearing the words were more abrasive than she intended. “You were the most spectacular couple I’ve ever known. No cheating, no animosity. Did you two ever have a fight?”
Hank took a swig of beer, hoping the bottle would conceal the mixture of pride and pain rippling over his face.
