by Paul Cleave
The rest of the dirt is underneath a grass-colored piece of canvas, hidden away, and it’s another tradition I don’t understand. Are they worried the dirt will cement the reality that my blood-covered wife, funeral arrangements, and coffin could not? I don’t know. Maybe it’s the traditions that get people through the day.
Sam picks up a small handful of dirt and sprinkles it onto the coffin. She doesn’t ask why. In fact she hasn’t asked anything at all today-she’s done what she’s been told, quietly following me since we woke up this morning.
After the funeral we all drive to Jodie’s parents’ house. I look at the streets and the people and I want to leave this city and wish I’d done it years ago. The Christmas traffic slows us down-even at four o’clock on a Monday afternoon. Soccer mums are driving their kids around the city in SUVs and heading to the malls.
There are about thirty cars parked in my in-laws’ street, and only two media vans. I have to park two blocks away. The distraction thing happens while I drive-I’ll see a car getting ready to run a red light and I’ll brake, I’ll avoid him, the moment passes, and then Jodie hits my thoughts with such brutality I almost burst into tears. My days are made up like that-the memory of her loss impacting on me over and over, trying to break me. Or maybe no longer trying-maybe succeeding.
The weird food/funeral thing is taking place. It’s another of the traditions. It was the same when my mum and sister died, my grandparents cooking a thousand sausage rolls for the guests, cracking open bottles of lemonade and grape juice, swallowing down food and sorrow and sharing stories. The house is almost standing room only with the amount of people here, but they part for me and Sam, and I lead her through the living room and out onto the porch into the sun. I tell her to go and play in her playhouse but she doesn’t want to. She wants to keep holding my hand, and that’s okay with me. On and off during the afternoon she’ll smile at me like she’s in on some secret that I don’t know about. She thinks her mum is returning.
“Mummy’s a ghost,” she said as Jodie hid under the sheets from her on the day she died.
One by one the guests fade away. I’m given handshakes and hugs and words of condolence, and none of them help. I’d put any one of these people into the ground if it would bring Jodie back.
In the end there’s only family-and none of it is mine, except my daughter. It’s Jodie’s family, and as much as I want to leave and never see them again, I can’t. None of this is their fault. None of it is my fault. I guess it’s just one of those things. That’s what murder is these days-just one of those things that happens, get used to it, deal with it, move on.
Sam is finally out in the playhouse Nat built for her a couple of years ago. Nat spent twenty years as a builder and the last ten years running a hardware shop. I’m sitting out on the porch watching her when he comes out and hands me a beer. His suit jacket is gone, his sleeves are rolled up, and his tie is askew. He has big forearms with long white hairs, and big hands that he uses to pry the top off his beer. I suddenly realize for the first time that as hard as it is for me, it’s perhaps even harder for him.
“Hell of a day,” he says, and he sits next to me at the outdoor table he built.
“Yeah.”
“Hell of a service. They did. . a great job,” he says, maybe recognizing how hollow his words sound. “Notice how people came out of there saying the service was nice? I don’t know what the hell they mean by that,” he says. “I mean, I think I know what they mean, and I’ve probably said the same thing at other funerals. But the word doesn’t fit. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah.”
“I figure there’s no alternative, right? I mean, what the hell else are people going to come out saying? That it was a bloody awful service? That they had a bad time? That they had a great time? I guess it’s all you can say.”
“I guess it is.”
He lifts the bottle up to his lips and takes a long swallow. “They’re going to catch those bastards,” he says. “I wish to hell they’d put me in a room with them one at a time. I wish. . ah hell,” he says, and then, “I keep thinking I’m dreaming.”
“I know.”
Sam waves at us, then goes back to her world, talking to her teddy bears, maybe telling them about how nice the service was. Mummy’s a ghost. Yeah, maybe she’s talking to Jodie too.
“You have to feel the same way, right? If you could get your hands on those people?”
I’d love it. The words don’t come out, thankfully, and they’re not even my words. I’m not sure whose they are. “I’d kill them,” I say, knowing that’s what he wants to hear, wondering if it’s actually something he thinks I’m capable of. Maybe he’s hoping I am.
“It’s going to be hard, taking care of her yourself.”
“I know.”
“But you’re a good kid,” he says. “You’ll do great. I know it. And, well, we’re always here for you.”
I open up my beer and take a long sip so I don’t have to speak.
“I know that you’ve always thought we didn’t think much of you. And I know why you think that. And I admit, in the beginning, it worried me when Jodie told us she was dating you and who your dad was. Shit, don’t think for a moment that we didn’t know it was unfair to think like that, I mean, we’re good people, we don’t have prejudices against anybody. Doesn’t matter who you are, you’re good to us, we like you. Could be anybody-hell, even gay people. But, well, you don’t imagine your daughter growing up and being with somebody whose father is a serial killer. And before you judge me on-”
“I don’t judge you. I understand. I’ve lived with it my entire life.”
“I know you have, son, and you don’t deserve it. But it is what it is, and you’ll go through it in ten years or more when Sam is old enough to date. Truth be told, I think we would have been fearful no matter who Jodie brought home. It took some getting used to, with your dad’s past and everything, but I want you to know how proud we are of you, and we love you and we know how happy you made Jodie, and we have a granddaughter who means the world to us. We wouldn’t have that precious little girl if you’d never met our Jodie.”
I take another sip of beer, following his thought process, wondering if he chose those words specifically and hoping he didn’t. He’s saying they wouldn’t have Sam if it wasn’t for me. But he’s also saying they’d still have Jodie.
“I wanted to let you know how much we believe in you,” he says. “And that, well, we don’t blame you for what happened. We know how, how you called out, how you tried to stop them from shooting that woman.”
“Jodie would still be alive if I hadn’t.”
He doesn’t answer for about twenty seconds. Just keeps working away at his beer. He wipes at his mouth and turns toward me. “I know,” he says. “Don’t think that I don’t know that. And part of me, part of me is angry at you for that. Part of me thinks if you’d kept your mouth shut, none of this would be happening.”
“I-”
“Let me finish,” he says.
“But-”
“Please,” he says, and holds his hand up. “You were doing the right thing. Me, in that situation, I don’t know what I’d have done. Maybe nothing. I’d have been a coward and let that woman get shot, most probably. But you stood up. You didn’t know you were risking Jodie-all you knew was you were risking yourself. You did a good thing, but part of me is always going to hate you for that, Eddie, and I can’t help that.”
“I get it. A big part me-hell, all of me hates me too for doing it.”
“I know that. Weigh it all up, spread out the blame, and shit, Eddie, it wasn’t your fault. It was the men who came into that bank. They’re the ones responsible. Not you. And we want to let you know how much we’re relying on you now. It’s your job to take care of that little girl. You have to give up everything you can to make sure she’s raised right. And no matter what, we’re always going to be here for her. And for you. Remember that, Eddie. Remember that and you’ll do okay.�
��
He puts his hand on my shoulder. It’s warm and comforting. For the briefest second I believe him that everything is going to be okay. I take another drink of the beer.
It’s in your blood.
“Sorry?” I say.
“I said you’ll do okay.”
“No, after that. You said something after that.”
“No, I’m pretty sure I didn’t.”
Suddenly I’m also sure he didn’t. It’s in your blood. It was the same voice I heard earlier, the one that told me I’d be hearing from it soon, and now I recognize it. It’s been almost twenty years, but it’s the voice from when I was a kid and the neighbor’s dog wouldn’t stop barking. It’s my dad’s monster-it found me twice when I was nine, and now it’s found me again.
chapter twelve
It’s dark by the time we get home. It’s a three-quarter moon. It throws white light over the house and reflects off the front windows and makes the house look very empty. I park the car in the driveway and can’t be bothered putting it in the garage. Jodie’s car is still parked in town near her work and can stay there a while longer yet. I grab the mail and take Sam inside. One of the things about the new house we were going to get was it had an adjoining garage. It was something we both wanted, because of the brutal Christchurch winters.
Jodie doesn’t have to worry about that anymore, now, does she. .
“Shut up,” I whisper.
“What, Daddy?” Sam asks, her voice sleepy, her eyes half closed.
“Nothing, honey,” I say, and I carry her inside.
The house has gotten tidier over the last couple of days mainly because I found myself wandering through the rooms, never really sure what to do. Sometimes I’d spend hours in front of the TV, watching the news and staring at whatever else was on. Other times I’d surf the net, looking for updates on the case. Most of the time people would show up to spend time with us. Sam kept mostly to herself. Mogo would show up for food and nothing else. I’d clean the house sporadically, sometimes cleaning the same room only an hour after I’d last done it. I’d play with Sam. We’d watch TV together. We’d sit outside together. It was tough.
I carry Sam down to her bedroom. I keep searching for a glimpse of my wife, a shadow, a movement somewhere, something to let me know in some way she is still here. I lay Sam on her bed-Disney characters scattered in the pattern of the bedspread. She’s asleep again. I get her into her pajamas. She wakes a little but is too tired to help.
I grab a beer from the fridge. I never bought any, but since Saturday friends have been showing up to share their sorrow with me, the women bringing wine, the men, beer, and in the beginning I thought I had enough to last me a lifetime, but now I’m not so sure. Now I think there might only be enough here for a few days. I settle in front of the TV and wait for the news to come on. The bank robbery, the funerals, they don’t even lead the news anymore. The lead story is about a seventy-five-year-old woman who, in the parking lot of a shopping mall, mistook her car for an identical-colored and almost identical-shaped vehicle parked next to it. The owner, seeing her putting her key into his lock, rushed over and shoved her so hard she fell over, hit her head on the sidewalk, and was pronounced dead at the scene. The second story is about a turned-over truck that allowed a few dozen sheep to escape on a notorious stretch of highway in the North Island. Nobody was killed. Then come the funerals, snippets from them both in a montage with slow classical music playing over the top of it, like it’s a movie preview. The coffins are different colors and styles, and everybody is dressed smartly. My daughter gets a lot of attention-it shows us following the coffin. Another daughter-three times Sam’s age-follows the other coffin. Then at the end of the story a brief report saying the men haven’t been captured, and that any member of the public with information is asked to call the hotline listed below.
I finish the beer and grab another. I open up the mail. There are two letters from the bank. The first one is brief.
DEAR MR. HUNTER,
IN WHAT MUST BE A VERY DIFFICULT TIME FOR YOU AND YOUR FAMILY, WE AT SOUTH PACIFIC BANK WOULD LIKE TO OFFER OUR SINCEREST CONDOLENCES FOR THE LOSS OF YOUR WIFE.
THE TRAGIC INCIDENT THAT HAPPENED OUTSIDE THE BANK HAS TOUCHED THE ENTIRE STAFF AND, NEEDLESS TO SAY, YOU AND YOUR FAMILY REMAIN IN OUR THOUGHTS AND OUR PRAYERS.
SINCERELY,
DEAN WELLINGTON
I read the letter a couple of times, looking at the words Dean Wellington used. He managed to sum the entire murder of my wife as an “incident” and convey his horror at it all in two paragraphs. I wonder if he used the words “outside the bank” specifically, hoping it will absolve any responsibility the branch has toward what happened.
The second letter isn’t as brief. It’s obviously a form letter with a brief scrawl of a signature at the bottom. It’s been overnighted down from Auckland, meaning they must have gotten to work on our loan application within hours of Jodie dying.
MR. EDWARD HUNTER,
UNFORTUNATELY, AS YOU KNOW, THE PROPERTY MARKET AT THIS CURRENT TIME IS EXTREMELY VOLATILE, WHICH REQUIRES US TO TIGHTEN THE CRITERIA ON WHICH WE BASE OUR HOME LOANS.
BASED ON THESE CRITERIA, WE ARE UNABLE TO APPROVE YOUR APPLICATION AT THIS TIME.
I read on. The letter goes on for another page, listing some of the criteria that I no longer fit. In the end I skim over the details and go right to the end.
AS THE MARKET IS IN A CONSTANT STATE OF CHANGE, WE WOULD BE HAPPY TO REVIEW THIS DECISION AT A LATER DATE. IN THE MEANTIME, WE HOPE THAT WE CAN CONTINUE TO ASSIST YOU WITH ALL YOUR BANKING NEEDS.
YOURS SINCERELY,
KATIE HUGHES
I read the letter a second time, finishing off my second beer, the anger burning inside me, and yet I feel no disbelief at all. Katie Hughes must have typed this letter up pretty damn fast. I check the postmark and see it got posted on Saturday. I wonder if Hughes or Wellington spent an expensive Friday afternoon with lawyers to see where they stood on the whole “incident.” I finish a third beer while flicking through the phone book.
I’m not sure why I do it, but I look Dean Wellington up and write down his address before finishing off a third beer and deciding it might be about time to head off to bed.
chapter thirteen
I wake up and everything is as it should be. My wife is alive. We’ve bought the new house. Sam is Sam and Mogo is being Mogo. Then those thoughts become blurred, my bedroom comes into focus, and Jodie isn’t in bed next to me. I reach over and her side is cold, untouched, and then it all comes racing back, as it did yesterday morning, and every morning since the. . for some reason I think accident but that’s the wrong word. Since the what?
The execution the voice says, and I agree, though Dean Wellington would say “incident.”
It’s after eight already. Normally Sam would be up watching cartoons and making a mess, but this morning she’s still asleep, the last few days. .
Since the execution. .
The last few days since the execution she’s been sleeping later.
I sit on the porch and eat cereal directly out of the packet. The Tuesday-morning sun is slowly climbing into the sky. There’s a truck and a cherry picker out in the street about half a block away, motors and chainsaws making plenty of noise as they trim tops of trees away from the power lines. My head is slightly fuzzy and my mouth feels like I spent time last night licking the carpet. The cereal is dry and sticks to the roof of it. I think about work and the file I should be working on, and whether not going in today and no longer giving a damn about it means I no longer have a job. I wonder what kind of letter Dean Wellington would send if he knew I was dropping from one income down to none.
The phone rings and I head inside for it, wanting to stop it from waking Sam.
“Jack?”
The voice is familiar in the way you can flick on the radio and hear a song you haven’t heard in twenty years and know how it goes. When you hear that song, your mind starts scrambling, taking you back to a time
when you heard it last. Good memory or bad, you’re in that moment again, the smells, the sounds, the sights, they’re all there.
“Who is this?” I ask, and I remember the handcuffs, the police, the smile on his face when he watched me from the back of the police car. I remember the dog, I remember the weight of the piece of steak in the plastic bag. I can feel the cold sunlight, my school uniform, my mother holding my hand and holding Belinda’s hand. I can remember the neighbors pouring out of their houses, the women with their hands over their mouths in shock, the men shaking their heads, the long line of police cars, dozens of cops, all showing up in force as if to arrest a small army. I remember the media vans, the photographers.
“Jack, it’s me. It’s your father.”
I don’t say anything. The kitchen disappears, the world disappears, all fading away as the front door of my childhood home appears, the policemen, the disgust on their faces. Of course that childhood home is gone now. About three months after Mum died, when I was living with Belinda at my grandparents’, somebody went along and set fire to that house. Nobody was ever caught. I always thought maybe Belinda did it, but it could have been anybody. Dad hurt a lot of people.
“I’m calling to-”
“I don’t care why you’re calling,” I say, and I tighten my hand on the phone and for some reason, for some freaky-shit-get-the-hell-out-of-here kinda reason, I don’t hang up.
“I’m calling to tell you how sorry I am.”
I let his sentence hang and he waits patiently. I guess my father is used to being patient.
“You’ve had twenty years to apologize,” I say. “Anyway, you’re saying it to the wrong person, and you picked the worst damn time to do it.”
“Not. . not about the past, Jack. I’m ringing to tell you how sorry I am about Jodie. I wish things had been different. For her. For you. For everybody.”
“How the hell do you know about Jodie?” I ask. “How do you know a damn thing about me or Jodie?”
