I looked back at the book and my heart started up. Shame washed through me again. Julia had written out all her meals for the rest of the week, each one a little more substantial than the one before it. She’d drawn a smiley face next to each meal. She’d covered the pages with encouraging stickers, the kind a grade-school teacher puts atop a perfect spelling test. The kind our mother used to hide in our school lunches. At the top of each page were phone numbers—home, office, and cell—for her therapist. I didn’t need to do a damn thing for my sister, except maybe not make an already difficult week harder. She was doing all right on her own. Not perfect, but all right. Better than me.
Her eating disorder developed late for that kind of problem, when Julia was already in her early twenties, not long before Mom died. It got worse after the death, but Julia bounced back quick and conquered it, or so I’d thought. She’d called me with regular updates, putting almost all her weight back on, slowly but steadily. Cindy’s departure, I guessed, had brought the problem back. And now this with our father. But instead of letting it get worse, she was fixing it again. Again with no help from me. For the first time, I thought about the burden of something as basic, as essential, as normal as eating, being so difficult. I could barely imagine it, facing those demons, all the time. I set my beer on the end table and walked upstairs. I stood for a while outside Julia’s bedroom door, leaning close to it, listening for her breathing.
She slept, as she had the night before, in her old room. She’d kept the door closed since she’d been back at the house, but I imagined the room looked much like it did when she moved out to go to graduate school. Tall bookshelves, splashed and spotted with paint, a tiny bed, old newspapers and garage sale rugs covering the floor. Her desk from when she was younger, white with gold around the edges. No mirrors. An easel propped against one wall, where she sat and painted with her back to the lone window. I couldn’t imagine my father had done a thing with that room; it contained two things he feared—artists’ tools and girl stuff. I’m sure he had no use for it, anyway, just like most of the house.
Beside Julia’s bedroom was my old room. The door was half-open but I couldn’t see anything inside. Not that I needed to. I already knew most of what there’d been of me in there was gone. Julia had told me all about it. With a new bed, new carpet, paint, and curtains, my parents had declared it the guest room, though we hadn’t had overnight guests, as best as I could recall, ever. I moved away from Julia’s door toward mine. I opened the door the rest of the way and turned on the light.
My bookshelves remained, still stocked with my books, unopened for years. I walked over, running my finger along the creased, dusty spines. Dozens of boy-and-his-horse and boy-and-his-dog adventures from junior high. Lord of the Rings. Chronicles of Narnia. All the required reading from high school I pretended I never read. Chandler, Hammett, and Poe I’d stolen from Waldenbooks at the Mall. A Bible. My desk was still there, too. I pushed the blotter aside, revealing the deep, angry scars and scratches I’d cut into the wood.
I sat down at the desk, ran my hand over the cuts. My mother discovered them while dusting one day, as I probably knew she would when I did it. But she never said a word. That surprised me. My father never let us forget how much those shelves and desk had cost. My mother had been so proud of that furniture when it was delivered. Her penchant for polishing it made hiding Molly’s letters a serious challenge. I only knew she’d found the cuts when I came home from school one day and found an expansive blotter placed over the gouges. I kept carving, but always under the cardboard and plastic bandage my mother had laid down. I finally stopped when she threatened to take my typewriter away. The typewriter was gone now. I slid the blotter back into place and pushed up out of the chair.
I looked around the room, wondering what would happen to this stuff now. Julia would probably pack up the books and donate them to some orphanage or school somewhere. The other stuff was bound for the Dump, I figured. I’d never come back for any of it, never even thought about it. It couldn’t mean that much to me. I certainly had no room for it in my apartment. I sat down on the bed. Julia had made it up with fresh sheets. What was the harm? Why spend another night on the couch while a perfectly useful bed went empty? It was just a bed.
I lay down on my side and spied a dusty paperback on the nightstand. Curious, I picked it up: The Black Stallion, by Walter Farley. I smiled. I’d read it a dozen times. The pages were yellowed at the edges. When I flipped through them, a slip of paper fluttered out, landing on my chest. The print was faded, but I could still read it. A receipt from the grocery store, dated the year my mother died.
I stood, tossing the book on the nightstand. Wiping my hands on my T-shirt, I looked back at the bed then around the room. Suddenly, everything seemed foreign. Like I’d fallen asleep in my room and awoken in someone else’s. Things I hadn’t noticed just moments ago jumped out at me. The soft, feminine colors of the drapes and the carpet. Prints of flowers on the walls. The flowered comforter. After I’d left, had this become my mother’s room? Maybe she’d finally carved out a space of her own in the house. A shelter from my father’s relentless snoring? Maybe, I thought, a shelter from something else? Something worse. I shoved my hands in my pockets, afraid to touch anything. I wished I’d found a way to move out at ten and give my mother that many more hours of peace. When had she taken them? When he was at work? Late in the night, when he was asleep? Should I even be in here?
I could picture her, curled up at the top of the bed, dressed in stretch pants and a sweatshirt, holding the book under the lamplight. Holding it in one hand, her nail polish chipped and worn. Her other hand tucked under her chin. Her reading glasses on, her blond hair crushed under a bandanna. The steady frown she always wore when she read, bags under her eyes, her bottom lip pushed out. I studied the nightstand, searching for the telltale rings of a beer glass or a coffee mug. Of course I didn’t find any. She would’ve always used a coaster, still protecting the furniture.
What would she have thought about my father’s murder? When she died, Julia and I agreed it was best she had gone first. As cruel as he was, my mother was devoted to my father. His death alone, never mind his murder, would’ve destroyed her. Her heartbreak would’ve been unbearable—for all of us. But I couldn’t help wishing that she had outlived him. Maybe she would’ve found a way through it. She’d survived all those years of marriage with him. At least she would’ve had a shot at some time, maybe a lot of time, free of him, much more time than she’d stolen in this little room. But she’d never have thought of it that way. For her, his absence would’ve been a prison, not a liberation. I could almost see her in the room with me, looking up at me from the paperback, her eyes bright but sad, agreeing with me with a silent nod of her head.
I rubbed my eyes, wondering at the time. I stared down at the empty bed before me. I pulled the covers up, tucked them neatly under the pillows, smoothed the comforter with my hands. Julia turned over in bed, talking to someone in her sleep. I slipped the receipt back in the book and returned it to its place on the shelf. There was nobody left in the house with time for schoolboy adventure stories. I turned out the light, closing the door behind me as I left the room.
TEN
“COFFINS,” JULIA SAID, SHOVING THE BROCHURES INTO MY HANDS.
I set my coffee on the kitchen table and slid into the booth. “They make brochures for coffins?” It was way too early in the morning for this. I turned them over in my hands. “Sick.”
“Necessary,” she said, sitting across the table from me, wrapping her hands around her mug of tea. “I went to Scalia’s this morning. We gotta get moving on this. There’s only so much more I can take.”
I thought of her notebook, if there was a check mark beside her breakfast. “I understand.”
As weird, and unprepared, as I felt, I wanted to give her a serious answer about the coffin. I frowned at the brochures, trying to look like I was wrestling with a decision. I had no idea what I was doing. What should
I be looking for? Style? Durability? Comfort? I checked out every brochure, hoping she had circled or starred a couple of samples to give me some guidance. Nothing. Finally, frustrated, I tossed them on the table.
“Something simple,” I said. “White’s out. Gray, too. Glossy black seems too flashy.” I squeezed my forehead in my hand. I sounded like I was picking a limo for the prom. “A deep hardwood. Basic but classy?”
Julia snatched up a brochure from the pile, opening to a specific selection. She tapped her finger on a photo, but I couldn’t see which one. “Exactly what I was thinking,” she said. I felt like I’d just won fifty grand on Jeopardy!
“So that’s done,” she said, tucking the brochure into a bag at her feet. She pulled out a newspaper, slid it across the table toward me. I didn’t pick it up. “The obit ran in today’s paper,” she said. “I did it over the phone with Joe Jr. yesterday. We stuck to the basics. He was very sweet about it. The wake is tomorrow night from seven-thirty to nine-thirty. The funeral is Thursday morning.”
“Um, okay.”
She straightened in her chair, sliding her mug to one side and folding her hands on the table. “You’re entitled to get through this however you choose. That’s what I keep telling myself. You had issues with Dad I never did. I know I pushed you the past couple of days, to walk through this with me.” She chuckled. “And then went out and did everything myself anyway.” She held her breath then blew it out in a long sigh. “It’s just, I worry that if I ask too much of you, I’ll end up with nothing at all.”
She stared at me, waiting for me to contradict her. I did want to tell her that her worries were unfounded, that I would do anything for her, that I could take whatever she dished out. But I didn’t believe it when I thought it and she’d never believe it if I said it. So I just lit a cigarette and said nothing at all. When had I gotten so soft? So fragile that my baby sister had to shield me from burying my father? I had come here on Sunday mostly for her, intent on protecting her, from Purvis, if from nothing else. Now I was the one getting the kid gloves. Suddenly, I felt silly for trying to pick the right coffin. I got the distinct impression it had been ordered already, and I’d been handed those brochures only so I wouldn’t feel left out. “What about the eulogy?” I asked.
“That’s up to you,” Julia said. “I’m sure you haven’t given it much thought. You’d only have a day and a half, really, to write it.”
“Well, Jimmy and I did talk about it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, we were talking about things, you know, and I mentioned I might be doing it. If you still want me to.” I looked down at my hands. Two days ago, I’d nearly pitched a fit over delivering the eulogy, now here I was talking Julia into letting me do it. I looked up at her, impressed. She’d learned a few things, apparently, spending all that time with psychiatrists.
“Of course I do,” she said. “If you feel up for it. What did Jimmy say?”
I drew circles on the tabletop with my finger, not looking at her. “He thought it might be a good idea. And it is my responsibility as the oldest son. I thought I could talk to Molly about it.” I looked up at Julia. She was trying not to smile. “She did the same thing for her brother.”
“I think that’s a great idea,” she said. “Let’s do this: I’ll sketch something out, in case you don’t feel up to it. If that happens, I can say a little something, just to fill the void. It’s just to take some of the pressure off of you.” She stood and slung her bag over her shoulder. “But if you feel capable, it’s your show.”
“That sounds fair,” I said. “Where’re you headed?”
“Back to the funeral home,” she said. “I need to finalize the coffin. Joe wants me to firm up some flowers. Pick a room for the wake.”
I leaned back in my seat, crossed my arms. “You like it there.”
She blushed. “It’s quiet. Calm. Everyone there is just so . . . peaceful about everything.”
“That’s ’cause everybody’s dead,” I said.
“I meant the Scalias,” she said, laughing. “And all their helpers and stuff.”
“It’s weird,” I said. I stood. “But look, I’ll go with you this time.”
She looked at her watch. “It’s almost noon.”
“So?”
“Almost lunchtime.”
“So? I can wait,” I said. “We’ll eat after.”
She glared at me, hands on her hips. “Call Virginia. I’ve got our business under control, handle yours.” She dashed off, her admonition hanging in the air.
When the door closed behind her, I turned and looked at the phone. Now that someone had told me to do it, calling Virginia was going to be that much harder. When the phone rang, I nearly jumped out of my skin. But it was Waters calling, not Virginia. My throat closed up when I heard his voice. My brain scrambled to figure out how he could’ve found out about my trip to the beach.
“Junior? You there?” he asked.
“Yeah, yeah. Tell me you caught somebody.”
“Not yet,” he said, “but the trail’s warming up. Sunday night we had shit. Now we have a little more.”
“Enough?”
“I don’t need much,” Waters said. “I been doing this a long time. But that’s not what I called about.” He cleared his throat. “You and Julia finalized anything?”
“Wake tomorrow at seven-thirty,” I said. “Mass Thursday morning.”
“All right,” he said. I could tell he was writing it down. “I’ll see you there, one or the other, most likely.”
“Suit yourself.”
“Sit tight. Look after your sister,” he said. “We get a break, I’ll bring it to you.” He hung up.
I had trouble sharing Waters’s optimism. But it did feel good that Waters believed something was happening. I liked the idea of a net closing around someone, the image of some meathead bragging to his buddies, oblivious as the shadows crept closer to his door. More than likely, Waters had hunted killers longer than this guy had been killing. He’d certainly been doing it longer than I had.
The shooter had stepped out of that car and dumped another world of hurt on my sister. I thought of what he would’ve done to my mother, if she was still alive. He’d stepped into my life uninvited and fucked it up. All morning I’d nursed the feeling that going back to the life I had before the murder wasn’t an option. I could tell myself all I wanted that my father got what he had coming to him, for what he’d done to me, to my mother, my family. But the shooter didn’t know that. I was struck again, and sickened, by his utter disregard for my family. He knew we existed, in one form or another, and just didn’t care. Who was he, no matter what shape my family was in, to walk into it and blow it apart? Fucked up or not, our lives were ours, my father’s included, and he had no right to them.
I pressed my head against the freezer door, squeezing the phone in my fist. My short-lived humility before Waters’s investigative experience died a quick death. I didn’t want any cops in between me and that murdering son of a bitch. I was my parents’ oldest, only son. I was now the senior member of my family. I had responsibilities beyond the eulogy. Somebody other than the Sanders family was paying the price this time.
The fucker who’d blown up my family had something ugly coming to him and I wanted more than to see him get it. I wanted to deliver it myself. I wanted a look at him after he got it, after I told him where it came from. I started hoping Waters would call again soon. My mind raced through ways I could con or cajole info out of him, bully or maybe even beat it out of Purvis.
It didn’t look good. Maybe if the cops had been strangers. If they hadn’t already taken a gun off me, hadn’t been watching my temper burn out of control my whole life. I was smarter, and tougher, than Purvis. But he did wear that fucking badge, a complication for sure. I wasn’t stronger or smarter than Waters. I had nothing to bargain with. I couldn’t think of any bullshit or con that he’d fall for. Nothing coming from me, anyway. But what about Julia? They both had a soft s
pot for her. She could get something. I laughed at myself, disgusted. That’s it, pimp out your sister for info even you know you’re better off without. Like she would give it to me if she got it. Like it or not, I was on my own.
Fresh Kills Page 19
