Light from Distant Stars

by Shawn Smucker

  “I’m sorry, young man,” she says quietly to Thatcher. “Your grandfather has died.”

  Thatcher nods through tears that fall faster than he can wipe them away. His father begins another roar, but this one—whether due to exhaustion or a lost voice or despair—reaches only the volume of a loud moan. Thatcher looks up at Cohen still standing in the doorway and tries to grin, perhaps to let Cohen know everything will be okay, but it rises lopsided and choked.

  The nurses leave one at a time, and Cohen senses their relief. Thatcher’s father radiates an aura of anger and pain. Who knows what this man will do now that the full weight of grief has been lowered on him? Cohen would walk over to Thatcher, except he would have to step over the back of the man’s legs, and it’s not something he wants to do. He wants to keep his distance.

  The doctor has somehow managed to remain mostly invisible in the corner, holding a clipboard to his chest—the same doctor Thatcher’s father had charged with killing the old man. He seems smaller somehow, as if all of his authority has been stripped. He seems like a child waiting for discipline to be meted out.

  The doctor starts speaking multiple times, and each attempt ends before a sound comes out of his mouth. He adjusts his glasses. Finally he speaks.

  “Mr. Nash, I’m very sorry for your loss.”

  He takes a step toward Thatcher’s father. Cohen wishes the doctor would walk out. He is willing him to do it, to leave. The air is full of charged molecules waiting to explode, threatening to combust at a wrong word, a sudden move.

  Cohen thinks of leaving, only to glance at Thatcher’s face. It’s for Thatcher that he stays.

  “Mr. Nash,” the doctor says quietly, “is there anything I can do for you? Anything at all?”

  He takes a few more steps so that now he stands beside the grandfather, looking down at Mr. Nash. If someone were to walk in without knowing the situation, they would think Mr. Nash is begging the doctor for forgiveness.

  Please get out, Cohen thinks. The words while you can also come to mind.

  Mr. Nash lifts his head slowly. “For my loss?”

  His eyes are so full of hate that Cohen glances quickly at the doctor, expecting to find him dead, or at least mortally injured. But he’s unhurt, if frozen in place.

  “You,” Mr. Nash says. “For my loss?”

  The doctor stammers.

  Thatcher’s father breathes faster. “You are dead to me.”

  The words “to me” come out so quietly that at first they don’t register with Cohen. At first he thinks the man has simply said, “You are dead.”

  The doctor nods, a strange signal of assent in the face of those piercing words. He takes an unsteady step toward the wall, as if he’s lost, as if he cannot find the door. Or perhaps he also only heard, “You are dead.” He grabs the door handle and walks out, leaving the room behind.

  The presence of death is strong after the doctor leaves, lingering in the corners, hovering below the ceiling. Cohen feels that rush he always does in its presence: first the rush of the funeral director to do what must be done before time beats him to it, but then the rush of awareness at his own mortality. Someday that will be his body lying there, still, no longer breathing, growing cold. Someday. And where will he be?

  His body will still be there, but where will he be?

  Without thinking, he moves into the room, ignoring the questioning glare of Mr. Nash, steps behind him, and walks around to the other side of the bed. Thatcher glances up at him, and Cohen puts his arm around the young man who now looks more like a boy. He squeezes his shoulder. The two of them stand there staring down at Thatcher’s grandfather.

  He is a handsome man even in death. He’s large but not overweight, sturdy from a lifetime spent in open fields. His fingers are thick, his hands coated in cracked calluses. His fingernails are broken, fractured, and cover bruised fingers. He has a gash on the back of his left hand, the shape of a scythe’s blade, deep red. The man’s face is kind and at peace. His white hair congregates in three main tufts: one on each side and one at the top. His false teeth have been taken out, so his mouth is shrunken and powerless.

  “Who are you?” Mr. Nash asks, barely opening his mouth with each word.

  “Cohen. Cohen Marah.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m a friend of your son. My father is in the next room.”

  For a moment Mr. Nash thinks about softening. Cohen sees it, the consideration of retreat, the closing of the mouth, the unfamiliar practice of thinking before speaking. Perhaps he thinks of Cohen as an unlikely ally, someone who can join him on the side of the patients in their war against the medical field.

  When Mr. Nash seems to think of no immediate reason to be angry at Cohen, he turns back to Thatcher. “Where were you, boy?” he asks, blame in his voice.

  Thatcher looks up, surprised. He doesn’t say anything.

  “Don’t look at me like that. Where were you?” The anger is rising, and Cohen knows it’s anger at the doctor and at death and at a life that slips through our fingers so smoothly without leaving a trace. But none of those things are present or tangible—not the doctor, not death, not life—so Mr. Nash’s anger latches on to Thatcher.

  “I was out,” Thatcher says, and he has hardened too, in the way a young man will harden when struck too many times. All of his softness has evaporated.

  “Out where?” Mr. Nash comes around the bed, now having to peer around Cohen to lock eyes with Thatcher. Without realizing it at first, Cohen has pulled Thatcher closer to his side.

  “Out,” Thatcher says.

  “With him?”

  “No.”

  “Then with who?”

  “No one. By myself.”

  Cohen closes his eyes. For a moment he is a child again and Mr. Nash is the Beast, its hot breath on his neck, its icy shadows clinging to his shoulder and to his hands and knees from where he crawled through the trailer. He feels a strange courage rising in him, something that does not reflect his normal middle-aged complacency. He slowly begins releasing Thatcher. His heart races and a thudding resounds in his throat, his rib cage, the tips of his clenched fists. He opens his eyes.

  Mr. Nash is gone. Thatcher stands there, staring up at him.

  “Where’d your father go?”

  “Out. I don’t know.”

  “Any sign of your mother?”

  Thatcher’s face crumples. He glances back at his grandfather’s body and shakes his head.

  fifty

  You Don’t Know Us

  As they walked into the city at night, trailing the Beast for the final time, it began to snow. At first the flakes were light, the weight and consistency of fine ash, but as they walked into the city and the night passed, the flakes became thicker, falling like the particles in a snow globe, swirling and difficult to see through. The roads remained wet, not allowing the snow to accumulate, but it created a white coating everywhere else. It lay gently on Cohen’s shoulders and head and didn’t quite melt, forming an icy skin.

  “Isn’t this splendid?” Than muttered, constantly brushing the ice from his shoulders.

  Hippie didn’t seem to be affected. She never was. She continued walking, and for a little while she took the lead, putting some distance between herself and the two boys.

  Cohen watched her walk. There was something of a cat about her movement: smooth, graceful, and balanced. But she was also on the prowl, looking here and there, touching every tree she passed, searching for the shadow sign left behind by the Beast. He was amazed again at the translucence of her skin, the artistic curve of her fingers, the shape of her.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Than said with a harsh laugh.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean. Don’t even think about it.”

  Cohen paused, giving in to the fact that Than knew what he was thinking. “Why?” He watched as Hippie approached a dark alley.

  “Why? Why?” Than parroted the sound of C
ohen’s voice, darting his arm out and holding it up like a security measure, stopping both of them. He stared at Cohen with a confused look. “You don’t know anything about us. Not one thing.”

  “I know your names,” Cohen said, taken aback, scrambling to think of all he knew about the two.

  Than shook his head.

  “Those aren’t your names?”

  “Yes, they’re our names,” he said as if Cohen had completely missed the point.

  “So what’s . . .”

  “Anyone can tell you their name. That doesn’t mean you know the first thing about them.”

  Cohen glanced nervously up the street at Hippie. She was at the dark alley. She stopped and looked into its shadowy depths.

  “So, who are you?” Cohen asked, accusation in his voice. “If I don’t know anything, tell me.”

  A seriousness descended on Than, a kind of thoughtful weight, and when he spoke Cohen couldn’t tell if Than was talking to him or to himself.

  Than lowered his arm, took a step back, and leaned against a telephone pole. “I can’t lie to you. But I can’t tell you everything.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Ask me. What do you want to know about us?”

  “I don’t know. Where do you live? And don’t say in that cave.”

  Than shrugged. “It’s dry. Usually warm. We used to live in that trailer, until the Beast burned it down.”

  “Parents?”

  “No mom.” He paused.

  “And your dad?” Cohen asked.

  Than twisted his mouth to the side as if he wasn’t sure how to answer, as if the answer was a riddle. “Yes,” he said slowly. “And no.”

  “Whatever. This is pointless.” Cohen turned to walk away, but Than grabbed his shoulder.

  “You don’t know us,” he said, glancing up the street to where Hippie was taking a piece of paper down from a light post.

  “Whatever,” Cohen said again.

  Hippie interrupted them. “Guys. You should see this.”

  Cohen trotted up to where she stood in the shadow of the alley, glad to put some space, even temporarily, between him and Than. Still, they both arrived at about the same time and looked at what Hippie had in her hands. A siren sounded somewhere in the distance.

  It was a photocopied picture of Cohen, growing wet as snowflakes rested on it and melted. Above it was the word “MISSING.” Below it was the phone number for the police and the funeral home.

  The handwriting looked like Ava’s.

  fifty-one

  Waking Up

  Cohen goes back to his father’s room. The lights are out, and it’s in the middle of those morning hours when two a.m. turns to three a.m. turns to four a.m. His mother is still sleeping in the chair, back straight, mouth a flat line. His sister has fallen back to sleep as well, lying on the hard floor with various cushions and pillows tucked around her, supporting her neck and sagging stomach. He notices a boy in the corner.

  His nephew sleeps in his baseball uniform. Cohen must have missed him when he peeked in earlier. His baseball cleats sit beside him, he uses his glove as a pillow, and one of the thin hospital blankets is twisted around him like a toga. His baseball hat is half on, half off, turned slightly to the side. His eyelids flicker, a dream passing.

  Cohen realizes he has become callous to the situation. Maybe it’s because of the strained relationship he’s had with his father. Maybe it’s the endlessly repetitive nature of days spent in the hospital, days blurring in on each other, days and nights that seem not to move forward but round and round, one leaving, one arriving, always through the same revolving door. Maybe it’s because he’s a funeral director and death is an everyday occurrence. But Cohen feels numb.

  An empty chair receives him. He sinks into it as far as it’s possible to sink into a shallow wooden chair with thin cushions. He wedges his elbow between the armrest and the wall, braces his head against the palm of his hand. The last things he sees before sleep takes him are the swirling prints and deep wrinkles in his palm, wrinkles that will only get deeper and longer until someday he is lying there in the bed.

  Even in his sleep, Cohen senses the hospital waking around him. The sky brightens before the sun can lift up over the city. Kaye and Cohen and their mother wake without speaking, everyone staring at Calvin.

  Time has stopped. Johnny sleeps on. The city wakes. The nurses come and go and still everyone in the room remains unchanged. Cohen wonders what it will take to rouse them from that strange stupor.

  “I think it’s time,” Kaye says without moving from the floor, without moving anything but her mouth, which Cohen cannot see from where he sits. Her pronouncement might as well have come from someone outside the room.

  “Certainly,” his mother says. “Certainly. Past time.”

  Cohen takes in a deep breath and savors it as he exhales. This air. This breath. “When did Johnny come in?”

  “I told the sitter to bring him. She’s been so good to us, but she needed a break. I could tell when we spoke on the phone. So he had a game and then he came in.”

  “A game? In this weather?”

  Kaye doesn’t reply.

  “I think you’re right,” Cohen says. “It’s time. I’ll tell the doctor.”

  Kaye rises with monumental effort. The pillows fall away from her. As she straightens, she stops, grabbing her stomach with both hands. She turns gingerly away from their mother, and Cohen can tell she’s trying to hide the contraction.

  “Are you having a contraction?” their mother asks.

  “No. It’s only indigestion, Mom.”

  “Indigestion?” She sounds offended at the idea that one of her children would suffer from a weakness like indigestion.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sure? What have you been eating? You’ve never been a good eater.”

  Kaye breathes out through pursed lips, closes her eyes. The contraction passes. She opens her eyes, turns to her mother. “I think I know the difference between contractions and indigestion,” she says.

  “I’m rather sure you do,” her mother says with suspicion in her eyes and a charge of impropriety in her tone. But she is not able to follow that scent any further because at that precise moment the door opens.

  Dr. Stevens enters. “Good morning,” he says, and Cohen wonders what it’s like to monitor so closely the mortality of strangers, to watch as death gathers them up, sometimes slowly, stretched out over days or weeks, and sometimes in a moment, before anyone can catch their breath.

  Cohen yawns and stands up, Kaye nods her head, and their mother replies, “Good morning to you, Doctor.” She communicates simultaneously a deep respect and a profound mistrust.

  The doctor doesn’t take his hands out of his deep pockets. He doesn’t move to look at his clipboard, the one tucked up under his arm. It seems there is nothing more to check, to monitor, to hope for.

  “Have you come to any decisions?” he asks, sympathy heavy on his face.

  “Yes,” Cohen says, glancing at Kaye and his mother. Johnny stirs on the floor behind him. “It’s time.”

  “So, you’re ready to remove life support?”

  Cohen nods, and the nod feels monumental to him, as if he has nodded to the man holding the lever to release the platform under the gallows. The doctor looks from Cohen to Kaye. She nods, wiping her eyes.

  “I’ll have some paperwork for you to fill out,” Dr. Stevens says. “I’ll stop by in an hour. In the meantime, don’t forget to take care of yourselves. Have some coffee. Eat some breakfast. Okay?” He pauses. “You’re making the right decision. There’s nothing more to be done here. Your father is at peace, and his body is ready.”

  The three of them sit, frozen in place. Their mother picks absently at an imperfection in the chair. Kaye holds her face like the character in the painting The Scream, but her mouth is not open. The weight of her hands pulls downs on her cheeks.

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Cohen says in a hoarse voice. H
e clears his throat. “Thank you. We’ll be here.”

  Outside the window, the sun rises above the city, a brightness that feels like a deliberate offense to what is happening in the room. It glares off the wispy clouds that are simultaneously winter and spring. Cohen walks to the window and pulls down the blind.

  fifty-two

  Run

  Cohen took the “Missing” flyer from Hippie’s hands. It had been nearly thirty-six hours since they had tracked the Beast from the funeral home. The poster was wet through, wilted by the still-falling snow. He balled it up into a tight sphere and stuffed it in his pocket where it bulged, a lump against his thigh. He thought of his father. He wondered if he was out looking for him, or if the despair of a lost son had driven him further into a drunken stupor.

  Cohen thought of Ava too, wondered at her friendship, the constancy of it, the persistence. He had been so obsessed with Hippie and Than that he had been avoiding her, not returning her calls. But she was still out there. She might have been the last person on earth looking for him, concerned with his whereabouts.

  The siren whined louder, and the three of them stepped into the shadow of the alley, waiting for it to pass. A police car screamed by, its flashing lights pushing back the dark, but only for a moment. In a flash it was gone, and the darkness washed back over everything, thicker than before.

  Hippie pulled her hand away from the brick wall of the house lining the alley, raised it into the slanting light they had withdrawn from. Her fingers were coated in black, and with her other hand she gripped her wrist. The look on her face was pure anguish.

  “Are you okay?” Cohen asked.

  She grimaced, bent over at the waist, still clinging to her wrist. She moaned, and it was a low, mournful sound, like an animal giving birth. Something was wrong.

  “Hippie?” Than asked, moving closer. “What’s up?”

  “It’s different,” she said, the words barely emerging. She wrenched her torso around, twisting as if that was the only thing keeping her from crying out.

  “The Beast’s shadow?” Than pressed.

  She nodded without speaking, not looking at them, not wanting them to see the mounting pain on her face.