The Mourning Hours

by Paula Treick DeBoard

  Aunt Julia peeked out the window. “Police car,” she reported. “It’s just idling there. Looks like he’s talking on the radio.”

  My stomach lurched again. I watched as Mom smoothed down her hair, straightened her sweater and put her shoulders back to answer the door. “Thank God you’re here,” she said, cold air leaking inside the door. “I’m Alicia Hammarstrom, the one who called. My husband and son are out there, looking.”

  “Officer Parks. We’ve got other cars responding, and they should be out there by now, too. And another officer is at the Lemkes.”

  Suddenly, unable to hold it in, I ran around Grandpa to the bathroom off the kitchen and retched the remains of the chicken potpie we’d had for dinner. The officer’s boots banged across the linoleum, and I leaned back against the bathtub, shaking. Only a few miles away, the Lemkes were sitting in their remodeled house with the expensive master suite and the pool table in the basement, as sick as I was with fear for Stacy. I should have said something, I thought. I should have come clean, before it was too late. I echoed Mom’s question: Oh, Johnny. What did you do?

  “Is there any news?” I heard Aunt Julia ask, and from the way the officer didn’t answer, I knew he had shaken his head. Or maybe it was one of those questions that a teacher sometimes asked, a rhetorical question, where everyone knows the answer but nobody was actually supposed to say anything.

  I unwound some toilet paper, wiped a drip of vomit from the linoleum, and flushed the toilet.

  “I need you to start from the beginning, Mrs. Hammarstrom,” Officer Parks said.

  “The beginning?” Mom asked. “Well, I don’t know. I guess it was earlier tonight...”

  I stood on my step stool and reached my mouth under the faucet, letting it run and run. My throat felt as if it had been scraped down with a giant spatula.

  Emilie knocked on the door. “Kirsten? You okay?”

  I dried my mouth on a hand towel and came out. Mom was sitting at the kitchen table, and Aunt Julia was standing behind her, her hands on the arms of the chair. Grandpa stood behind both of them, his arms folded across his chest.

  Officer Parks, maybe a few years younger than Mom, sat in Dad’s seat at the table, making notes in a tiny pad. He was tall, broad-shouldered, loaded down with official-looking gear once his thick snow jacket came off: a radio hooked to one side of his belt, handcuffs and a holster to the other. “And that was at approximately five-thirty?”

  Mom nodded.

  “Oh, Kirsten,” Aunt Julia said, and I looked down, noticing the murky streak of vomit down the top of my pajamas.

  The officer looked up, gave me a slow appraising glance, and went back to his notes. “Have you noticed anything different lately? Any sort of strange behavior from either your son or Stacy?”

  “Strange behavior? No, I don’t think so,” Mom said, her voice rising slightly. “I really don’t see how—”

  “Maybe something you noticed, something you overheard, any kind of plans they were making, anything out of the norm....” Officer Parks prompted, his pen waiting.

  I thought about Johnny at regionals, almost missing his call. I thought about their fight on Tuesday night—that was the right word, wasn’t it? Not discussion or disagreement, but fight. I guess you could say something was out of the norm. But what was the norm for Stacy and Johnny—the love notes Mom found in the laundry? Stacy’s desperate pleading after they’d had sex? I’d held it in all week, watching Johnny, listening for clues that hadn’t been dropped. Now I needed to say something.

  I opened my mouth, ready to speak, but my stomach leaped again. In reflex, I clapped a hand over my mouth.

  “Julia—” Mom said, helplessly.

  “Come with me, Kirsten.” Aunt Julia turned me around by the shoulders and nudged me back into the bathroom. But this time when I hovered over the toilet, heaving, nothing came.

  Aunt Julia held my hair back with one hand and wiped a long string of saliva from my chin with a wad of toilet paper. Her clothes smelled like smoke, but her breath against my cheek had the chemical sting of mouthwash. “It’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”

  I slid to the floor, tears rolling down my cheeks. “I need to tell the officer something.”

  Aunt Julia looked at me sharply. “What do you mean?”

  “I think they had a fight. Earlier this week, I saw her push him—”

  Aunt Julia crouched beside me, and I told her everything, although it came out in a messed-up rush, not at all orderly like it had been in my mind. Their fight, Stacy’s hand on his shoulders, Johnny not calling her that night, the notes she’d written to Johnny, saying she would kill herself if he... “I think I heard them...in his bedroom...” I whispered.

  “What were they doing in his bedroom?” Aunt Julia asked.

  I looked at her desperately, trying to avoid the word. “You know.”

  Aunt Julia’s eyes widened, but she only nodded. “Keep going.”

  “And sometimes she acts—I don’t know. Crazy. And it makes him mad.” My voice broke. “But what if something happened tonight, what if Johnny—”

  “Oh, you poor girl,” Aunt Julia said, pulling me tight against her skinny chest. “You’ve been holding this in for so long, haven’t you?”

  “I need to tell the officer—”

  “Okay, honey.” Aunt Julia pulled away, holding me by the shoulders. “Listen to me now. We don’t know what happened out there yet. The men are out there doing their job, and they’re going to find Stacy. I’m sure what you saw was nothing. Okay?”

  I considered. “But if Johnny...”

  “There’s no sense in making people worry for nothing,” Aunt Julia said, easing upward out of her crouch. She pulled me to my feet and reached for a clean hand towel. “You’ll see,” she said into my ear. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

  I nodded and let her pat my face dry, but I knew I hadn’t explained things well. I still knew more than Aunt Julia did, more than Mom, more than everyone.

  And yet, I didn’t know anything at all.

  fifteen

  When we came out of the bathroom, Grandpa had pulled up a chair to the table, too.

  Officer Parks continued to write, while Mom stared at his notes upside down.

  “Stacy is out there somewhere,” she said firmly. Her fingers worried the edge of our old blue tablecloth, the one we used when it was just the five of us. It was stained with dozens of spills that hadn’t quite come out in the wash, faded into discoloration.

  Without looking up, Officer Parks said, “I understand, Mrs. Hammarstrom. We have some of our first responders out there looking.”

  “Let’s wrap you up real good,” Aunt Julia said, and I hugged my arms to my chest while she wound me burrito-style into a quilt from the hall closet. She sat in a chair next to Emilie near the door to the living room, pulling me backward onto her lap. Emilie didn’t take her eyes off Officer Parks—the handcuffs, his gun.

  “It’s very frustrating—” Mom began, but suddenly the windows lit up as a whole caravan of cars came down our driveway. I hopped off Aunt Julia’s lap, shedding Grandma’s quilt, and met Dad and Johnny at the back door. More car doors slammed, other voices following behind them.

  “Oh, my God,” Mom said, standing.

  Dad pulled off his hat, shaking his head free of snow. His look said everything we needed to know.

  Johnny stumbled in behind him, his fists jammed deep into his coat pockets. I tried to read his expression in a face blistered with cold. His eyes darted around the room, taking everyone in.

  “What are you doing back?” Mom asked. “Shouldn’t you still be out there?”

  “We need to warm up a bit, and then we’ll head back out,” Dad said, unzipping his coat. Maybe it was the cold, the wind lashing against his face, but Da
d looked older then, a decade older than he’d been that morning at breakfast. A decade older than he’d been a few hours ago, when we were sitting in front of the television. Mom held the door open again, ushering inside a half dozen men, including Uncle Paul and two more police officers. They instantly filled our kitchen, stamping snow off their boots and whisking snowdrifts from the creases of their clothes. Aunt Julia stood up to help. The rack by the door was already loaded with our own coats and scarves and hats, so she began stacking the men’s coats on top of our counters.

  Emilie disappeared into the living room and came back, thumping a set of folding chairs in each hand. Aunt Julia helped with the coffee. I took in the grave faces of the men, the official badges on their uniforms, and realized that this was the single biggest tragedy of our lives. Back when I was in kindergarten, an ice storm had felled trees across driveways and roads, but that had happened to all of Watankee. This was a tragedy all our own. Suddenly everything was important, every word, every movement. I felt dizzy, trying to take it all in at once.

  “Let’s take off your coat, Johnny,” Mom ordered.

  Johnny didn’t react.

  “Come on,” she directed, holding out her hand. Johnny shook his head slightly and leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes. Against the yellow wallpaper with the brown teacups, he looked yellowish himself.

  The men settled heavily into folding chairs and began working the cold from their bodies—flexing fingers, rolling ankles, rubbing their palms against their cheeks.

  “We’ve got coffee coming in a few minutes, gentlemen,” Aunt Julia announced.

  Two officers who had just come in joined Officer Parks on one side of the kitchen table. They bent together, voices low, their shoulders touching as if they were in a huddle.

  “What have they found?” Grandpa asked, too loud. Uncle Paul said something to him, and he boomed, “I’m just trying to find out what’s going on here.”

  “We don’t know anything, Papa. No one knows anything,” Mom said, her voice sharp.

  I heard barking and realized I’d been hearing it for a while. Someone had tied Kennel to the stake by his dog house, and when I glanced out the window, I could see him spinning on the end of his chain in nervous circles.

  At the door, Mom shook snow from hats and gloves, letting it puddle on the floor in a way that would have been unthinkable at any other point in our lives. Dad stood next to her, his eyes darting from person to person as if he couldn’t believe they were here, in his own house.

  “It’s not good, Alicia,” Dad said, his voice low. “Bill Lemke is out there raising hell.”

  “Well, I would be, too, if that were my daughter,” Mom said, just a bit too loud. Johnny turned, staring at her.

  “We’ve got to stick together now,” Dad hissed.

  “Ready for some coffee?” Aunt Julia asked loudly, stepping forward with steaming mugs.

  “We’ll head back out in a minute. Just gotta get some of this cold off.” I realized it was Sandy Maertz speaking, a member of our church and a player on that long-ago softball team.

  “Hey, Kirsten,” said a man who had kept his hunting cap on, the flaps dangling against his cheeks. For a moment, taking in his bulk, his ruddy cheeks, I couldn’t place him. Then I spotted the name sewn on his shirt pocket: G. Coulie. Kevin’s dad.

  I wrapped my arms across my chest, suddenly conscious of the vomit stain on my pajamas.

  It all seemed so civilized, so strange. Surreal—Emilie’s word. It was the middle of the night, and people we barely knew were standing in our kitchen. It was embarrassing to have our lives opened up like this, to see Kevin Coulie’s dad drinking out of the #1 DAD mug I’d given my own dad for Father’s Day last year. When I was younger, I thought I could become invisible by closing my eyes. I tried it again now, hoping I could blend in with the wall.

  Mom approached Johnny and, taking his coat by the lapels, eased him out of it. Underneath, he was wearing his Shipbuilders sweatshirt, a twin of the one Stacy had worn for weeks. Johnny looked annoyed but didn’t protest. Aunt Julia handed him a cup of coffee, and he took it, wrapping his fingers around the mug and staring down into it as if it held all the answers, as if he was reading his future in a cup of tea leaves.

  One of the officers had been sketching a crude map on a piece of notebook paper, and he pushed the finished product into the middle of the kitchen table. The men crowded around the table, studying it.

  “If we can cover this area from Passaqua Road out...”

  “Whose field is that there? We’ve got to get onto that property, too.”

  Johnny leaned over the table, too, his face blank.

  “All right, then,” Dad said. “Let’s get back out there.”

  “I’ll fill a couple of thermoses,” Aunt Julia called.

  The men snapped back into action, rising from their seats and collecting their coats. Johnny grabbed for his, too, but Officer Parks rose and stopped him, a hand on his arm. “Actually, son, for now I’d like you to stay behind with me.”

  Everyone turned to watch Johnny, whose face went from pale to red in a second. It looked as if he was about to say something, but then he slowly nodded.

  The men lumbered out the door, calling thanks over their shoulders for the coffee. Dad and Uncle Paul hesitated at the door.

  “Go on,” Mom urged. “They’ll need you out there.”

  Officer Parks said, “Mr. Hammarstrom, it might be best if you stayed behind, too.”

  Dad and Mom exchanged a long glance, and then Uncle Paul followed the other men out into the snow and Dad came back to the table. After a moment, engines started and the caravan reversed, winding its way past our windows and out to the road. Inside, it was as if a giant vacuum had sucked all the air out of the room. We stood silently, not sure what was next.

  Aunt Julia said, “I’ll clean up this mess,” and Emilie rushed to help her with the cups and spoons. The two of them clustered silently at the sink, their backs to the room.

  Officer Parks looked around, considering the rest of us. Seeming to make a decision, he settled back into his chair and flipped to a new page in his notebook. Silently, as if on cue, Dad, Mom and Johnny took seats across from him at the table. Grandpa hovered behind them.

  Officer Parks cleared his throat. “So, what we’ll be wanting right now is a statement from you, Johnny. Just your version of what happened tonight.”

  I noticed the we. He was probably referring to himself or the police department, but he might as well have been referring to the rest of us. We were all listening—we all wanted to hear Johnny’s version of what had happened.

  Johnny licked his lower lip, which was cracked from the cold. “I already told this to one of the other officers when we were out there.”

  “Yes, but we need to get an official account,” Officer Parks continued patiently. “So, why don’t you have a seat next to me, and we’ll start from the beginning?”

  He asked it as if it was a question, but it was the sort of question that couldn’t be answered with a no. Johnny clasped his hands in front of him on the table, then took his hands off the table and nervously pressed his palms against his thighs.

  “What happened to your hand?” Officer Parks asked, his eyes narrowing, and Johnny held it up, turning it over, as if he were surprised to see his own hand wrapped in a fat bandage. A faint reddish stain showed the blood had seeped through the gauze.

  “From his truck, when he tried to push it out of the ditch,” Mom offered. “It was cut up pretty bad when he came in here, so I—”

  “Mrs. Hammarstrom,” Officer Parks interrupted. “I need to hear this from Johnny. And Johnny, we might need to take a look at that later on.”

  “Why did you do a damn fool thing like—” Grandpa began, shaking his head at Johnny.

  “I was only t
rying—” Johnny began.

  “Get your father out of here,” Mom said to Dad.

  Dad made a quick gesture over his head, and the rest of us dispersed—Aunt Julia to the living room, with Grandpa following, sullenly; Emilie and I halfway up the stairs, where by silent agreement we perched in our listening spot. It was a relief to sit down, even if it was on a wooden step. My stomach had finally settled, but my whole body felt wobbly and nervous and tired. I leaned my right side against the wall and closed my eyes.

  “I can’t believe this,” Emilie whispered. She was wedged onto the same step as me, her long legs stretched out in front of us.

  “It’s like a nightmare,” I said.

  “I wish this was only a nightmare.” Emilie took the quilt from around my shoulders and pulled it tight around both of us. It felt like the closest we’d ever been in our entire lives.

  Officer Parks said something we couldn’t hear, his voice rising at the end in a question mark.

  Mom protested, “You know, I really don’t think—”

  “Alicia,” Dad said, his voice a growl.

  “It was just a stupid mistake,” Johnny said. “I couldn’t get the truck to move, and Stacy kept saying I should just leave the truck there and forget about it, and finally she just got up and left. She was mad at me. She just...just walked away.”

  Suddenly I saw it in my mind’s eye, the way I would come to see it again and again. Stacy pulling the hood of her green coat tight, stomping away, her boots sinking into the new snow. Walking away, walking blind. “She could be...” I whispered. “She could be dead.” My voice caught, a funny little sound between a hiccup and a cry.

  “Hush!” Emilie hissed, but it was too late. Dad had heard us on the stairs, and in a few smooth strides he went from the kitchen table to the doorway, firmly closing the door and pitching us into darkness.

  sixteen

  Even in our bedroom, we weren’t entirely removed from the action. Downstairs, we heard the occasional raised voice, chairs squeaking against the linoleum. Emilie and I sat on the end of her bed, looking out the window. With our faces pressed almost to the glass, we could see the helter-skelter fall of snow, the faint outlines of the oak tree outside our window and the dark outline of Grandpa’s house only a few feet away. I leaned my nose against the window, watching closely, as if maybe, just maybe, out of the darkness would emerge a tall sixteen-year-old girl with red hair, a green coat, leather boots. With each second I felt more and more panic growing inside me. She was dead...she was alive...she was dead...as if I were picking petals off a flower to determine her fate.