by Paul Curtin
Now, in the same dress, she looked out of place. Like she shouldn’t be there, because she shouldn’t. She should be alive. Here with him.
The hole Sean dug steamed like an ethereal presence was emerging. When it was ready, Sean slammed the shovel into the loosened pile. His eyes appeared distant and deep, like tears were swimming across the surface. He walked over to Molly and knelt at her head and put his arms under her shoulders and legs. He lifted her from the ground and placed her into the hole. When her body came to rest, Sean laced her fingers over her chest. She almost looked at peace.
There were no flowers to toss into her grave, nothing green and alive and lovely to bring out her beauty. There was no holy water to bless her with, and no prayer Andrew could say that would mean anything. The sniffles and mourning sounded into the trees and disappeared into the wind. Sean knelt for a long time next to the grave. It was cruel for a man to need to bury any of his children, let alone two. It was cruel too for another man to put the love of his life to rest at a mere sixteen years of age on the same day as his child in her womb.
He winced again thinking about it. He had spent the last two days in a perpetual haze, walking around in shock, remembering when Molly told him the news. She was snuggling with him on the bed, then sitting up and looking down at him. “I’m pregnant.” She was so scared, Andrew seeing the terror in her eyes, the fear of the unknown. But Andrew smiled and hugged her and told her he was happy. Because despite all the trouble with this news, the thought of this child in this cold world, Molly giving birth with no doctor—despite all of it—Andrew looked into Molly’s eyes and knew it would be all right. So, he kissed her stomach and listened for any signs of life in there, Molly smiling down at him while he did it, Andrew thinking, Wow, my child’s growing inside there right now. His child! The excitement it brought him, the anticipation, the desire to do better than his parents, to do better with this amazing woman he loved so much. All the best things of life he had held right there in his chest—the feelings of excitement and joy and expectation. To have them ripped out in so cruel a manner. Gone. Like it had never happened.
There was nowhere to take that pain. It just existed, with nothing that could ease it. Immeasurable loss. Everything taken from him in a matter of seconds. Life wasn’t supposed to end like this, so suddenly and so rashly. For no reason.
Sean pulled his scarf down and planted a kiss on Molly’s forehead before rising. The group stared into the grave. Elise pulled her son closer. Sean said, “I think this would be the time to say any last words.”
Nothing for a minute, everyone’s heads hanging low. Elise sobbed uncontrollably.
“Molly’s the lucky one here,” Kelly said. “I sometimes think about the end. How it must feel like being at peace. Finally at peace. With no more death and no more hurt. Where whatever anyone has done to you or what you’ve done is nothing more than some awful, distant memory.” She smiled under the scarf wrapped around her face. “I think wherever Molly is right now, she’s happy.”
Nobody said anything for a while.
Andrew cleared his throat. “Molly was the best thing that ever happened to me. She was like sunshine. She was—I just wish I could have a little more time with her. Just a little. I mean—I wish I could have a lifetime with her. I wish I could have seen my son,” he said, losing his composure. “We always imagined it was a boy. I don’t know why. Just did. We were going to name him Lincoln. Lincoln Sean.”
Sean tilted his head upward, then went back to looking at the grave. The wind blew through the trees and ash rained down from the branches.
Silence. “Why did God take her?” Aidan asked.
“Because He wanted her with Him,” Elise said, pulling in a sobbing breath. Andrew wished he could be half as strong.
“Wanted her with Him,” Sean said looking up at everyone. “Because He’s not here now, right? There’s no more sunshine. No more green. No life anymore. He’s left us to ourselves. God’s not in this place anymore.”
Elise held Aidan closer to herself, shaking her head at Sean. After a few more seconds, a hard wind blew in and rushed over them like a wave. Everyone clammed up, and Michael said, “We still got a little hot chocolate in the reserves, right? We can boil some. Warm up.”
Everyone took a last moment to look at Molly before turning one at a time toward the house. Andrew walked halfway back before he noticed Sean hadn’t moved. He stood over her grave, his shoulders shaking with his sobs. With each rickety thrust, he put dirt onto the shovel and placed it in the grave. Andrew stood and watched the man shovel in heap after heap as his cries were carried away by the wind.
Sean looked like a man under a weight he couldn’t bear any longer, and it was crushing him bit by bit. Andrew could sympathize. Every passing minute a little piece of Andrew’s soul seemed to drift away like snow sifting out from the clouds. He didn’t know where it was going, but he knew he would never get it back.
They didn’t have hot chocolate together. Almost as soon as they came inside, Michael and Elise disappeared upstairs, and Sean went God-knew-where, leaving Andrew with a cooling drink he didn’t want, sitting in almost total silence with Kelly and Aidan. The little boy spoke. “Why did dad say God isn’t here anymore?”
Andrew and Kelly exchanged a glance. She said, “Because people say things when they’re hurting.”
“Is it true?”
She pulled Aidan closer. “I don’t think so, little man.” Andrew watched. She was justified to be angry at God. She did nothing to deserve what happened to her—to have that filthy animal violate her. He never heard her complain. Not once. He wondered how she had the strength when all he wanted to do was scream and cry and curse.
The cup in Andrew’s hands seemed so heavy he couldn’t hold onto it anymore. He set it down harder than he intended, the cup clanking against the coffee table. Both stared at him. He didn’t make eye contact. “I just need to go,” he murmured and left.
He first walked into the kitchen. The sound of sobs rose from the floor, soft and distant. He thought it might have been coming from a vent, but realized it was Sean in the reserves. He almost reached out and opened the door, went down there to talk to him. Maybe they could just mourn together. He pulled his hand back and stuffed it in his pocket. Sean didn’t want to see anyone. His guilt and grief wouldn’t let him see comfort anywhere. Andrew knew that well.
He left the kitchen and climbed the stairs, but each step was excruciating. His feet felt loaded with cement. His tears were building up faster than he could dam them. He wanted to go to Molly’s room and smell her faint scent on her clothes and act like she was still alive.
He dragged his feet to her door and opened it. Elise and Michael were standing next to the dresser. They froze and looked back at him, and he darted his eyes away even though he wasn’t sure why. “I’m sorry. I can go somewhere else,” he said.
“No, come on in,” Elise said.
Michael shot a look to her, but she shook her head and invited Andrew into her arms. The dam broke. Elise was the only mom he had anymore. Her chest heaved too, and he felt her tears grace the side of his neck. Michael stood coolly behind, his hand over his eyes, rubbing his temples.
After a minute, she pulled back. He said, wiping his eyes, “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“You’re all right,” Elise said, smiling though tears fell onto her cheeks. “So, you were going to name him Lincoln?”
“We thought it was a good name.”
“It is. What if the baby was a girl?”
“Genevieve.”
Elise smiled. “That’s a pretty name.”
“We thought so.”
Michael said to Elise, “We need to talk.”
She turned to him. “You can’t even wait until Molly’s buried before you start talking about—”
“Come on, Elise. That’s not fair,” he said.
An uncomfortable sinking feeling came upon Andrew, an instinctual tingle that comes from being in the wrong place at the wrong time right before something happened. Elise may have said she was fine with him being there, but it didn’t feel like it.
Elise said, “He can hear what you have to say. He just lost the mother of his child and he lives in this home too. It affects him.”
Michael bit his bottom lip and grunted. “This concerns you a bit more.”
Elise looked back at Andrew. “Michael thinks we should—what was it you said? Take care of my husband?”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Then what does, We need to take care of your husband, mean?”
Andrew took a step back. “Maybe I shouldn’t—”
“Don’t make me the bad guy here,” Michael said. “I’m trying to be reasonable about this and you’re making it seem like I’m the one with the problem.”
“What problem?”
“Christ, Elise. Really?”
“It was an accident.”
“An accident that happened because he was trying to kill someone else in this house.”
“He wasn’t going to kill anyone.”
“He said Andrew was a dead man. He was going for his gun—I was watching him.” He turned to Andrew. “Did you think he was going to do it?”
“I don’t know,” Andrew stammered. He had spent a lot of time thinking about it—about the look in Sean’s eyes. That terrible look.
“He was going to kill him, Elise. His hand was on the gun. If he thinks he can just kill Andrew, what’s to stop him from offing anyone else he doesn’t agree with or he thinks needs to go?”
“Why would he do that?” Elise said.
“Because he’s done it before. What about the people out front?”
“He was protecting the house.”
“Did he need to outright kill them?”
“Men broke into our home and stole our food. They let my son suffocate to make a point. And you have the nerve to ask whether what Sean has done is excessive?”
“Elise, this is different. Please, you’ve got to hear me. This is different. This is—”
“No, listen to me, Michael. You have doubted my husband for almost two decades now. You have planted seeds of discord all across our relationship. And what have you been right about?”
Michael rubbed circles on his temples with his fingers.
Elise continued, “Can you even name one thing? When he wanted to move us out here, you said he was crazy and delusional and that he was trying to separate me from my family. When we built the reserves, you said he was paranoid. Then what happened?”
Michael started to talk, and Elise waved her hand and shut him up. “And then you said he was being paranoid about boarding up the house and rationing the food. You said he was going crazy. Seeds. Of. Discord. You said he shouldn’t be trusted with a gun. You kept telling me something had to be done about him not sleeping. And what happened?”
“Elise—”
“No. Stop. I think it’s about time we stopped doubting my husband. He’s been right every step of the way and you’ve been wrong. You’re just too arrogant to admit it.”
“Molly is laying in a grave right now because of him.”
She slapped him so hard even Andrew winced. “How dare you?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“How dare you?”
“Elise, please.”
“How dare you?”
“I was wrong, okay? I was wrong. About everything. Is that what you want to hear?”
“I don’t want to hear anything out of you. It’s like you think every thought, every idea you have is gold. Listen here,” she said, pointing in his face, “this is not your home. You are here—fed, alive—because Sean has allowed it.”
“God, Elise. Don’t you see what’s happening?”
“You’re alive because he’s allowed it.”
“Elise,” Michael said, “he’s a time bomb.”
Andrew snuck back toward the door and slid out of the bedroom, Elise calling out for him to stop but Andrew ignoring it. He leaned against the door after he shut it. Closed his eyes.
A thought tickled at the back of his mind, a memory, and he almost turned around to express it out loud. About the look Sean had right before Molly died, his eyes bloodshot like a charging bull, seeing him touching the holstered pistol on his hip, thinking in that moment that Sean was going to kill him, that this man had snapped. Part of him thought Michael was right—that Sean was a danger to everyone. Molly was in the ground because of his behavior. But it was an accident. He didn’t really know what Sean had been planning to do.
He opened his eyes. Sean was at the end of the hall, his face veiled in shadow. Not a single muscle in Andrew’s body moved. He didn’t know how long Sean had been standing there, or what he had heard. Finally, Sean turned and walked down the stairs.
Andrew exhaled, reached out to steady himself against the wall, and broke down. Molly deserved better than to have her death used to drive a wedge among her family. Her memory, her legacy—the legacy of their unborn child—deserved more than that.
Sean
With the back of his head against the wall of the reserves, sitting on the cold, dusty concrete floor, Sean rubbed his eyes to drive the headache away. He watched his breath rise in a gray fog and then refocused on the dwindling supplies before him. The cans and jars, once packed tightly, now covered just a few shelves. He picked up the paper and pen and ran the math again.
A week ago, there was a supply of food that would have lasted five months. Today, there was six. Six whole months. When he accounted for Kelly only eating half her day’s ration, the number increased two weeks. Molly’s death had bought them another month. He hung his head and slammed the pen down. It should have been obvious. One less mouth to feed meant that there was more food to spread around.
He dry-heaved. Even calculating the food was sparking memories of her. Everything did. He would walk up the stairs and see her door and his mind would wander to the times he spent talking with her there. When he stared at the kitchen table, he remembered her doing her homework; the pencil tapping against the wood surface as she thought through a problem. Even eating meals sent him back to a time when she was a little girl and they would go out to eat—just the two of them. Now nobody would go out to eat anymore. And he would never hear his daughter tapping on the table upstairs again. Never hear her voice—that sweet, soft voice. Never see her smile, except in fading pictures. Never know if he would have been a good grandfather.
He would gladly give a month of food for her life. He would give all his rations to have her back.
His stomach turned sour, and he set the pad of paper down. Walking up the concrete stairs, he held his stomach, closed his eyes, and gripped the railing. When he swung the door open, Andrew leapt out of the way to avoid it. There was always someone in the way. Never any privacy. Always seeing the same faces of the same people.
The boy backed up toward the kitchen island and grabbed the stack of bowls from the counter, remaining at an angle that allowed him to keep Sean in view. He was scared, and Sean kind of liked that. He should fear Sean. The little bastard had thought he could act like a big man and enjoy all the benefits of marriage without all the hard work. Without the commitment. Tried to steal his daughter. He always knew the ‘respectful kid’ thing was a routine, just a guise to seduce his daughter. He wondered how she could have fallen for it. How she didn’t see how slimy the boy really was.
The boy. Sean wanted to believe he had just been trying to scare him the day Molly died, but he couldn’t be sure. The memory was distant and disconnected somehow, like a thick fog hung over it and he couldn’t penetrate deep enough to see what his true feelings were in those moments. He had wanted to kill the kid—his anger was so hot
and heavy and consuming. But he wasn’t sure whether he would have followed through.
The boy took the dishes through the dining room instead of passing Sean. Sean scooped up the remaining silverware and followed. He came around the corner and saw Elise over the fire, stirring a soup with a large spoon, steam exploding out of the pot. All the food came from cold jars and yet his wife made it viable for consumption. Such a funny thing: all this trouble for something that seems so insignificant.
There it was. Just like that.
A thought. An idea.
One he knew he couldn’t ignore.
It rushed to the front of his mind and clouded almost everything else. Elise looked at him, saying something, but he didn’t hear her. He heard nothing. She might as well have been a mile away. He nodded and said, Yes, but even his own words seemed detached from reality, like he wasn’t actually speaking. The thought pulsated in his skull like a siren.
She looked concerned, and he read her lips when she asked him if he was all right. He smiled a little and said he was fine, but she didn’t seem convinced. She motioned to the spoons in his hand. He moved closer to the living room and handed her the utensils, but he felt as if nothing had left his hands or had even been there to begin with. His heart thudded, and he worried everyone else was hearing that singular thought. With how loud it drummed in his ears, they must have.
But nobody seemed to notice, or at least they didn’t let on that they did. Everyone took a seat around the fire, but Sean remained standing. Aidan came up to him and smiled. He grabbed his hand and plopped down in a nearby seat, encouraging Sean to sit too. All the faces looked back at him. Michael shot a glance to Elise, and she stepped into Sean’s line of sight.
Shocked as if she’d snuck up on him, he stepped back and watched her lips move, but his hearing was nothing but a loud ringing. The idea cemented harder with each second. She was probably asking him if he was okay, and he said he was fine. He didn’t know how loud he had said it, but it seemed to satisfy her. He rested into the seat. The fire crackled.
