“Eric,” she said. “Oh, Eric. Why? Why?”
She fell off the window seat into his arms as Angie reached me. And as I opened the door, Diandra Warren howled. It was one of the worst sounds I’ve ever heard—a raging, tortured, ravaged noise that blew from her chest and reverberated across the loft and clamored in my head long after I’d left the building.
In the elevator, I said to Angie, “Eric’s wrong.”
“Wrong about what?”
“He’s wrong,” I said. “He’s dirty. Or he’s hiding something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. He’s our friend, Ange, but I don’t like the feeling I get from him on this.”
“I’ll look into it,” she said.
I nodded. I could still hear Diandra’s awful howl in my head and I wanted to curl up and cover myself against it.
Angie leaned against the glass elevator wall and hugged herself tightly and we didn’t speak once on the ride home.
One of the things being around children teaches you, I think, is that no matter what the tragedy, you must keep moving. You have no choice. Long before Jason’s death, before I’d even heard of him or his mother, I’d agreed to take Mae for a day and a half while Grace worked and Annabeth went to Maine to see an old friend from her year in college.
When Grace heard about Jason, she said, “I’ll find someone else. I’ll find a way to get the time off.”
“No,” I said. “Nothing changes. I want to take her.”
And I did. And it was one of the best decisions I ever made. I know society tells us it’s good to talk about tragedy, to discuss it with friends or qualified strangers, and maybe so. But I often think we talk way too much in this society, that we consider verbalization a panacea that it very often is not, and that we turn a blind eye to the sort of morbid self-absorption that becomes a predictable by-product of it.
I’m prone to brooding as it is, and I spend a lot of time by myself which makes it worse, and maybe some good would have come if I’d discussed Jason’s death and my own feelings of guilt about it with someone. But I didn’t.
Instead, I spent my time with Mae, and the simple act of keeping up with her and keeping her entertained and feeding her and putting her down for her nap and explaining the antics of the Marx Brothers to her as we watched Animal Crackers and Duck Soup and then reading Dr. Seuss to her as she settled into the daybed I’d set up in the bedroom—the simple act of caring for another, smaller human being was more therapeutic than a thousand counseling sessions, and I found myself wondering if past generations had been right when they accepted that as common knowledge.
Halfway through Fox in Sox her eyelids fluttered and I tucked the sheet up under her chin and put the book aside.
“You love Mommy?” she said.
“I love Mommy. Go to sleep.”
“Mommy loves you,” she mumbled.
“I know. Go to sleep.”
“You love me?”
I kissed her cheek, tucked the blanket under her chin. “I adore you, Mae.”
But she was asleep.
Grace called around eleven. “How is my tiny terror?”
“Perfect and asleep.”
“I hate this. She spends whole weeks being a perfect bitch around me, and she spends a day with you and she’s Pollyanna.”
“Well,” I said, “I’m so much more fun to be around.” She chuckled. “Really—she’s been good?”
“Fine.”
“You doing any better about Jason?”
“Long as I don’t think about it.”
“Point taken. You okay about the other night?”
“With us?” I said.
“Yeah.”
“Something happen the other night?”
She sighed. “Such a dick.”
“Hey.”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“Nice, ain’t it?” I said.
“Nicest thing in the world,” she said.
The next morning, while Mae still slept, I walked out onto my porch and saw Kevin Hurlihy standing out front, leaning against the gold Diamante he drove for Jack Rouse.
Ever since my pen pal sent his “don’tforgettolockup” note, I’d been carrying my gun wherever I went. Even downstairs to pick up my mail. Especially downstairs to pick up my mail.
So when I walked out to my porch and saw Psycho Kevin looking up at me from the sidewalk, I assured myself that at least my gun was only a reach away. And luckily, it was my 6.5 mm. Beretta, with a fifteen-shot clip, because with Kevin, I had a feeling I’d have to use every bullet I had.
He stared at me for a long time. Eventually, I sat down on the top step, opened my three bills, and leafed through my latest issue of Spin, read some of an article on Machinery Hall.
“You listen to Machinery Hall, Kev?” I said eventually.
Kevin stared and breathed through his nostrils.
“Good band,” I said. “You should pick up their CD.”
Kevin didn’t look like he’d be dropping by Tower Records after our chat.
“Sure, they’re a little derivative, but who isn’t these days?”
Kevin didn’t look like he knew what derivative meant.
For ten minutes, he stood there without saying a word, his eyes never leaving me, and they were dull murky eyes, as lively as swamp water. I guessed this was the morning Kevin. The night Kevin was the one with the charged-up eyes, the ones that seemed to pulse with homicide. The morning Kevin looked catatonic.
“So, Kev, I’m guessing here, but I’d say you’re not a big alternative music fan.”
Kevin lit a cigarette.
“I didn’t used to be, but then my partner pretty much convinced me that there was more out there than the Stones and Springsteen. A lot of it is corporate bullshit, and a lot is overrated, don’t get me wrong. I mean, explain Morrisey. But then you get a Kurt Cobain or a Trent Reznor, and you say, ‘These guys are the real deal,’ and it’s all enough to give you hope. Or maybe I’m wrong. By the way, Kev, how did you feel about Kurt’s death? Did you think we lost the voice of our generation or did that happen when Frankie Goes to Hollywood broke up?”
A sharp breeze creased the avenue and his voice sounded like nothing—an ugly soulless nothing—when he spoke.
“Kenzie, a guy skimmed over forty large from Jackie a few years back.”
“It speaks,” I said.