by Mila Gray
I brush off his hand and walk to the bed, getting down on my knees to roll up the camping mat I’ve been sleeping on for the last three nights. I’ve seen the counsellor once already – it was mandatory. They told me I might start to display signs of post-traumatic stress disorder and that I was to notify them if I did. Jesus, I thought at the time, I’m never going to turn into Jessa’s dad. But now here I am, going crazy just like him, the slightest noise setting me off, acting like a jerk. The realization would make me laugh if the truth of it wasn’t so fucked up.
‘Kit.’
I start and look up. The sadness in my dad’s eyes makes me wish I hadn’t. I look away, focusing on the camping mat that’s half rolled in my hands. I can’t deal with this.
‘It’s not your fault,’ my dad says.
I stop what I’m doing and get to my feet. ‘Yes. Yes, it is,’ I say. It’s the first time I’ve spoken to him, to anyone, since I got back yesterday. He’s the first person who’s guessed what’s going on in my head. My dad walks to me and puts his hand out as though to rest it on my shoulder, but I back away. ‘It’s my fucking fault. It was meant to be me! I was on duty. I asked him to swap with me. You don’t get it. It should have been me. I’m the one that should be dead!’
I stare at him, breathing heavily. My dad holds my gaze, his expression calm. He nods. I want him to understand. I need him to understand and to start yelling at me. I need him to tell me he blames me too.
‘Kit, there’s nothing you could have done,’ he says quietly. ‘God works in mysterious ways.’
I stare at him, my eyes bugging, my breathing uneven, my head starting to spin. ‘God? You’re talking to me about God?’ I yell. ‘Fuck God! There is no fucking God.’
Pain passes across my dad’s face. I can’t bear to see it. I can’t fucking handle it a moment longer. I cross to the dresser and grab the bottle of painkillers, pouring out three and downing them with one dry swallow. I’m too much of a fucking coward to face this sober.
‘I need to go,’ I mutter to my dad, picking up my jacket from the back of the chair.
44
Jessa
Why does everyone wear black at these things? Riley would have hated it. He would have wanted a celebration and lots of colour. He would have wanted pizza and steak at the wake, not vol-au-vents and quiches. He wouldn’t have wanted classical music and hymns. He would have wanted something uplifting, something funny, maybe even some ironic Celine Dion.
I tried to argue this, but how could I win against my mother’s zoned-out zombie face and my father’s closed door? My dad barked the orders and here we stand, staring at the flag-draped coffin surrounded by grotesque-smelling displays of white calla lilies. How can Riley be in there?, I think as I study the coffin. I still can’t understand. I keep expecting to see him walking through the crowd, keep expecting to hear his voice, his laugh. Every knock on the door – and there have been many over the last few days – I keep expecting to be him.
My mother is standing beside me. She’s wearing dark glasses, but I know behind them her eyes are foggy and dull. She isn’t crying. For the first time in five days she’s quiet, and that scares me more than the hysterical crying. How many Valium has she taken?
On my other side my dad stands rigid in full Dress Blues, the constellation of stars on his chest blindingly bright. He must have been up all night polishing them. His head is held high and his expression is as rigid as his back is straight, yet when I look closer I see the cracks starting to appear in the carefully constructed facade: the quickness with which he swallows, the quiver of his chin and a trembling bottom lip. He’s barely holding it together and the realization surprises me, because it means that I’m the only one out of all of us who isn’t falling apart, and I wonder why that is, how that is, and then I feel another wave of guilt wash over me.
I haven’t cried at all since that first morning. I keep wondering if maybe there’s something wrong with me. I can’t even make myself cry. I’ve lain on my bed for hours forcing myself to think of Riley, dredging up memories from way back – of us as kids, of Riley teaching me to swim, of Riley and me hiding in a closet to evade the wrath of our father, of Riley spending two hours trying to pull out a splinter of glass from my foot when I was about nine, of Riley letting me tag along to watch him and Kit skateboard, even though it drastically reduced their level of cool. I’ve spent whole afternoons holding Jo’s hand, watching her cry, and I’ve felt nothing, just a strange detachment as though I’m inhabiting the body of a stranger with no connection to the people around me.
Even now as I stand staring at the stars and stripes draped over Riley’s coffin, I feel nothing except a weird emptiness and echoing bewilderment.
Jo is standing beside my mother. Her mother and sisters are with her, comforting her as she cries.
Finally, I lift my head and scan the dozen marines who are off to one side, holding their guns at the ready for the final salute. He’s there. My heart slams into my mouth and I think for a moment that I’m going to collapse, because the ground starts shaking beneath my feet. I wasn’t sure if he would be here. Kit’s dad told me he was home, that he was going to be here, but he hasn’t answered any of my phone calls so I wasn’t sure I believed it. But seeing him now, eyes fixed resolutely ahead, his chin held high and his back ramrod straight, I finally feel a surge of heat rocket up my throat and tears start to burn the back of my eyes.
I fight both the urge to call his name and my instinct, which is to run to him. Instead, as the chaplain drones on about noble sacrifice and greater good, I stare at Kit, willing him to look my way. But he doesn’t. He keeps staring resolutely straight ahead. His jaw tenses, though.
I know he can feel me watching him. So why won’t he look at me? Why has he been ignoring my calls? What’s going on?
Kit’s dad told me he was struggling to deal with what had happened, but what the hell does he think I’m doing? Having an easy time of it? I’ve lost my brother.
I’m torn between wanting to run over there and throw myself into his arms, to sob and cry and rage against him, and wanting to race over there and punch him and hit him and scream at him that I hate him. Because how can he do this to me? How can he ignore me like this? How can he not know how much I need him right now? I hate him so much. And I love him so much. And I know he’s hurting. But so am I.
Riley’s commanding officer takes the podium and starts to speak, but I don’t hear any of it. I can’t concentrate on anything. My breathing is so loud in my ears it mutes everything else and I can’t tear my eyes off Kit.
Finally the time comes to toss earth onto the coffin, though. It’s the part I’ve been dreading most. Jo and I go together, our arms gripped tightly around each other. The soil dribbles through my fingers and the sound it makes as it hits the top of the coffin – that hollow pitter-patter – makes me flinch. It’s followed by a dozen ear-splitting cracks as the marine guard sends a volley up into the sky. I look over and see Kit pulling the trigger on his rifle once, twice, three times, his expression set in stone. Jo lets out a terrible sob as the sound of the volley fades. I can barely hold her up and someone comes forward to help me.
When I turn around I see my father standing at the head of the grave, his face carefully arranged into a blank expression as he stares down at the coffin now half-obliterated by clods of dirt. Tears brighten his eyes and his hands are clenched at his sides. I feel an urge to go to him, to bury myself in his chest and have him hold me, to hold him, but I can’t seem to make my feet move and I’m not sure how he’d respond if I did go to him.
My mother is standing in front of the row of white plastic chairs holding the folded flag from the coffin as though she’s been handed a joke. She looks completely lost, unsure what to do, until Didi walks over to her and puts her arm around her to lead her away.
Someone is talking to me. I glance at them and recognize the someone as Todd. He’s saying something to me, but I can’t make out the words properly so I ju
st say ‘thank you’ – my stock reply whenever anyone speaks to me these days – and turn away. I need to find Kit. I need to talk to him.
The service is over. Everyone has started disbanding, scattering between the rows of square gravestones like ants, heading towards the line of black town cars waiting at the entrance to the cemetery. I scan the crowd two times, my eyes frantically flying to the men in uniform, checking them each off in turn, before finally accepting that Kit has gone.
45
Kit
I could feel Jessa’s eyes on me the whole time, could sense her trying to get me to turn and look at her. And what did I do? I ignored her. I kept staring straight ahead, focusing on the cool steel of my gun locked against my shoulder, the reassuringly heavy resistance of the trigger beneath my finger, focusing on anything but Jessa, anything but the coffin, anything but the images crowding at the edge of my vision trying to get my attention almost as insistently as Jessa.
At one point I did throw a quick glance her way. When she and Jo were standing at the graveside I saw her catch Jo as she stumbled. I wanted to go to her then, to both of them, and beg forgiveness. I almost dropped my rifle to the ground and ran to her. I had to fight to stay where I was, force myself to keep staring into the middle distance with a blank face.
And even now, with the service coming to an end, I don’t see how I can go over there and talk to her. How the hell do I walk past her mother knowing that her son is dead because of me? How do I walk past her father knowing how much he’s always hated me, how much he must wish it was me that was dead and not Riley? He must have read the report by now. He must know by now that it was my fault, that I was negligent, that I broke the rules, and because of that Riley is gone.
Has he told Jessa? I almost hope he has, because I know I can’t tell her. What could I possibly say? She asked me to take care of him. She made me promise. And I failed her.
As soon as the chaplain stops talking, as soon as we fire off three volleys in a farewell salute and the funeral guests start to wander back towards the town cars that are waiting, I shoot a glance in Jessa’s direction and my heart takes a beating when I see her talking to none other than Todd. I spin around and start heading away from the mourners, away from the grave, away from Jessa. All I can think of is putting some distance between me and everyone else.
I veer like a drunk towards a large oak tree and duck behind it, pressing my forehead to the bark, sucking in air as though it’s going out of fashion and grabbing at the tree to stay upright. Out of nowhere a sob bursts up my throat, taking me by surprise. I punch the tree, savouring the jolt of pain that vibrates up my arm, the flames that shoot through my hand.
I punch the tree again and again in a fury, and by now I’m sobbing so hard that my nose is running and everything’s a blur, but it feels good. It feels like release. And maybe if I keep punching, the pain in my fist will eventually engulf me completely and cancel out the pain raging inside. But suddenly, just as I jerk my arm back to throw another punch, someone catches me around the waist and hauls me backwards. I try to fight them, kick them off, but I’m half exhausted with all the punching and they’re holding me too tight.
‘Son, it’s OK,’ my dad whispers. His arms are a vice, and at the sound of his voice I instantly stop fighting and collapse against him. He holds me up and I just cry. I cry onto his shoulder just like when I was a kid and he came to tell me my mom had died.
When all the funeral guests have left and the town cars have driven off, my dad and I walk back towards the grave. Ushers are stacking the chairs, dismantling the podium and carrying it away and picking up the litter. The flowers surround the graveside like white-dressed mourners. They look wrong – the kind of flower you’d see at a grandmother’s funeral.
Riley always said he wanted a huge party if he died. And maybe that’s why it doesn’t feel as if he’s really dead, as if this funeral or even this grave is his. But then I read his name spelled out in a floral display (he would have laughed at that) and it hits me all over again with the force of a tornado: he’s dead.
My dad and I stand side by side. Two men with shovels are hovering at the edge of the grave and I see my dad gesture at them to give us a minute.
‘What do I do?’ I ask after a minute of silence, staring down at Riley’s coffin. I look at my dad, feeling tears still streaming down my face. What I mean to ask is, how do I get through this? I know I’ve done it before, with my mom, but that was different. I wasn’t to blame. Then I had cancer to rage against. Now I have only myself to blame, and I don’t know how to handle it. I look at my dad.
‘You need to say goodbye properly,’ he says. ‘He was your best friend, Kit.’
I frown and look away.
‘I know you’re angry and you’re hurting and you just want to run away and find some way of burying the pain – believe me, I know. Why’d you think I was drunk for six years after your mother died?’ He shakes his head. ‘Don’t make the same mistake as me, Kit. Jessa’s hurting. So is her family. You need to be there for her, for Jo. I wasn’t there for you and your sister. I failed your mother.’ He squeezes my shoulder. ‘Don’t fail Riley.’
My eyes burn as though I’ve had acid thrown in them.
‘I don’t know how I can face her,’ I say so quietly I wonder if he heard me. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘You’ll figure it out,’ my dad says, putting his hand on my shoulder.
I drop my dad home and then drive to Jessa’s house. Cars are double-parked the whole way up the street, so I leave the truck around the corner, parking in exactly the same place I used to drop Jessa after our make-out sessions. They seem so long ago now – like they happened decades and not mere weeks ago.
The front door of her house is shut, but through the window I can see crowds of people gathered in the living room holding paper plates of food. I take a deep breath, forcing myself to remember my dad’s words. He’s right. I can’t walk away. I owe it to Riley. I owe it to Jessa. I owe it to Riley and Jo’s unborn child to be there for it. I need to tell Jessa to her face exactly what happened. I need to beg her forgiveness. And then maybe, if she can forgive me, we can find a way through this together.
Before I make it to the door, though, it swings open and someone walks out. I stop dead in my tracks. Jessa’s dad is marching towards me, his face stony yet his eyes blazing. He stops in front of me, barring my way, and the first thing I think is, He knows. He’s read the report.
‘Colonel,’ I say, saluting out of habit, and because I don’t know what else to do or say. The last time we saw each other I was yelling at him about what a shitty father he was. Fuck. I start having second thoughts about coming. What was I thinking?
‘I told you the last time you showed your face to get off my property and not come back.’
‘I’m just here to pay my respects,’ I say quietly, keeping my eyes on the ground.
‘I need you to leave,’ he says. ‘And to stay the hell away from my daughter.’
I look up at him sharply.
‘The last thing she needs is you in her life. She’s just lost her brother.’
I grit my teeth. Isn’t that exactly why she needs me?
‘I read the report,’ he says next. ‘Abandoning your post?’
I stare at my shoes, trying to breathe calmly, though my head is starting to whirl and the crackling of flames is filling my ears. He knows. Of course he knows.
‘I’m writing you up for insubordination and dereliction of duty,’ he says. ‘I should have done so a long time ago.’
I stay quiet, letting his words hit me square in the face. It’s nothing less than I deserve.
‘Because of you, my son is dead,’ he spits. ‘Are you going to go in there and explain that to Jessa? That the reason her brother is dead is because of you?’
I don’t answer, but I do look up at him.
He pulls a face, a sneer of disgust lifting his top lip. ‘I didn’t think so. The best thing you can do right n
ow is walk away and stay away. For good, this time.’
He glares at me for several more seconds before finally shaking his head and walking back inside, his shoulders slumping. I watch him walk inside and shut the door behind him. Unable to move, I watch him through the window winding his way through the crowd.
Briefly, just briefly, I catch sight of Jessa standing with her back to me, her blonde hair a lighthouse beam amid a sea of black. The sight of her is enough to snatch the last of my breath away. I clutch my side, forcing myself to back away, because he’s right. I’m no good for her. I’m no good for anyone.
46
Jessa
Through the window I catch a flash of blue. Someone – a friend of my father’s – is talking to me, but I walk away mid-sentence, leaving them standing there, and cross to the window to get a better look. My heart thumps hard in my chest as I see that it’s Kit. He’s come! But then, with a sinking feeling, I see him turning and walking away back towards the street and all the parked cars.
I push past crowds of people standing in the doorway talking in hushed whispers and rush into the hallway.
‘Are you OK?’
I spin around. Didi is standing in front of me.
‘What do you need?’ she asks me.
Didi is about the only person other than Kit’s dad who I’ve been able to cope with being around since Riley died. She doesn’t beat about the bush or cry in front of me. She doesn’t pat my hand and speak in meaningless platitudes about how it will all be OK and that time will heal all.
‘I just saw Kit,’ I tell her breathlessly.
Didi looks around the hallway.
‘No. Outside,’ I clarify.
Didi takes hold of my hands. ‘Go,’ she says. ‘You need to talk to him.’
I shake my head. ‘I can’t just go,’ I say, thinking of my mom who’s currently sitting in the living room out of her head on Valium surrounded by women offering her glasses of water, tissues and pigs in blankets.