Come Back To Me (34 page)

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?

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Mila Gray

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 sis-

ters are with her, comforting her as she cries.

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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, be-

cause 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, will-

ing 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.

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Mila Gray

Riley’s commanding officer takes the podium and

starts to speak, but I don’t hear any of it. I can’t concen-

trate 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 recog-

nize the someone as Todd. He’s saying something to me,

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but I can’t make out the words properly so I just 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.

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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, any-

thing 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 know-

ing how much he’s always hated me, how much he

must wish it was me that was dead and not Riley? He

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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 every-

thing’s a blur, but it feels good. It feels like release. And

maybe if I keep punching, the pain in my fist will eventu-

ally 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,

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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.

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‘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