The Distance Between Us (27 page)

I glance at my watch. “Where are you going?” I ask. “We have plenty of time before we need to leave.”

He steps over to the entryway and comes back to the table a moment later, carrying his shoes. “I’m just gonna finished getting dressed.” He sits in the chair again and tries to fit his right foot into a sneaker, but his hands are trembling so badly he can’t seem to do it. He gives up and lets the shoe drop to the floor, and he sits there with his bare foot on the chair and his chin on his knee.

He looks up at me again in despair. “Do you know how pathetic
gI am?” He’s on the verge of tears. “I was just thinking that maybe if I wore socks, Eric would like me again.”

I smile at him, as gently as I can. “Yes, I’m sure you’re right, dear. Socks are the solution to all your problems.”

There’s a long pause, and his throat works as he swallows.

“I don’t know what to do, Hester,” he chokes out. “What am I supposed to do?”

“I don’t really know.” I try to find words to comfort him, even though I know there are none. “You put on your shoes. You have a bite to eat, and you go on with your day. It’s all any of us can do, really.” I take a sip of tea. “And if I were you, I wouldn’t say a word to Eric. He’s … well, right now he’s poisonous to you.”

He lowers his head. “That’s not his fault.”

My silverware pings against my plate as I cut into my roll. “I know it’s not. But that doesn’t make him any less … toxic for you at the moment.” I take a bite and swallow. “Sometimes you can’t fix things, Alex. No matter how much it hurts, you just have to let them be, and do nothing but sit around with an ache in your chest, and an ocean of acid in your stomach.”

That ache, and that acid, are as familiar to me as the keys on my piano. I’d do anything to spare him from having to experience them, but I can’t.

He shakes his head. “But if I don’t do something, I’m going to die,” he whispers.

He isn’t being intentionally theatrical. He’s young, and he’s suffering, and he can’t see his way past the feelings he’s having right at this moment. And probably the worst thing I can do is to tell him the truth: that he will indeed survive this, and go on, and then one or two years from now, he’ll do something else that will cause him at least as much pain, which he will also survive. And then (assuming he maintains a firm grip on his lovely, restless old soul, which I think he will) there will be a next time, and a next, and a next, for the remainder of his life.

Because desire is a nearly unbreakable habit, as is the impulse to act on it. The only thing that sometimes changes—and this is only if you’re very fortunate—is the object of your desire. You can call it
karma, I suppose, or recurring bad luck, if you prefer a less fate-oriented explanation. But the truth of being human is that what we
want
defines us, and dictates all our actions, and leads us into temptation. Again, and again, and again, world without end.

But as I said, he probably doesn’t need to hear that indigestible piece of news right at this moment.

I nod. “I know it feels that way. Believe me, I really do. But I’m hoping you’ll be smarter than me, and not waste your time as I have, attempting to win back someone who doesn’t want to be around you anymore.”

His eyes well up, and I bite my lip.

“Forgive me, son,” I murmur. “I’m sorry to put it so bluntly, but there it is. Pining after somebody you can’t have only leads to anger, and anger leads to serious consequences down the road.” I try to smile. “And believe me, you’re much better off doing nothing—and feeling the way you feel now—than acting out and making things ten times worse.”

Alex is openly crying, now.

So much for my little pep talk.

I close my eyes briefly, and struggle, yet again, with my own grief, which is flaring up in response to his. But when I open them once more, I’m surprised to find him looking straight at me.

“Thank you,” he says roughly.

He knows I’m hurting, too, of course. I’m sure he’s just being polite to a fatuous old woman, to spare my feelings and make me feel good. But I appreciate the effort.

I clear my throat. “For what?”

He doesn’t answer. But as I search his haggard features more closely, it seems to me that something else is there, now, besides panic and despair. It takes me a moment to recognize this new thing, and when I do, it becomes difficult to swallow the bite of roll in my mouth.

I may be wrong, but I could swear that what I’m seeing on his face is love.

It changes nothing, and it helps neither of us with our separate dilemmas. But as I feel an answering affection rising up in me, I realize that at least he’s not alone any longer.

And neither am I.

“What is it, dear?” I ask him. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

He shrugs, and gives me the faintest hint of a smile. “I don’t know.” He swipes at his eyes with the back of his hand. “You’re just making more sense today than you usually do, is all,” he says gruffly. “I guess it’s kind of freaking me out.”

He’s trying to pull himself together, trying to move on to something other than sorrow. And I believe he’s doing this as much for me as for himself.

My eyes are full now, too, but I do my best to play along with him. “I see,” I say after a minute, sniffling. “Well, be a good boy and eat your cinnamon roll. The ant poison I put in the frosting shouldn’t go to waste.”

His grin widens, becoming more real. I watch him slowly draw his shoulders up, attempting to be brave. He picks up his knife and reaches for the butter, but his fingers are still shaking a little.

I was the only member of my family to see Jeremy’s body in the driveway. Deaf old Edith next door called the police when she noticed me standing out there by him, and by the time Arthur and the children arrived home, most of the emergency personnel had already come and gone, including a man from Leeman’s Funeral Home, whose job it was to cart my son away in the mortuary vehicle.

What was left of my son.

He’d landed on his tailbone on the asphalt, and the back of his skull hit immediately afterwards, with enough force to split it open and fling a three-foot trail of blood and brains across the snow and ice in the driveway. His face survived more or less intact, though, and his lovely gray eyes were still open, as if he were waiting to see the first stars appear, following the sunset.

I did not kneel next to him. I did not hold his body, nor feel the warmth leave it.

I simply stood there, staring down at him for an eternity. I didn’t move, or make a scene, or rend my garments. I did not weep, nor did I begin to keen. In fact, I’m fairly certain I made no noise at all.

Until I felt Edith’s arms around me.

I remember convulsing with grief as she held me. I remember hearing the sirens approaching, and I remember thinking the sound I issued in response was nearly an octave lower than that of the sirens, but it was just as loud and jarring to my ears. I believe I kept making that racket for a long time, as more and more policemen and paramedics showed up, but everyone was very kind to me, and no one made me stop until I ran out of steam, and at last fell silent. My throat felt as if I would never speak again, but somehow my voice continued to work, and that’s when the questions started.

Half an hour later I was back inside, watching through the living room window as an investigator and the county medical examiner conferred in the driveway, standing next to St. Booger. Several fire trucks were parked nearby, providing illumination with their powerful spotlights. Our entire yard was bathed in so much light it might as well have been high noon out there. I could see more of our neighbors in the street by then, watching the proceedings, but the police kept them away from the house.

The investigator was Carlos Bernal, who had been in the same class with Caitlin in high school, and had also been in our home several times as a teenager. He was the one who asked me about what had happened on the roof, and he listened without any expression on his face when I told him that Jeremy slipped and fell while watching the sunset with me.

He knew I was being dishonest, of course. He’d spoken to Edith before he spoke to me, and even though she hadn’t actually seen Jeremy fall, she’d seen how erratically he was behaving beforehand, and Carlos was more than capable of putting two and two together.

But he didn’t demand the truth from me. He knew me, and he knew my family, and he simply stood there watching me for a long time before finally asking another question.

“Mrs. Donovan,” he said. His eyes were sad and compassionate. “Are you sure this is what you want me to tell the medical examiner?” He hesitated. “He’ll believe what I tell him, I think, because the …” He searched for words. “… the physical evidence here is
consistent with that of an accidental death. But are you sure your memory isn’t playing tricks on you?”

I took a long, shuddering breath. “Surely you don’t suspect me of foul play, Carlos?”

He shook his head, firmly. “No. I don’t.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “But I just want you to be absolutely positive this is the story you want people to hear about how Jeremy died.”

When he was in high school, he had been a quiet, bright boy, who for a time had chased after my daughter with no success. He was still a quiet, bright boy, and I suddenly recalled Caitlin telling me the news that he had married a woman from Oklahoma, who was pregnant with his child. He was going to be a father soon.

I stared at the floor and nodded. “I’m sure.”

I watched his feet shuffle from side to side for a while. “Okay,” he said at last, squeezing my shoulder. A moment later he left me in peace, and went outside to lie for me.

For the life of me, I don’t know why he chose to handle the situation that way. Maybe he thought it might ease my suffering to allow me to conceal Jeremy’s suicide, or maybe he decided that, in the end, there was nothing to be gained by reporting it any differently. Either way, Jeremy was dead. Dear Edith, too, maintained her silence about what she suspected, so the articles that came out in the papers the next day had headlines like “Virtuoso Musician Plummets to His Death in Tragic Accident.” There were a few mumbled rumors of suicide, of course, but to my knowledge no one took them seriously.

I don’t know much. I don’t know if I did the right thing, and I don’t know if the truth of Jeremy’s death would have served a higher purpose, had it been reported. But one thing I
do
know is this:

If there’s a heaven, there’s a VIP suite in it reserved solely for people like Carlos Bernal and Edith Schumaker. For what it’s worth, they both have my fervent gratitude, until the end of time.

Anyway, as I was saying, my family was not on hand to witness the grotesque events in our driveway. This was ten years or so before cell phones were in every pocket and purse, and although the police had begun calling everywhere I could think to tell them to
try, it took over an hour before Arthur finally showed up. Paul and Caitlin arrived half an hour after their father, but within seconds of each other.

Arthur had been at a recording studio in St. Louis that morning, and should have returned much earlier in the day. (I now suspect he was with Martha Predel at the moment Jeremy jumped, but I have no proof of this.) It was fully dark outside when he at last pulled into the driveway, but the light from the porch allowed me to see him step from his car, toting his violin. Almost everyone else had left by then, but Carlos and a uniformed officer were still standing by the house, tying up loose ends. I ran for the door, desperate to reach Arthur and tell him what had occurred before he heard the news from them.

Edith was in the living room with me; she had refused to go home and leave me by myself. She called out behind me as I tore the front door open. Arthur was next to the officers by then, but they hadn’t yet had time to explain what they were doing there.

He saw it in my face before I said a word. My feet stopped moving after I was out on the porch, and I watched him glance anxiously over Carlos’s shoulder at me. At first there was relief in his expression, and I realized he’d feared something had happened to me. He almost smiled, then, but all at once his cheeks went slack as he studied me more closely, and he shook his head, twice. His legs gave out on him, and he fell on the ground, clutching his violin case to his thick chest.

I kneeled next to him, as I wasn’t able to do for Jeremy. I held his body, the way I should have held our son’s, and the two of us sat there in the snow, sobbing under the cold glare of the porch light. The two policemen and Edith hovered over us, wanting to help, but there was nothing they could do except wait nearby, and watch us grieve for our boy.

By the time our remaining children came home, Arthur and I were alone in the house, waiting for them. Unfortunately, both Paul and Caitlin had already been alerted, by strangers, to the news about their brother. Paul had been at his cottage, taking a nap all afternoon, with the phone unplugged, but the police had finally tired of trying to call him, and had instead sent an officer to knock on his
door. And Caitlin, who had recently moved back to Bolton to teach at Pritchard, had been unearthed in a basement room at the university library, where she often sequestered herself to “get away from interruptions.”

Paul pulled into the driveway mere seconds ahead of Caitlin, and Arthur and I went outside to meet them. The moon was up by then, and there was light enough to see by. The four of us were moving in slow motion, it seemed, and it took a lifetime to reach each other next to the carriage house.

And so we came together at last, in stunned, nightmarish silence, to face the reality of Jeremy’s death. Our eyes met, and we embraced, and we tried to speak, and we cried. When that ran its course, we did nothing at all except stand there, witless and drained. I found myself becoming a cliché, against my will, because I couldn’t conceive of an original way to mourn. Every gesture I made seemed preordained, every word I uttered felt scripted. When I had awakened in the morning there were still five of us, but that evening there were only four, and the simple math of this equation made no sense to me. Arthur and Paul and Caitlin were just as lost as I was; none of us knew what to do, or how to behave. It’s a wonder we eventually remembered to come in out of the cold and the darkness.