Chương 12
He waited.
The truck moved on.
The light changed.
Nate drove.
Counseling became another item on the family calendar.
Tuesday, 4:00, Ben.
Thursday, 3:30, Nate.
Nate resisted his own appointments for three weeks before admitting that sitting in his car outside the therapist’s office and refusing to enter was a particularly inefficient use of forty-five dollars in parking fees.
The therapist did not ask him how that made him feel during the first session.
Nate liked her immediately for that.
She asked why he had come.
“My son’s therapist told me I should.”
“Is your son usually in charge of your medical decisions?”
“No.”
“Then why did you come?”
Nate stared at a bookshelf.
One title had been shelved upside down.
“I keep hearing my wife’s phone calls.”
“Recordings?”
“No.”
“Memories.”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t answer.”
“No.”
“How many times did she call?”
“Three.”
“And if you had answered?”
Nate looked at her.
“She might be alive.”
“Might.”
“Yes.”
“What else?”
“I might have believed her.”
“Might.”
He frowned.
“You do that on purpose.”
“Yes.”
He came back the next week.
Rachel became part of their ordinary life in ways neither of them planned.
She picked Ben up from school.
She left groceries in the refrigerator and complained that Nate bought terrible bread.
She and Nate fought about Leah’s belongings.
Rachel wanted to pack the clothes.
Nate did not.
They compromised by packing half.
Neither could explain why half felt better.
One Saturday, Rachel found Leah’s blue canvas tote in an evidence-return box.
She sat on the kitchen floor and cried into it.
Nate sat beside her.
He did not say anything.
After a while Rachel wiped her face on her sleeve.
“This bag is disgusting.”
“She refused to wash it.”
“She said washing ruined canvas.”
“She made that up.”
“I know.”
They laughed.
Then Rachel cried again.
Grief stopped obeying categories months earlier.
It could arrive while filling out insurance forms, buying cereal, hearing a song Leah disliked, or finding three dollars in the pocket of her winter coat.
Nate stopped expecting it to behave.
His mother visited Marcus.
She did not speak to Nate for nearly two months.
Then one Sunday afternoon she appeared at his front door holding a casserole.
Nate looked at the dish.
“You hate casseroles.”
“I didn’t make it.”
“That explains why it looks edible.”
Elaine glared at him.
He stepped aside.
She entered.
Ben hugged her before either adult decided what they wanted.
That settled the first five minutes.
Elaine put the casserole in the refrigerator.
Then she sat at the kitchen table.
Nate made coffee.
She watched him pour too much into the filter.
“You still can’t make coffee.”
“I’m forty-one.”
“That has never stopped you.”
They sat.
Elaine folded her hands.
“I saw Marcus Thursday.”
Nate waited.
“He looks thin.”
Nate did not respond.
“He asked about Ben.”
Nate’s jaw moved.
“I didn’t tell him anything.”
“Thank you.”
Elaine stared at her coffee.
“He says there are things you don’t understand.”
“I’m sure.”
“He says the system rewarded what he did until it became inconvenient.”
Nate looked at his mother.
“That may be true.”
She seemed surprised.
“You believe him?”
“I believe systems can reward bad behavior.”
“Then—”
“It doesn’t make him less responsible.”
Elaine looked away.
Nate took a drink.
It was terrible.
His mother had been right.
After a while she said, “He admitted the IV.”
Nate set down the mug.
“He told me he only wanted Ben asleep.”
Nate stared at the table.
Elaine’s voice shook.
“He kept saying that as though it helped.”
Nate said nothing.
“I wanted it to help.”
She looked at him.
“That’s awful, isn’t it?”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“It’s human.”
“Don’t be kind to me.”
“I’m not.”
She laughed once through tears.
“Good.”
Nate reached across the table.
His mother looked at his hand.
Then placed hers over it.
Neither forgave the other for everything.
They did not need to do it that afternoon.
The first anniversary of Leah’s death arrived on a Wednesday.
Nate woke at 5:40 and lay in bed staring at the ceiling.
Ben had school.
The trash needed to go to the curb.
There was no ceremony planned.
Rachel had asked what he wanted to do.
Nate had said he did not know.
At breakfast, Ben ate one piece of toast and left the crusts.
Leah used to complain about that.
Nate almost told him to finish them.
Instead he put the crusts on his own plate and ate them.
“Why’d you do that?” Ben asked.
“Your mother would haunt me.”
Ben smiled.
“You don’t believe in ghosts.”
“I’m flexible.”
They drove to school.
At the intersection of Route 18 and Calder, Ben looked out the opposite window.
Nate did not mention it.
After dropping him off, he drove to the cemetery.
He brought no flowers.
Leah thought cut flowers were depressing.
“They’re literally dying while you watch,” she once told him.
He had bought her a cactus instead.
She killed it.
Nate stood beside her grave with his hands in his jacket pockets.
The stone carried her name.
Dates.
Nothing else.
Rachel had argued for a line from a poem.
Nate had argued against one.
Leah would have hated both arguments.
He stayed twenty minutes.
Maybe thirty.
He told her about Ben’s math grade.
He told her Rachel was dating someone and pretending not to care.
He told her his retirement paperwork had finally been approved.
He told her the military had taken one medal back for administrative reasons so tedious she would have laughed.
Then he became quiet.
“I’m sorry I didn’t answer.”
A groundskeeper drove past on a small utility cart.
Nate watched him until he disappeared.
“I know that’s not the whole thing.”
He swallowed.
“I’m sorry I trained you to think you had to hide the truth from me because I’d pick Marcus.”
Wind moved through the bare branches overhead.
Nate hated that the moment looked almost cinematic.
May you like
Leah would have mocked that too.
He smiled.
