When All Light Fails

by Randall Silvis

  Nineteen

  When even the dead try to hold on to life

  “Marcescence,” DeMarco mumbled.

  The drive that Friday to Michigan’s Mason County, near the center of the west coast of the Lower Peninsula, had taken 136 times longer than Jayme and DeMarco’s discussion and ensuing decision to accept Morrison’s job offer. Both he and Jayme were road weary and hungry when they arrived at the used car lot west of their destination, where Jayme had arranged to pick up their rental car, a black Jetta. She found the keys under the gas cap, just where the manager had promised they would be, then followed the RV to a campground in Scottville, where she found a place to walk Hero while DeMarco got the RV hooked up. Then in the thickening darkness they left Hero in the RV with his favorite squeaky toy while she and DeMarco took the Jetta to Walker Road for a bit of preliminary surveillance.

  She parked as close to the drainage ditch as possible, fifteen yards back from the dirty white mailbox with Barrie hand-painted across the side, and hoped no large truck came by to knock the little car into the ditch. Then, as the sun slowly buried itself behind the trees, leaving only a dusky gray glow, she slid her seat back and opened up the laptop while DeMarco studied the mobile home and its surroundings. They had been sitting there in weary silence for twenty minutes when he muttered, “Marcescence.”

  Jayme looked up from her laptop, which was braced with one edge against her belly, the upraised lid leaning against the steering wheel. “What, babe?” she asked.

  “Sorry. Just thinking out loud.” He brought his gaze back around to the green-and-white single-wide parked in a cleared pocket of scraggly yard surrounded by a half circle of second growth timber. To the immediate left of the car were tall pines full of dark needles, but the oaks and other hardwood trees just beyond the other end of the trailer were still bare of spring’s first red buds, with some branches holding on to the dead brown leaves of the previous fall, the other limbs naked and skeletal and looking black against a glaucous sky. A single light glowed dimly through the curtain over the trailer’s biggest window. The nose of an avocado-green compact car was visible parked behind the trailer.

  “What were you thinking out loud about?” she asked.

  “Marcescence. I like the sound of it.”

  “What does that word mean?”

  “Nothing as pretty as the way it sounds. It’s when dead plant material doesn’t fall away from the living plant. Like those brown leaves still hanging on for dear life.”

  She looked through the windshield, said, “How can they hang on for dear life if they’re dead?”

  He smiled. Thought, Because dead isn’t dead. Told her, “Sitting here like this stopped being productive ten minutes before it started. I’m starving and you must be too. I could go for a big salad right now. With grilled salmon maybe. Something easy on the stomach.”

  “You want to leave?”

  He shrugged. “Any luck with social media?”

  “There’s an old MySpace page, mostly pics of her and her friends partying. More recently, though not all that recent, over four years old, looks like she was trying to promote herself on Pinterest as a Reiki master. She was working on her level 2 certification, but that was…over four years ago. Nothing on Pinterest since then. Facebook…lots of photos of sunsets and autumn trees, deer, squirrels, birds, but mostly of Emma. She’s a cutie.” She swung the laptop around so that he could peruse the photos, which he did without comment.

  “Tell you what,” he finally said. “Back up another twenty yards. If I go in through the pines, I can come out around the back of the trailer and get the plate number on that vehicle. I’ll sneak up close to the trailer too and see if I can hear anything.”

  “See if you can hear?” she said, smiling, and passed the laptop over to him. “Don’t you have to listen to hear?”

  “I have to listen to see if I can hear.”

  She chuckled and slipped the gearshift into Reverse. “We’re both road punchy, aren’t we?”

  He smiled, nodded. “Marcescence,” he said again. “It’s too lovely a word to mean what it means. It should mean something else. Il mare means the sea in Italian. So maybe marcescence could mean the essence of the sea.”

  “Sounds fishy to me,” she answered, and they both chuckled again.

  * * *

  The woods were damp and fragrant and redolent of DeMarco’s boyhood. It felt good to be moving again, on legs instead of wheels, stretching the kinks out of his muscles, sucking up the clean air. He picked his way between the pines, enjoying the scent and whispery silence of the needles and branches, occasionally laying a hand on the rough bark or pushing a branch out of the way. As he closed in on the trailer an oscillating mumble of voices and a canned laugh track filtered toward him, and he felt a sudden frisson of déjà vu, knew he had done all this before, not just once but numerous times. How many drug dealers and weed farmers and meth cooks had he sneaked up on in venues similar to this? How many deadbeat dads and pea-brained drunks who thought they could escape their crimes behind a hollow metal door? But this time he was sneaking up on a little girl. Why? It wasn’t even necessary. But he wanted to. Felt a need to put a living face to the name, to the letter that had broken his heart. Wanted to make sure she was okay. And her mother too. Was Jennifer really sick or running a con, just a manipulative woman and maybe in cahoots with some pea-brained man, thinking they could shake down a district judge over a ten-year-old gangbang?

  He came out of the pines and approached the green compact from the rear, a battered Corolla. Used his cell phone to snap a quick shot of the license plate, then texted it to Jayme. Then he crossed to the trailer and stood with a shoulder against the metal panel near the rear corner, stood very still and heard only the television set. No living voices. The surrounding area was all woods, with farmland across the blacktop road. A distant crow, its caw full of lament. What a lonesome place this must be for a little girl, he thought. If he were scoring this scene for a movie, he would put it to Pink Floyd’s mournful “Marooned.”

  He moved farther along, creeping toward the first yellow light as it shone through a side window near the back. Then stood at the bottom corner of the window, pushed himself up on his toes till his calves shrieked, steadied himself with one hand flat against the metal, fingers splayed, and peeked inside through an opening in the flowered curtain. A girl. Flat on her back on the bed. “Emma,” he whispered to himself.

  She was wearing jeans and a yellow sweatshirt and pink socks, lay there thin and motionless with eyes open and staring at the ceiling, a book open against her chest. Yep, that would be her. Nine years old. Emmaline Barrie. Brown-haired innocent and fatherless child.

  He brought himself down onto flat feet again. Damn, he thought. He’d been hoping she wasn’t real. Hoping no child had to live that way. Though he knew that millions did, and in circumstances far worse than hers.

  He was always wrestling with pain these days, it seemed. Weltschmerz, it was called in German. World pain. The pain seemed permanently locked in an arm wrestling match with a sense that all was copacetic, the universe in eternal tickety-boo. He knew how ridiculous he must sound to Jayme sometimes with his cosmic truths and other remembered bits; he sounded ridiculous to himself, to the old DeMarco, the one without a stitched-up hole in his chest.

  Okay, enough of this, he told himself. Emma Barrie, check. Now for the mama bear. He hunkered down low and crept along close to the building in case she might be looking out a window. Moved toward the sound coming from the television. And heard it growing louder step-by-step.

  The wide rectangular window a third of the way back from the front end. Living room probably. Again he raised himself up on his toes, saw a woman crossing toward him from the kitchen, coffee cup in hand, and immediately dropped into a low hunker again, hands flat against the cool grass. But the glimpse had been enough. The woman was too old to be Emma’s mother.
Skinny, haggard, lank gray hair.

  Okay, time to skedaddle. Still in his hunker, he turned. And saw for just a moment a man all in gray staring at him from the rear of the trailer. DeMarco sucked in an involuntary breath and faltered sideways. Caught and righted himself. But now no one was there. He held himself still, blinked, waited and stared and listened. Only the TV. What the heck?

  He raised himself a little and quickly monkey-walked to the rear of the trailer, stood and looked around. Nobody. Not a soul in sight. He slipped back into the trees, alert for an ambush. None came.

  He emerged from the pines and onto the road and brushed off what felt like cobwebs covering his face. Climbed back into the passenger seat and eased the door shut. “Did you see a man over there?” he asked.

  “Now?” Jayme asked. She had the laptop in front of her again, but closed it and passed it to DeMarco.

  “I thought I saw a man watching me behind the trailer. He was there but then he wasn’t.”

  “You definitely are road punchy, babe. I didn’t see anybody.”

  “Okay. I guess so. What about the license plate?”

  “The vehicle is registered to one Lois Irena Barrie. Sixty-four years old. Resident of Haslett, which is a few miles east of Lansing.”

  “And Lansing is how far from here?”

  “Two to three hours, I’d guess.”

  “Sixty-four, huh? Yeah, I guess so. But hard years. Jennifer’s mother probably.”

  “You saw her?”

  “The girl too. No sign of Jennifer.”

  “Could be out partying.”

  “A couple of hours is a long way to come to babysit. If Jennifer is really sick, she might be in the hospital.”

  “What was Emma doing when you saw her?”

  “Lying on her back on the bed.”

  “Was she sleeping?”

  “Staring up at the ceiling. She had a book open atop her chest.”

  “Did she look sad?”

  “I don’t really know,” he told her, though that was not the whole truth. Better to change the subject. “Any luck finding a place to eat?”

  “There’s no Applebee’s in Scottville. Ludington, yes, but that’s another nine miles. There is a burger joint in Scottville, plus pizza, Asian, and an Old Country Buffet.”

  “Anybody deliver?”

  “I bet the pizza place does. You want to dine in tonight?”

  “Let’s, okay? It will make Hero happy. And give us time to check with the local hospitals. I’ve had enough excitement for the day.”

  “If you really want a big salad with grilled salmon…”

  “Pizza and a basic salad is fine. Manna from heaven.”

  “What about your stomach? Pizza isn’t a soothing food.”

  “We have milk, right? It will balance things out.”

  She shook her head. Then told him, “Buckle up,” and started the engine.

  He reached for the strap, juggling the laptop while clicking the belt into place. “Who did you speak with back home?”

  “Carmichael tracked the plate down. But then Boyd came on for a minute, just to say hello.”

  “He must be doing p.m. shift tonight. Or back-to-back. Everybody okay?”

  “Boyd said he would like to talk with us about Dani when we get home.”

  “Uh-oh. What about her?”

  “He wouldn’t say. Said it could wait until we get back. Nothing serious. Just talk, he said. You know Boyd.”

  “I know he wouldn’t have said anything at all if he wasn’t concerned about something.”

  “He’s concerned about her being depressed all the time, that’s my guess. Stuck behind a desk. I’d be depressed too.”

  Because of me, he thought, but said nothing more. There he was fluctuating again. Old DeMarco, new DeMarco, old DeMarco. He was doing more flipping lately than a line cook at IHOP.

  He watched out the side window all the way to the campground. He was sure he hadn’t merely imagined a man standing near the trailer. He was 90 percent certain of it. Or 75 percent anyway. A man in a gray suit. His shirt had been gray too, hadn’t it? And his face too, now that he thought about it. Wait; did the man even have a face? DeMarco couldn’t remember one. No face and no feet.

  No feet? he asked himself. You’re just now remembering that? You really are punchy, aren’t you?

  Twenty

  No pain like the present

  Flores trudged into her apartment, closed and locked the door and immediately started stripping off and kicking away her uniform even as she shuffled to the refrigerator, took out a fresh bottle of chardonnay, unscrewed the cap and took a swig. Then she poured half of the bottle into a water glass and, now wearing only panties and a bra and her leg brace, dropped onto the sofa, picked up the remote and clicked the TV on. Connected to the internet and pulled up the YouTube mix she had watched the previous night. Skipped a Liberty Mutual ad and waited for the first song to start. Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne singing “My Opening Farewell.”

  God, he looked so young back then. They both did. The video was at least ten years old. And she, Flores, had been what at the time? Twelve or thirteen. Still playing with white Barbie dolls and Tonka trucks. Dreaming of being a badass Barbie with a killer body and a gun.

  Stupid. Stupid things we think about when we’re young.

  Raitt and Browne sitting side by side onstage, both dressed in black, the light dim, her red hair a cascading halo against the blue-black backdrop, his hair as dark as his hooded eyes. Their blond-faced guitars. Raitt singing melody, Browne harmonizing.

  Dani drank from the glass and leaned back against the sofa and turned up the volume and let the music flow over her. Felt it entering in slowly at first, cool like the wine in her mouth, warm in her stomach. A little of the rigidity began seeping out of her shoulders, out of her neck. Those lethargic guitar licks washed against her cheeks, brushed away the stiffness in her jaw. Raitt’s voice like a nameless longing, Browne’s an ancient sadness.

  This song did things to her, no denying it. The melody stroked her like a mother’s weary hand. And Browne had written it when he was not much older than she was now. Too young to write a song that old, pain that deep. A man searching for something hopeful to say but knowing how futile, how stupid to hope.

  God, if only she had his talent. Or Raitt’s. She had a little talent and a whole bunch of pain and not a second of training. No pretty words, no poetry. A fatal combination if ever she’d seen one. Like wine and Elavil. Gonna do her in sooner or later. The sooner the better.

  She looked to the side wall where the Yamaha keyboard stood, the one DeMarco and Jayme had given her for Christmas. She loved it but just wasn’t up to it tonight. Would feel like a clumsy child sitting down at a grand piano to play chopsticks. She thought about going to the bedroom for her little keyboard, maybe try to pick out the chords by watching Raitt’s and Browne’s hands on the strings. Maybe with time she could learn to play and sing like that. Write songs like that to slip their gentle needles into the skin, like kind and loving needles to shoot their magic into people’s veins, help them forget all the shit of their lives, help her to leave all the shit of her own life behind.

  Yeah, right. Like she could ever do that. A gimp with a toy piano. Voice like a saw blade, her father had said. Yeah, well, he didn’t know everything, did he? Didn’t know anything, as a matter of fact. Still…

  Like she had a shot at anything now. Public communications officer, that was her life. PCO. Get used to it, chica. From cop to charity case. This is your prison now, like it or not. Purgatory para siempre. Forever and ever, big fucking amen.

  Twenty-One

  The frayed, the frail, the unforgiven

  “I hate the smell of hospitals in the morning,” DeMarco whispered to her in the elevator. Jayme gave his ribs a little elbow-jab.

 
At the nurses’ station on the third floor, DeMarco stood a few feet back from the desk while Jayme approached the male nurse in blue scrubs seated behind it. He was a young man slightly overweight, round-shouldered, and with a black, neatly clipped goatee.

  “Hi,” Jayme said. “I called last night about my sister, Jennifer Barrie? I was told I could speak with her doctor today about her condition?”

  Something like a momentary panic flashed in the man’s eyes. “I’m sorry. She was transferred out early this morning.”

  “Transferred where?”

  He looked at her, blinked. Then turned away, leaned over a file already open on the desk, and read for a few seconds. To Jayme he said, “Okay, she did list a sister as next of kin. What is your name?”

  “Jayme Barrie Matson. The nurse last night told me that I could—”

  “Sorry, but that’s not the name she provided.”

  “Look, we’ve been…estranged, okay? We haven’t spoken to each other in years. Mom called me just the other night, and I got here as soon as I could. I love my sister, I do. We just had a falling-out, is all. But I need to know what’s wrong with her. Where has she been transferred, and why?”

  He kept his eyes steady on hers, blew out a long breath. “She was taken to Great Heart Hospice this morning.”

  Jayme hadn’t expected that; her look of shock was genuine. “Hospice care? For God’s sake, why? Please, you need to tell me what is wrong with my sister.”

  A few moments passed, then he leaned into the desk. Jayme leaned toward him. “Officially,” he said, “there has been no agreement on the diagnosis. But it looks a lot like Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. She’s in a coma now. It’s the final stage. I’ve been trying to get in touch with her mother all morning but it keeps going to voicemail.”