Intrusion: A Novel

by Mary McCluskey

  “I freed up the morning,” he said. “But I have to be there late afternoon for a client meeting. No way out of that.”

  “That’s fine. Just the morning’s fine. I want to take flowers to Forest Lawn.”

  It was already a hot day, the marine layer burning off slowly and the air oppressive.

  “Like walking into a dog’s mouth,” Scott said as they left the house.

  The morning commuter traffic was heavy on the drive to Forest Lawn; Scott cursed intermittently and turned the news radio on and then off again. It felt like a long drive to Kat, and despite the warmth of the day, she shivered as they arrived at the cemetery.

  Scott turned to her. “You okay?”

  She nodded, taking his arm as they walked up the steep slope of the long lawns. Kat placed her flowers on the gravestone, next to a florist’s bouquet and a tall sunflower in a glass bottle.

  She studied the bouquet: an elegant selection of perfect white blooms—gardenias, freesias, orchids—professionally arranged in a curving crystal vase. Kat leaned down to look for a card. The sweet perfume of gardenias scented the air.

  “These are classy,” she said. “Wonder who left these?”

  “A teacher?”

  Kat looked at them doubtfully.

  “Bit expensive for a teacher.”

  “Ben’s parents maybe. They look like the kind of flowers his mom might choose.”

  “No clue. There’s no card.”

  The message attached to the sunflower, however, was easily visible.

  Love you, miss you—Chloe

  “Who is this Chloe?” Kat asked Scott. “Don’t remember a Chloe.”

  He shook his head.

  “I don’t know. A girl from school? Vanessa’s friend?”

  “She must care about him.”

  “He used to chat to a bunch of girls after football games,” Scott said. “Vanessa and some of her friends. I know there was one girl he liked. I remember when I was giving his buddies a ride home, they were all kidding around in the back of the car, talking about it.”

  “A girlfriend? Not Vanessa?”

  “No, not Vanessa. She was always with that huge guy. The running back.”

  “Teddy?”

  “Yeah. Teddy. That’s him.”

  “So this was a different girl? You should have told me!”

  “You would have interrogated him,” Scott said.

  “I would not!” Kat said, thought for a moment, and then added, “No, you’re right. I would.”

  “I didn’t want them to know I was listening,” Scott said. “Used to make me laugh. You wouldn’t believe the things they’d say. Even years ago, when they were just, well, really little kids, they’d call each other these names: douche bag, dildo.”

  “Dildo?” Kat said with a mix of shock and amusement. “I hope you said something.”

  “Nah. Just between themselves? They were just kidding around. Playing the big man. I don’t think they had a clue what the words meant.”

  “Even so.”

  “I broke my invisible man cover and cautioned them once,” Scott said. “But that was—well, over something else.”

  “What?”

  “On a need-to-know basis,” Scott said, smiling. “You don’t need to know. It was the little skinny guy. Jake? He never said it again.”

  He stopped, stared for a while at the gravestone.

  “Damn,” he said.

  Another stubby bunch of carnations lay on the ground. It had no note. Kat imagined these flowers were from Chris’s old friends; they were tied awkwardly with thick black ribbon and wrapped in smoky-black cellophane paper: the kind of packaging a group of boys might put together.

  They must come occasionally, Kat thought. Those friends who were with him the night of the accident. She noticed the cigarette butts around the stone. She could imagine the boys: slouching, uncomfortable, talking of their activities and parties and girls, smoking furiously, embarrassed.

  Scott placed his arm around her shoulders, looked at the stone for a moment or two longer, letting out a long, sighing breath before he turned away.

  “Do you want to look in the chapel?” he asked.

  “If we can.”

  But a service was in progress, a funeral mass, and the doors were closed. Kat could hear the choir singing Agnus Dei, and was transported back to the convent school. The incense and lavender scent of furniture polish that mingled with the gravy smells coming from the school cafeteria; the side chapel with the small altar of Mary, where the more devout girls—to Sarah Cherrington’s loud amusement—would say the rosary during their lunch break. Kat recalled Sarah, with much exaggeration, pretending to lift an imaginary hand grenade, remove the pin with her teeth, and then hurl it into the crowded chapel. Kat, shocked, had turned away and made a surreptitious sign of the cross. Just in case. She had believed in God then. For a time there, she had prayed fervently, confessed her sins, felt true repentance, and attended the endless Stations of the Cross that on a spring afternoon could feel as long as eternity. She had believed in sanctity once, and in sanctuary.

  Kat, listening to the choir in the small chapel in Forest Lawn, tried to remember when her religion ceased to matter to her. When did it fail to comfort? As a child she had prayed often, had loved benediction, communion. As an adolescent, the formal sung mass in the old chapel at the convent had always moved her. But at some time during her teens, during those years at St. Theresa’s Convent School, she had lost her faith. For the first time, Kat was aware of the real meaning of this expression: to lose one’s faith. Something gone, possibly forever, misplaced, not to be found again. Lost. Kat thought, It’s a shame that religion can no longer console us. Scott had always claimed an agnostic view of the world, but he was not raised Catholic. To be able to find solace in the church, to find meaning now, surely that would help them both?

  “Do you wish you believed in God, Scott?” she asked as they walked to the car.

  He slowed his step, thinking.

  “I guess it might help right now,” he said. “Maybe. If I really believed there was life afterwards. But—” He shook his head. “I imagine that grief is painful for anyone. Whether they have a god or not.”

  They drove toward the exit of Forest Lawn, moving slowly down the wide access road. A number of funerals were in progress. How did we get through that day? Kat wondered. How? She had little memory of the graveside service. She remembered sitting in the limousine with her sister, waiting for Scott to thank the priest, and she retained snapshots in her mind of people standing around on the grass as she stared through the tinted glass of the car, thinking in a blank, disconnected way, Oh, look who is here, how nice of them to come. How nice of them to come.

  The gathering of people at the house afterward was now just a blur. Maggie and Brooke had set out food, made fresh drinks, moved busily in and out of the kitchen. Kat, feeling uncomfortably like a monarch, was urged to sit in the armchair, with Scott standing beside her, as Chris’s teachers, parents of his friends, her own work colleagues, and Scott’s partners and associates came forward, murmuring, to offer condolences. After two hours of this, when Kat desperately wanted everyone to leave, Brooke and Maggie, by the simple act of collecting glasses and removing plates, persuaded people to the door and ushered them out. Brooke, who hugged people as easily as she breathed, warmly kissed the cheeks of total strangers as they departed. We couldn’t have managed without her on that day, Kat thought as they drove out of Forest Lawn. Nor without Maggie.

  Now, as they reached the exit of the memorial park, she glanced out the window. “Where are we going?” she asked when Scott did not turn onto the freeway.

  “North Hollywood,” he said.

  “What?” asked Kat, astounded.

  “The old building. We’ll pick up a meatball sub on the way. Have a picnic.”

  Minutes later, they were at the fast-food drive-through window they used to visit with Chris years ago. Scott ordered the sandwiches and Cokes and
handed them to Kat, then drove along Ventura. Soon, he turned off the boulevard and parked the car outside their old apartment building on Chandler Avenue. Kat understood then: Scott was making a formal pilgrimage to celebrate Chris’s birthday. This had been their son’s first home. They had driven the newborn straight from UCLA Medical Center to this place. Scott had carried him into this building when Chris was just two days old.

  “I don’t believe it,” said Kat. “It looks exactly the same.”

  Kat climbed out of the car and Scott joined her. They stood for a minute, looking at the two-story stucco building. Kat remembered a wicker bassinet and endless laundry and friends for supper and laughter. They had been short of money. Scott, waiting for bar results and working as a clerk in a small law firm, had not earned much then. But they had been happy.

  “It’s changed a bit,” said Scott. “New coat of paint. You want to go around the back? Look at the pool?”

  “It will be locked.”

  “Not necessarily. Somebody always used to leave it open, remember?”

  Sure enough, when Scott tapped the metal door, it opened easily.

  “See?” Scott said, stepping inside the pool area.

  “This is crazy, Scott. It is absolutely nuts.”

  “Who cares if it is?”

  She followed him to a small table on the shady side of the pool. Scott handed her the meatball sandwich, opened the Cokes, gave her one, then leaned to clink his can against hers.

  “To Chris,” he said.

  Kat, biting her lip, trying hard not to cry, raised her can in a toast, then sipped the drink.

  “To Chris,” she said.

  They ate in silence, lost in separate memories. A woman resident in a pink-flowered housedress with her hair in tight rollers emerged from the building, stared, and then went back inside. Two young black men studied them for a moment or two before clattering noisily up the stairs to the second level. Kat thought that she and Scott, sitting quietly with their picnic, obviously did not seem threatening or out of place here. They must look like they belonged.

  “We swam in this pool. Can you imagine?” said Scott at one point.

  “It was cleaner then,” Kat said, then looked at him, eyes widening. “Wasn’t it?”

  He shook his head.

  “I’m not sure.”

  After a while, Scott gathered up the sandwich wrappings and Coke cans and put them in an overflowing trashcan at the side of the pool. Then, he held out his hand to his wife.

  “Let’s get you home,” he said.

  He drove east toward the freeway, passing the park where, every Saturday morning, Scott would take Chris, just a toddler then, to play on the swings and the slide or dig in the sandbox. Sometimes, Kat would join them, though more often she would prefer to stay at home, doing laundry and other housework instead. She hated parks with high slides, monkey bars, dangers. Scott had slowed the car, was looking out at the sandbox where a few toddlers played.

  “Remember when we used to come here? On Saturdays? Chris loved that big slide. And the monkey bars.”

  “I know. He was totally fearless. God, I hated to come here.”

  Scott looked at her, surprised.

  “You did?”

  “Yes, I was always so scared he would fall. I remember, years later, when he and Ben were going off somewhere and I was nagging about something, Chris said to me, quite seriously, that I was overprotective. Like it was a character defect. A serious parental flaw. Like crack addiction.”

  “From his point of view . . .” Scott said.

  Kat looked out the window.

  “It’s not fair,” she said quietly.

  “No. It’s not.”

  Once back at the house, Scott gulped down a mug of coffee. Five minutes later, he was at the door, briefcase in hand.

  “Faster than a speeding bullet,” Kat said. “Did you even taste that coffee?”

  “Sorry. The work. Jesus. It just piles up.”

  “Sarah Harrison keeping you busy?”

  “She’s brought in a lot of new accounts, so I’m not complaining. But Sarah wants what she wants. She’s not the easiest of clients,” he said.

  “I never thought she would be.”

  He paused on the step.

  “Okay, I’ll be home soon as I can. Maybe we can open a bottle of wine. Watch The NeverEnding Story.”

  Kat regarded him sadly. Chris’s favorite movie when he was a young child.

  “If we can bear it,” Kat said.

  In the early evening, when Scott was still not home by the time she was ready to prepare dinner, Kat moved to call him just as the phone rang.

  “Damn car,” Scott snapped immediately. “It’s acting up. I’ll have it checked on the way home. You go ahead and eat, sweetheart. I’ll pick up a hamburger.”

  Kat ate a small piece of cold lasagna from the fridge, picked at a salad. Afterward, she pulled the DVD of The NeverEnding Story from the cabinet, studied it for a moment. It would be too late to watch it when Scott got home. She took a breath and then slid it into the console. Kat heard only the first notes of the movie score before she switched it off fast. No. It was not a movie to watch alone. It was a movie to watch with a child. An hour later, she was in bed. She heard Scott’s key in the lock. He closed the door quietly. She heard the soft thud of the fridge door, the clink of a glass. Then, silence.

  ELEVEN

  The moment Scott left for work the next morning, Kat pulled out her laptop. Telling herself that it was just a quick look, only curiosity, she checked medical websites, just as she had done years ago, for reasons why a woman did not conceive again after the successful and easy birth of a first child. Maybe there would be new research? Maybe things had changed? But the information was still overwhelming and inconclusive. They would need tests, both of them, just as the doctor had suggested years ago. And Scott would not agree to tests—she was certain of that. He would say it was too late. He would say those days were over.

  One fact occurred and reoccurred on every medical website—it was more difficult for a woman to conceive after the age of forty. Kat had reached her fortieth birthday just five days after Chris’s death. A birthday that, numb with grief, Kat and Scott had not celebrated, had barely acknowledged. She sighed, closing her eyes. She really was losing her grip. It was ridiculous to think like this. It was insane to even consider having another child. Could she cope with pregnancy right now? The hormone changes, the mood swings? Her moods were erratic enough. And to focus on getting pregnant? They would need passion for that. Maybe Scott could muster enough. But could she? Maybe pregnancy simply wasn’t possible. And yet, and yet . . .

  They had always wanted more children. They had imagined, when they were first married, having three or even four. Two at least. They had talked, when Chris was accepted at Berkeley, of being empty nesters, and Kat had joked that they could always foster needy kids from time to time. Scott had not balked at that. He had smiled. But no, that wasn’t the same. It wasn’t what she longed for right now.

  Kat closed the laptop, stood, and moved to the window to stare out blankly at the garden. She closed her eyes, recalled clearly—all senses stirred—the memory of the warm weight of Chris as a new infant in her arms. She remembered sniffing his head and thinking that he smelled freshly baked, like a blueberry muffin. His soft skin, the velvet pads of his tiny hands holding her finger, the fluttering of his eyelashes as he dreamed. What did he dream of, she and Scott would wonder, when he knew so little of the world? Maybe the warm, watery womb he had left behind?

  Catching her breath, stunned by another wave of loss, Kat turned and held on to the sink for a moment to steady herself. Enough. Enough. She needed fresh air, activity. She needed to clear her head. She picked up her bag and car keys. Grocery shopping was a chore she dreaded—she feared bumping into anyone she knew, hated the awkward conversations, the stumbling sympathy—but she needed to pick up something for dinner and also some wine and Scott’s whisky.

 
; At the top of the hill, she realized she had chosen the wrong time of day. It was lunch break at the high school; seniors were all over the place, dragging along in groups or singly, heading to Wendy’s or the market. The one privilege of the last year in school was the freedom to go out to lunch. How Chris had loved that.

  Kat, hands tight on the steering wheel, tried not to look at the young people on the sidewalks and kept her eyes on the road until she swung into the market’s parking lot. Most of the kids would be at Wendy’s, across the street. She hurried toward the entrance of the market and there, so visible with that signature pink streak in her hair, was Chris’s friend Vanessa—and Ben and Matt, too. Behind Vanessa, she could see another girl, a dark-haired girl. Kat slowed, ready to turn around quickly and head back to her car, but Vanessa had spotted her. The teenager frowned, lifted her hand in a wave. Kat moved toward them slowly, her smile frozen.

  The boys melted away like spooks, disappearing around the corner. The girls waited.

  Vanessa greeted her in a soft voice, her usual bright smile missing.

  “Was that Ben?” Kat asked. “And Matt?”

  “Yes—they had to go. How are you, Mrs. Hamilton?”

  “Fine. Just fine. Thank you.”

  The two girls stood, in the small awkward silence, waiting for her to speak further. Kat felt paralyzed.

  “It was Chris’s birthday yesterday,” Kat said finally, the words coming from nowhere, unrehearsed.

  “I know,” Vanessa said. “We had a little party for him. Just a few of us. His favorite beer. A cake.”

  Kat thought about this. What was his favorite beer? She had no idea.

  “That’s so nice,” she said, swallowing. “Ben was there? And Matt? And Teddy?”

  “Yes. All the boys who were with . . .” Vanessa faltered. “Who were there,” she concluded.

  “And how are they now?”

  “Ben’s okay. Teddy’s still having nightmares.”

  “Oh,” said Kat. “I’m sorry.” Though she was not really sorry, she admitted to herself with shame. They were alive. A nightmare was a small price to pay.