“Jackie,” she cried.
Jack lifted her up and held her tight, her pink skirt billowing out from beneath his embrace.
“Do you like my new dress?” she said.
“You look like cotton candy,” said Jack as he carefully set her down.
Suz, like her identical twin, Josie, was petite and pretty, with black bangs and black eyes. She wore her hair in a minky ponytail and she was young enough that her tummy still stuck out, like a baby Degas ballerina.
She grabbed Jack’s hand and tugged.
“Come with me,” Suz said, so Jack followed her bravely down the church aisle to the belly of grief—those two occupied pews—and all the abject pain that would greet him at the end of it.
“Oh, God,” said Amy. She was shaking her head, at Suz, Dan supposed, at Jack, at the agony of the day and the days to follow, the agony that right now seemed without end and would, Dan knew, forever riddle the fabric of their lives. How frightening it all was to her. It scared the shit out of him, too, that was for sure.
Prior to this moment, Dan had never dared to seriously contemplate anything close to this disaster happening to the people he cared for. The city of Palo Alto had been dealing with teenage suicide as a community for years now. But he didn’t think it would happen to them.
Dan wondered why most people never weighed the cost of love before they wagered on it. Even when he’d married Amy, he hadn’t contemplated her dying. He certainly never allowed himself to think about the possibility with any of his three boys. He hadn’t thought about it when he’d taken the leap and gone to Japan with Maryam, and extended his heart to her. Hubris of youth? Idiocy? Denial? The latter two, because no matter how much Dan may have lied to himself, he knew now that he was not immune, and that he was certainly not young any longer.
He turned to Amy. She’d been his best friend for the last twenty-something years. He longed to tell her about his thoughts. He wanted her to help him untangle them.
But Amy looked like she might faint then, so Dan instinctively held out a hand to steady her. She shook her head no. She didn’t want his help. Her gesture indicated what he feared, that he was useless to her now. And he no longer had the right, he supposed, to ask her for hers. Amy’s compassion and understanding were gifts, like so many others, Dan had squandered out of greed.
“Prepare yourself for immeasurable pain,” said Amy, with a hint of moral superiority and bitterness—two tones he’d never heard from her before. She said, “I’ve been with them all nonstop the last few days.”
Dan had heard that bitter and morally superior tone from his own mother when his father left them; and again, and again, out of her mouth, forever after.
As Amy walked away from him down the dark aisle toward the light of the sanctuary he could see her legs and the waistbands of her underwear and of her panty hose through her skirt. No slip. Who would have thought she needed one? It was a trick of the light that lent her black dress transparency. Even though she was unaware of it, that tiny imperfection added further somehow to her degradation, and, in spite of the fact that he was its primary source, he cringed for her.
Amy sidestepped her way across the second pew to kiss Coach and a few of the boys, some Dan recognized by sight and some by name, but all of whom seemed to know his wife and looked sheepishly glad for her hug or her tousling of their hair, the way they would have back in the days of Splashball tournaments. No one ever cheered them on louder than Amy. She’d called it “releasing her vocal urges” and “primal screaming.”
After making her way through the pew, she walked down the opposite aisle and then alongside the front row to where Marilyn sat. When Marilyn stood up to greet Amy, a little cry escaped Marilyn’s throat—Dan could hear it in the back of the church, more, he felt it in his knees and wrists—and she fell into Amy’s arms.
Dan had always liked Marilyn. She was smart and crisp and funny. There were times when she kind of intimidated him—she had such a big, scary job; she laid open people’s craniums and then danced scalpels and lasers across their brains—but she was so warm and lively that that feeling always lapsed when the cocktail or picnic or sidelines talk turned away from medicine. She was also frankly lovely to look at and dressed impeccably, even on summer weekends, capris and crisp linen shells and cardigans lightly tied across her slim shoulders, all in bright, cheerful colors. Seeing her now, her hair pulled back in a simple ponytail, in dark blue pants and a dark blue turtleneck, shaking within the encirclement of his wife’s hugs and her own suddenly size-too-large clothing, was enough to make Dan want to run away from home again. As he turned on his heel as if to go, one of Wei’s brothers entered the church.
“Dan,” said the brother. “Sam.” He put out his hand to shake. “We met on Fourth of July.” He had that same Hong Kong British accent as Wei did.
“Of course,” said Dan. “You’re Kevin’s uncle.” He put out his hand, too, and then almost by accident he pulled Sam into a clinch. For which man’s sake, Dan wasn’t exactly sure.
At the shock of Dan’s touch, Sam started to sob, and Dan patted his back until Sam gained control of himself.
“I’m sorry,” said Sam. He reached into his suit pocket for a handkerchief. “That kid,” Sam said. “What the hell was he thinking? My poor brother and his wife, what are they supposed to do now? I could kill that kid myself.”
Sam sucked in his breath. Taken aback by the brutality of his own words, he bowed his head to his chest and pleaded, “God forgive me. I don’t even know what I am saying.”
“Please,” said Dan. “There is nothing to be forgiven for. You’re only human. I’ve had the exact same thoughts, too,” even though he hadn’t.
Sam nodded and then chucked Dan’s elbow before he started walking down the aisle. A few paces back, Dan followed him.
Jack was already seated in the front pew by then, with Suz on his lap and Josie, in a similar pale green ballerina dress, sitting to his right. Next to them were Marilyn’s parents, looking ancient, and Marilyn’s sister Julie and her husband—Dan forgot his name. Amy was on Marilyn’s right side and had her arms around Marilyn, who was sobbing uncontrollably. Wei, on the far side of them, sat by himself, looking off to nothing. He was very handsome, though suddenly weak-chinned, Dan thought, as if the strength in his face had melted in the clerestory light.
“Excuse me,” said Sam. “I’m going to go sit beside my brother.”
“Sure,” said Dan. “Of course.”
Sam backed up a couple of pews to an empty one and made his way across to the right aisle and then down again to slide in next to Wei. Dan noticed him put his palm on his brother’s thigh for a moment, then Sam leaned back against the wood. Of the two, he had the stronger profile.
The church was full of empty spaces, but no place fit Dan exactly. He decided to pick an aisle seat two rows behind the water polo players.
On both sides of the church, Paly kids started to walk somberly down the aisles. Dan noticed them because the mourners’ heads in front of him had begun to turn, so he turned, too, in that automatic way that one might follow the tides of the crowd at a BART station looking down the tracks. The kids were dressed in white tailored shirts and black slacks and skirts, three of them were male, one girl was African American, one of the boys white, and the rest Asian and Southeast Asian. They began to sing as they walked, and Dan noticed that the high school choir teacher, Joseph Ming, standing by the pulpit, was quietly conducting them. Ming was across from the coffin.
God, thought Dan, could Kevin truly be in that coffin? All that dark, polished wood, the flowers, the brass handles glinting in the sun. When would the lid spring open and Kevin triumphantly jump out again? Why wasn’t this a joke, a prank, a game? Or was his body so mangled by that train that he’d had to be cremated? The coffin empty but for a tiny bag of ashes . . .
Dan’s own father had been reduced to a tiny bag of ashes, ashes that looked more like kitty litter to Dan than cinders, or even gravel, when he’
d taken handfuls of the stuff out of the bag and thrown them into the surf at the Jersey Shore after his dad’s funeral was over. The Messingers had a pretend coffin then, too. Dan’s grandfather’s tallith had been draped over the plain, practically empty, pine box. No one wanted a tiny bag of ashes to represent his father during the service, and a funerary urn—Dan’s sister Molly’s suggestion—had felt too dramatic and oddly comedic at the same time, like something out of that old show Dark Shadows. He’d said this to her over the phone, and both the siblings had laughed.
Dan immediately recognized the song the choir was singing. It was one of his favorites; Wei’s, too. They’d long ago bonded over Bob Dylan. “Knocking on Heaven’s Door.” The kids’ voices were high and sweet as they slowly made their way up to the chancel. There had been organ music before, but Dan didn’t remember the organist stopping, and it took him another hiccup in time to realize the kids were singing a cappella.
When they reached the front of the church, the group of kids on the right climbed those steps to the pulpit and the others climbed the steps on the left. They continued singing with tears streaming down their faces.
When they finished, and all was quiet, the children bowed their heads and Mr. Ming walked stage right and stood next to half of them.
At that point, the Very Reverend Erika Stanton approached the pulpit. How did Dan know her name? Maybe he’d read the program that was suddenly sitting in his hands. Who had passed it on to him? Or had it been lying on the next seat, and somehow migrated up into his lap?
On the cover was a photo of Kevin grinning. He was a handsome kid, and that grin went on for miles. He was wearing a Paly hoodie and his hair looked wet, so the team must have just won something when the photo was shot. Underneath the picture was his full name, Kevin Bingwen Choi, and below that, Dan assumed, his name again in Chinese characters. There was the date of his birth and the date of his death. Then in printed script: All of life is a dream waking, all of death is a going home.
Dan opened the paper pamphlet and wondered idly how they had possibly gotten this whole production choreographed and up and running in just the time he’d been away. That’s when he read or reread the afternoon’s lineup. Paly Choir, led by Mr. Ming. Followed by the Very Reverend Erika Stanton—what was that “Very” for, anyway? Dan would have to look it up later, his phone now holstered, silenced to vibrate, but ready to be drawn in an instant in his pants’ pocket. Followed by the Paly Choir singing Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” not one of Dan’s personal favorites, but, he guessed, a conventionally appropriate choice. A eulogy by Wei Choi.
Wow, the guy has balls, more balls than I would have, under the circumstances. Better him than me, Dan thought.
At that moment, he felt so guilty about his flip response, and so relieved that the pageant unveiling before him was all about Wei’s boy, not his, that he had the impulse to punch himself in the gut, just to do something to punish himself; and to save himself from divine retribution for his own selfishness.
It’s all about me, Dan thought, it should be about them, in case the God-he-did-not-believe-in was peeking into his thoughts at that exact moment, recognizing his self-awareness, and would take pity.
Coach was up next. Then Jack.
Dan felt icy-cold water flood his guts and his bowels tighten. Jack was going to speak after Coach. How could Amy agree to this? In so many ways Jack was still just a little boy. Then Dan read the next name: Suzannah Choi. Suz? In front of all these people? She was truly a baby! Was this good for her? Later, would standing up for her brother that way scar her? Or would it forever be an element of pride? Surely Amy had thought this through with Marilyn. Dan always trusted Amy’s judgment when it came to the kids—perhaps she knew better than he did, but the notion of this series of events all unfolding before him made him squirm. The Very Reverend would follow Suz, and deliver the closing remarks.
In fact, the future was now, as the Very Reverend was already talking. She seemed kind, pretty; her face round and freckly; her hair red, wavy, and shoulder length. She wore bangs and a warm countenance. She looked about ten years younger than Dan, and she was talking about how sad this was, how tragic, to lose such a young man, a boy of integrity and spirit. She admitted that she didn’t know Kevin, only what she’d learned about him through his beloved family and friends, so she would let them talk, here in the house of God, a God who loved us all equally, a God who had loved Kevin so much more equally that he’d been eager to bring him home.
Dan wasn’t sure she’d said any, or all, of this consoling and platitudinous bullshit, it was possible he’d just imagined it; it was possible he’d just conjured up the language from those old four thirty movies he used to watch as a latchkey kid when he got back from school in the afternoons. He couldn’t concentrate on the Very Reverend or her words, just the fact that she stood there speaking simply and from the heart about a boy she had not known, but he did, which made him feel disgusted and moved both. This was a boy who’d slept in Dan’s home, and brought head lice with him into Dan’s home, and infected Jack and the Things to boot—even Amy had to have her hair treated by Lice Enders—costing the Messingers over five hundred dollars for all of them to be deloused. (Marilyn had offered to cover the cost, but it felt too degrading to accept payment from her.) At the time, Amy had joked that the “critter distribution” was proof positive of Dan’s absentee fathering (he’d been working around the clock back in those days), as he was the only one in the family left unscathed. The boy that the Very Reverend was now talking about was a boy who had eaten Dan out of house and home almost daily, a boy whom he’d taken for granted like all the other boys he knew, his own included, boys he’d left behind when he ran off to Japan to chase a woman and/or to save himself, a boy who’d found a permanent place in his heart without Dan’s truly knowing it until now, while this kind, brilliant imbecile of a woman intoned on.
The membranes between the world and the incessant chatter of Dan’s mind had been broken, one rushing tributary of information flooding into the other.
The children sang “Hallelujah.” He forgot why he hated that song so much. It was stirring now when they sang it. Maybe it was because Dan associated it with the soundtracks of the movie Shrek and the TV series The West Wing?
Wei got up to speak. He was well dressed and neat. He told funny stories and people laughed out loud and cried, too. He spoke of his pride in his child, a scholar and an athlete. A good-looking boy, a good boy, the light of his life.
He said, “Several days ago, my beloved son Kevin made a mistake. A tragic mistake, to be sure, but that’s all that it was. An impulse. A momentary lapse. He left no note, there were no signs, nothing was wrong. I keep wondering, what propelled him to do what he’s done? Was it a desire to feel everything? I have desires like that myself sometimes.”
He paused. Dan wondered if Wei, a contained guy, had ever been so publicly exposed before. He’d always seemed like a man who didn’t want to feel a lot of things. It felt oddly prurient to hear him talk of his own longing.
“We need to forgive him this mistake,” Wei said. “None of us are perfect. I’m not perfect, you’re not perfect. We all make mistakes.”
It got quiet. He just stood there. For several moments too long.
Marilyn stood, too, and called out gently: “Wei!” She appeared to wake him. He waved her away. Like he was swatting at an insect.
“I’m all right,” said Wei.
Still, he didn’t move.
Finally, Sam climbed up the stairs and took his brother’s arm and walked him off the stage.
Or something like that. Dan couldn’t even be sure he was recording what was going on or if he was inventing it, if he was dreaming the day into place or if it was happening in another space and time.
Coach was up next. He spoke about Kevin’s love of the game, about his “elegance” in the water. He said, “I’ve never used that word before about the sport, but Kevin was like a dancer in the pool. Man, I never
saw a kid like that. I was sure he was going to get that scholarship to Stanford. Well, he’s here now.”
He turned to the coffin: “Congratulations, Kev.”
Dan felt the urge to stifle a laugh.
As if Coach had heard him, he turned back to the congregation. He looked embarrassed. “But this isn’t how I thought he’d get here.”
Coach walked away from the altar.
Jack stood. He started to make his way down the wide front pew but then pivoted, remembering to give his mother his phone. Dan assumed he wanted Lily to watch him perform. Dan imagined he could not execute this hideous task without her moral support.
Hideous. He thought the word, solidly and out loud in his mind. Soul. He said the word soul to himself so that it rang in the hollows of his head like a church bell.
He thought: My God, they have found true love! As thoughts went, this one shouted inside him. True, he thought. Love. He coughed to cover up. He watched as Amy held the phone out ahead of her. Was it “rude” to film a eulogy? Who cared? Was it a “mistake”? When had lying down in front of a train ever been termed a “mistake” before? Words had lost their meaning and taken wing and were flying around and around the church, blind as bats.
At the pulpit Jack said: “Kevin was a lifelong friend.”
As if either of them had lived a life yet, Dan thought.
Jack said: “He was my best friend since I was small. My brother from another mother.”
Dan looked involuntarily at Marilyn. Her head was resting on Amy’s shoulder.
Jack told locker room stories and victory stories. He made everyone laugh about how persnickety and “metrosexual” Kevin was—the bathing suits beneath his jeans, the color-coded notebooks.
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