Such Dark Things

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by Courtney Evan Tate


  “I feel like I never knew you at all,” she says, her voice cracking. “The Jude I knew...he wouldn’t have done any of this.”

  I sit next to her and gather her into my arms and rub her back as she cries. “The Jude you know is flawed,” I tell her. “He’s a mess. But he’s going to get help, and he loves you more than life itself. If you give him another chance, he swears he won’t hurt you again.”

  “Why is he speaking in the third person?” She sniffs.

  “Because he can’t comprehend that he did this,” I admit. “It feels like someone else. I can’t believe it. I just can’t. If I admit it happened, then it’s real. I don’t want it to be real.”

  “We have to admit it and figure it out, if we’re ever going to heal,” she points out.

  “I’m the therapist here,” I tell her, attempting to lighten the mood, but it’s too soon for that. She looks away.

  A lump forms in my throat, and I can’t seem to swallow it.

  “It’s my fault,” I admit. “It’s all my fault. I was supposed to protect our marriage and I failed. But if you give me another chance, I swear to you...I won’t fail you again.”

  “I don’t know if I can,” she answers quietly. “I offered myself to you, and you took my heart and annihilated it. You know I have issues because of my father. You know, and you still destroyed me...my heart. I don’t know if I can ever trust you with it again.”

  “You’re safe with me now, Corinne,” I tell her, and in this moment, I mean it. “You’re safe. I’ll protect your heart. I’ll never hurt you again. I swear it.”

  “I need some time,” she says woodenly, and now she won’t look at me.

  “Take all the time you need,” I tell her. She nods, and I’m at a loss. I don’t know what to do with myself, so I resolve to put one foot in front of the other, and go through the motions of my life, and keep my head above water.

  It’s all I can do.

  60

  Jude

  Nothing is better when I wake.

  In fact, everything is worse.

  The shock has worn off, and the first thing I think when my eyes open is My life is fucked.

  Michel is gone.

  I can’t even fathom it.

  He’s been with me my whole life—even before I was born.

  And now he’s not.

  And not only that, but Zoe took his life. I brought her into our lives, and now my brother is dead because of it. I don’t know if I can bear it. But I sure as hell can’t bear it if Corinne is gone, too.

  I take a shaky breath.

  Corinne stirs at the sound, her face pale. Her hand drops over the side of the bed, and her wedding ring glints in the light. I’m surprised she’s still wearing it.

  “Jude?”

  I look up and she’s watching me.

  “Yeah?”

  “I don’t know what’s going to happen, or what I’m going to decide to do, but you have to promise that you won’t ever lie to me again.”

  She’s solemn and her mouth is drawn and her eyes are tired.

  I nod. “Yes. I promise.”

  “I mean it, Jude. I can’t take any more lies.”

  “I hear you. I understand. I...” My voice trails off, and my heart is broken, and she watches me. I can’t tell her. It will kill her. But if I lie...

  I swallow, and there’s a lump that won’t budge in my throat.

  “There’s something I have to tell you. I don’t want to, because you’ve been through enough, but you deserve the truth.”

  Her face drains of what little color it had, and her eyes look so dark.

  “What is it?”

  I close my eyes and my hands shake, and I exhale, counting to five.

  “Jude? You’re scaring me.”

  Her voice is thin, and I have to just do it.

  “Michel is gone.”

  She blinks, not comprehending.

  “Where did he go?” Her words are slow, and her eyes are guarded.

  “He’s...dead, Co. He’s dead. Zoe killed him.”

  Corinne blinks again, and she’s frozen, and my heart is broken. “What do you mean? That’s impossible.”

  I shake my head and it’s hard to speak, and my eyes burn. “She surprised him. It looks like she came up behind him and hit him in the head with a crucifix. Blunt force trauma, the paramedics said.”

  “No.” Corinne’s single word is sharp, and she’s shaking her head because she doesn’t want to believe me. I wish to God I was lying. If only.

  “If only she could’ve taken me instead,” I say, and I’ve never been so honest in my life. “I would rather die than have anything happen to you or my brother.”

  I look away, because it’s too late to protect Michel from her, and the tears start to fall. My tears.

  Finally.

  I’ve been so numb until now. I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t think.

  But now... The dam breaks and I think of my brother, and the hot tears well in my eyes, and I can’t stop them.

  My shoulders shake and my eyes close and I turn away.

  I sob for several minutes before I feel cool hands on my shoulders, and Corinne draws me into her arms, her hands stroking my hair.

  “Shhhh,” she soothes. “Don’t ever say that. It’s okay. It’s okay. Michel is with God now, Jude. He doesn’t feel pain. He’s with God.”

  It doesn’t help, but her presence does. Her arms wrapped around me do.

  I turn to her and hold on to her like I’m drowning.

  Because I am.

  61

  Corinne

  Michel’s funeral is attended by everyone in the local Catholic community.

  The sanctuary is a sea of black as everyone mourns.

  My husband sits next to me, and he’s careful not to touch me, careful to respect the space that I asked for. Our legs are an inch apart, his hands are in his lap, his shoulders are stiff and straight, and we are separate entities.

  But God, he’s in so much pain. His face is a stone mask as he tries to hide it, but the torment is there. It’s in his eyes, in the way he holds his mouth. He and Michel were closer than anything, and the idea that Michel is just gone...

  I swallow hard.

  I blink back the tears, and I utter a prayer. I watch Jude’s hands, folded in his lap, and I watch them shake as the priest speaks.

  Then, even though my heart is still broken because of him, I reach over and grasp my husband’s fingers within my own. His curl into mine, and he relaxes ever so slightly.

  He broke my heart, but his is broken, too.

  No matter what he’s done, I love this man, and I took a vow to have and to hold, for better and for worse—and he needs me now. He needs me to get through this. He doesn’t have anyone else. Not anymore.

  We’ll sort our mess out afterward.

  For now, we’re grieving someone we loved.

  Jude is a pallbearer, and at the end of the service, when he carefully carries his brother down the long aisle and out of the church, my heart has never known such pain.

  My husband’s torment guts me. His brother is dead, and he’s dead because of a mistake that Jude made. Jude knows it. I can see it on his face, in his eyes, in the way he carries his brother.

  He shoulders the weight of the casket easily and handles the polished mahogany with such reverence and care. He runs his hand along the wood gently as he slides it into the hearse, and he never once falters. No matter his grief or his tears, he’d never drop his brother. He didn’t in life, and he certainly wouldn’t in death.

  He stands still and watches the hearse pull away from the curb, and he’s in a trancelike state as we drive to the cemetery. He never says a word. Jude has paid a heavy heavy price for his transgressions. Even if I wanted to punish him, I’d n
ever be able to punish him more than this.

  The priest blesses the grave, sprinkling holy water on top of the casket. Jude and I both cry as they lower Michel into the ground, and it’s a sight that will haunt me forever.

  The finality of it is staggering.

  It’s our last act for Michel. The very last thing we can do for him.

  It feels wrong to leave him here, and it feels wrong to cover him up with dirt. He was alive just the other day. He hugged me and told me everything was okay, and it’s not. Not for me, and not for him.

  The priest speaks the final words of interment. “May his soul and the souls of all the faithful, departed through the mercy of God, rest in peace.”

  Jude weeps openly, kneeling next to the gaping hole.

  I grasp his shoulder hard, because I know if it’s killing me, it’s unbearable for him.

  His shoulders quake from sobs.

  Time passes, seconds, then minutes.

  Funeral-goers leave, and we’re alone, and the cemetery workers respectfully wait a small distance from the grave, waiting for Jude to back away. Waiting for him to be ready.

  I know he’ll never be ready.

  He sits still for the longest time, staring into the grave, his eyes open, but unseeing.

  He’s overcome. He doesn’t know what to do.

  He’s never in his life been without Michel.

  I fold into a nearby chair, my heart breaking as I watch. As I wait. I don’t rush him. I don’t prompt him. I don’t interfere. This is between him and Michel, a last private moment.

  I hear Jude murmuring to his brother, but I can’t hear the words. I recognize only the sadness, the pain, the desperation. He’s barely holding it together. I can hear that.

  I can see that.

  It kills me. No matter what he’s done to me, I love him so much that his pain is still my pain.

  Finally, finally, Jude stands up, and we walk silently to the car.

  His hands shake on the steering wheel, but he doesn’t say a word.

  When we get home, Jude disappears into his study, and he doesn’t come out.

  I don’t know what to do.

  I’m grieving our marriage, I’m grieving Michel. I’m grieving everything.

  And so is Jude.

  I curl up on the couch and sleep.

  I wake in the night, and Jude is beside me, watching me sleep. His eyes are red.

  “Can I get you anything?” he asks quietly. I shake my head.

  “Are you all right?” I ask him. He shakes his head.

  “No.”

  “Me, either.”

  He sits with me on the couch until morning.

  62

  Jude

  How can I fix my life, when all I can feel is pain?

  It’s unending.

  Today, I sit on the floor of my study, sorting through boxes of pictures.

  Michel and me...from the time we were infants to the last photo we’d taken together. A cookout this past summer. We were as alike on the outside as we were on the inside.

  Only now, my heart beats and his doesn’t.

  It’s hard to think of him in the past tense. I constantly find myself thinking...Michel is, and it is such a jolt when I have to remind myself that Michel was.

  The bitch of it is...he was the better brother. He was the better person. He would never hurt anyone. He was trying to help me straighten up my life and fix things with my wife, and he got sucked into a fucked-up situation of my making. It should’ve been me who died. Not him.

  It isn’t fair.

  Life isn’t fair.

  And this is a guilt that I’ll always carry.

  There’s a knock on the door, then Corinne’s voice.

  “Jude? Are you okay?”

  “Yes!” I call out, lying yet again. She knows I’m not. But it’s the only thing anyone knows to do when someone is hurting. To ask if you’re okay. It’s human decency.

  I’ve hurt my wife beyond comprehension, and I know she still cares about me.

  It still kills her that I’m hurting.

  My wife is a better person than me, too. I don’t deserve her.

  With a sigh, I shuffle the pictures together and put them on my desk. Right now, they’re too painful to look at.

  I haven’t looked at my email in days and days. I haven’t been able to focus. So in an effort to distract myself, I open it up.

  I scan and delete, scan and delete.

  Until the name Michel Cabot shows up in the list.

  Sucking in my breath, I open his message.

  Hey, Asshole.

  I’m going to come talk to you. But just in case you don’t let me finish talking, I’m sending this, too.

  You’re a good person. You’ve always been a good person.

  I don’t know how it started with Zoe or why, but what I do know is that Corinne is your better half. She makes you a better person, and I know you love her.

  I don’t care what you have to do to disentangle yourself from Zoe, but for the love of God, do it, man.

  I only want the best for you. And for Corinne.

  We’re a family, and we’ll always be a family, no matter what. So I’m not judging you. To be honest, you’re the best man I know. But men, by design, are fallible.

  You’ve made a mistake. Own it. Confess it.

  Then make it up to her.

  She loves you, too. Every bit as much as you love her. What you have is rare, so don’t be a dumbass. Fix it.

  And also, I don’t say it enough, but I love you. I don’t want you to think that I’m anything other than disappointed. Everyone falls sometimes, bro.

  You just have to get back up.

  Make it right.

  I love you.

  Tears fill my eyes until the words blur together. My last correspondence with my brother had to be about Zoe. This devastates me.

  But Michel’s very last words to me were that he loved me.

  God, I hope he knows how much I loved him, too.

  63

  Corinne

  “You’ve been through more trauma in your life than most people can even imagine,” Dr. Phillips summarizes, sitting in the chair next to my bed. Given the circumstances, he made a house call.

  I nod.

  “I know.”

  My sister sits next to me, holding my hand, even though her face is stony. She hasn’t said much, but she’s judging me. I know she’s judging me.

  I stare out the window, at the rain, at the dead leaves plastered against the window, at the oranges and reds and the gray sky.

  “You were raped, Corinne. You killed someone to protect yourself. Your father killed someone to protect you, and he’s in prison. I’m sure you have latent guilt that you weren’t processing.”

  I do have guilt. I think of my father in that prison jumpsuit and behind the glass with the hardened eyes and the graying hair, and I do feel guilt.

  “He didn’t have to kill anyone for me,” I say limply. “I didn’t ask for that.”

  “You didn’t have to ask,” Jackie interrupts, her mouth twisted in torment. “Jesus, Corinne. He’s our father. He loves you. He did it without asking.”

  Dr. Phillips interjects. “Of course you didn’t ask him. But as a father, walking in and seeing someone violate his daughter, his rage clouded his judgment. It’s not your fault. You need to realize that. None of it was your fault. You didn’t ask to be raped. You didn’t ask for your innocence to be stripped away or for anyone to die or for your life to be irrevocably changed. Do you realize that?”

  “Logically, I realize that,” I agree. “But my heart... I think it’s going to take some time to convince. It feels like I could’ve stopped it.”

  “You couldn’t have,” Dr. Phillips argue
s. “But we’ll work on that.”

  Jackie watches me, her fingers like a steel birdcage around my own. “I don’t in any way think you could’ve stopped what happened,” she tells me, trying to clarify. “What I’m upset with you for...is that our father has been sitting in jail for years, and you wouldn’t even visit him. I know right now isn’t the best time to address this, but I’m pissed about that, Corinne.”

  A lump is in my throat, and I can’t swallow it.

  It’s the story of my life lately.

  “I know,” I tell her softly. “I’m pissed about it, too. There’s a lot I’m pissed about. I don’t even know how to process all of the things I’m pissed about.”

  For a minute, her gaze softens, and I see sympathy in her eyes and I hate that.

  “Don’t feel sorry for me,” I tell her. “Don’t.”

  She squeezes my fingers. “My emotions are confusing, Co. I’m mad at you, and I love you. Don’t ever forget that part. I love you.”

  Dr. Phillips glances at Jackie. “Your feelings are normal,” he observes. “You’ve been affected by this trauma, too. Be gentle with yourself. You’ve got to process this, too. Everything we’re dealing with here...it’s a lot. But I know you love each other, you and Corinne. It’s apparent to everyone who knows you.”

  She nods and I nod because it’s true.

  The knot tightens again in my throat, and I stare out the window again, and I find myself humming the stupid song. “Bye, Bye, Miss American Pie...”

  I tell Dr. Phillips the significance of it.

  “Jessica had been playing her mom’s cassette tape. She kept rewinding this song, over and over. It was her favorite. It was playing when her dad raped me. And then as her parents died.”

  “Sound is a very significant memory trigger,” he answers thoughtfully. “Try to avoid the song for now. Avoid anything that might trigger panic. We’re going to use some EMDR in the next few weeks to try to stabilize your memories and make them more tolerable. In the meantime, would you like to try to call your father? We can do it here so that I’m able to facilitate.”

  I’m startled, then afraid, but Jackie is squeezing my hand so so tightly.

  “Please, Co. Please,” she begs me. “It would mean so much to him. You have to. Please.”

 

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