Ghosts of Harvard

by Francesca Serritella

  “Just promise me one thing,” her mother added. “Don’t stay there to prove something to me. If you’re unhappy, or if, God forbid, you have another episode, come home. I’m on your side.”

  “Doesn’t feel like it.”

  “Well, I’ll work on that. But will you promise me?”

  “Okay, yes, I promise. I have to go, I love you, ’bye.” Cady hung up and wondered if she would be lying to her mother for the next four years.

  7

  Cady hated when her mother referred to her episode, meaning how she’d acted at Eric’s scattering ceremony. It felt like her mother was rubbing her face in it, although perhaps it merely recalled Cady’s own shame about that day.

  Her parents had chosen Lake Wallenpaupack as the place to scatter Eric’s ashes because they’d rented a cabin on the lake every summer when Cady and Eric were growing up. Everyone else in her family had agreed that it was what Eric would have wanted. Cady had no idea what Eric would have wanted. She still couldn’t imagine he had wanted to die.

  Cady held Eric on her lap for the three-hour drive to Lake Wallenpaupack. Eric was in a wooden urn, a small chest of polished walnut burl, which she gripped tightly but at a slight distance from her body, more on her knees. She felt nervous and carsick. She tried to look out the window, but she kept glancing down at the chest.

  Their car was leading a caravan of close family: Directly behind them in the Saab was Grampa, her mother’s father, and his second wife, Vivi; Aunt Laura and Uncle Pete brought up the rear in their van. In their SUV, Cady’s father was driving, with her mother in the passenger seat, while Cady was in the back next to her grandmother, Gloria, or Gram, her father’s mother, who was eighty-seven and hard of hearing. Age had made her body small and frail, so the seatbelt hit high on her collarbone; she hadn’t wanted to wear it, but Cady’s dad had insisted. Now she sat very still and quiet, except that she repeatedly reached a shaky hand to pull the seatbelt down and away from her stringy neck, only to have it migrate back. Cady felt a pang thinking about how much longer Gram was likely to live. There she sat, her only sign of stimulus and response the nagging irritant of a nylon belt. Otherwise her body was shrinking, thinning, bending, disappearing before their eyes. Her life force was a fading ember, and yet Eric was now ash.

  “How’s everybody doing?” her mother asked from the front seat.

  Cady answered reflexively, “Okay.”

  Gram hadn’t heard the question, but she turned when Cady spoke, smiled, and put her hand on her granddaughter’s wrist. Her knuckles were knotted by arthritis and the skin on her hands was thin and papery, but the gesture was warm and comforting, and Cady needed it—she wasn’t okay.

  The Pennsylvania countryside seemed static, as though their car was the only moving object on the landscape. Cows grazed in place, their bloated barrels hung low from jutting hipbones, as they flicked their tails at flies. Calves slept in the grass beside their mothers, lying flat. Split-rail fence posts ticked by regularly, as if keeping track of something. At one point, she spotted two turkey vultures sitting on a fence rail, one facing backward and the other forward, its featherless red head set low on its hunched black body. In the moment they passed by, Cady felt caught in the vulture’s beady-eyed gaze, as if it knew there was death inside. She recoiled. Cady knew it was ridiculous, but it felt like a bad omen. In retrospect, it was.

  “This was right,” her mother said suddenly.

  “I told you, I remember the shortcut,” her father said.

  “No, I mean what we’re doing for Eric today. Our decision to, to do what we did with him, for him. And the lake means so much to all of us, it’s … it’s right.”

  Cady wasn’t sure whether this was an implied forgiveness of her father’s hasty decision making, or if her mother had brainwashed herself into thinking the choice to cremate had been made jointly.

  “I agree,” her father said.

  “Wha-at was that?” Gram asked.

  “I was just saying,” her mother raised her voice, “that I feel good—I feel at peace with our decision.”

  Gram turned to Cady and blinked slowly. “I can’t hear her, what is she talking about?”

  “Gloria, our decision,” Cady’s mother raised her voice, “about Eric, what do with his, to scatter—” her voice broke, “Damnit, I wish she would get that effing hearing aid.”

  “Karen, get ahold of yourself,” her father snapped.

  “I’m trying!” her mother shouted back.

  “She’s an elderly woman and—shit.”

  The car suddenly swerved to the right, and Cady heard the squealing of the brakes, a small thump, and then the gravel along the road’s edge grinding and snapping into the undercarriage, until the car came to an abrupt halt. Then total silence as they all caught their breath.

  Both her parents turned to the backseat and started speaking at the same time.

  “Mom, are you okay?” her father asked Gram.

  “Cady, you have the urn, right, it didn’t drop, did it?” Her mother’s eyes were wide. “Oh, thank God.”

  During the swerve, without thinking, Cady had hugged the urn tightly against her stomach.

  Gram looked more feisty than frightened. “I’m fine, but this darn seatbelt—”

  “Well, you know what, Mom? I’m really glad you were wearing it just then.” Her father undid his seatbelt and got out of the car, slamming the door behind him. Cady thought he was coming around to check on Gram, but instead he stalked back past the car.

  Her mother gave a snort. “Now where is he going?”

  Cady craned her neck to see. Grampa’s Saab pulled over, and behind him, Laura and Pete’s van slowed to a stop, but her father wasn’t interacting with either. He stood in the center of the road between their tire tracks, looking down at something.

  Cady carefully set the urn on the backseat, got out of the car, and jogged over. She slowed down when she saw how upset her father looked, his face bright red, his eyes glistening. “Dad, what is it? Did you hit something?”

  Her father didn’t answer, the muscles beneath his cheekbone flickered as he clenched and unclenched his jaw, he didn’t even look up. A tear dripped off his nose and fell on the ground beside the body of a gray squirrel.

  Cady’s heart sank, but she hid her dismay. “Aw, you didn’t mean to, you tried to avoid it.” It wasn’t as gruesome as she had anticipated, and she was relieved. The small animal lay on its side, completely intact; the plush fur on its fluffy tail shivered in the breeze and its onyx eyes were open, but there was no question it was dead. Died on impact, the familiar words echoed in her head.

  Her father gave a gurgling sniff. “I can’t believe I killed it.”

  Cady put a tentative hand on his arm, touched but surprised by his tears. Her father hadn’t cried since Eric died, at least not in front of anyone, not even at the funeral. The emotion he bottled up typically emerged in anger, so Cady considered this progress.

  “Everything all right out there?” Grampa yelled from his car window.

  Cady waved him off and turned back to her father. “Dad, it’s okay. I’m sure it didn’t feel a thing.”

  When Cady returned to the backseat, Gram was still strapped in by her cruel seatbelt, looking troubled. “No one tells me what’s going on!”

  “A squirrel ran out in front of the car. Dad swerved to avoid it, and we all just wanted to check to see what happened.”

  “Did he hit it?” Her eyebrows jumped behind her glasses.

  “No.” Cady put her hand over Gram’s. “It got away.”

  She relaxed and smiled. “Oh, good.”

  Cady looked out the window and wondered if Eric had felt a thing.

  Pebbles grumbled under the tires as they pulled in to the small parking area on the northern banks of Lake Wallenpaupack. Cady’s family had discussed the logistics of a scattering cere
mony with the park rangers, and the only stipulation was that the scattering “must be done out of sight of any public access, such as roads, trails, parking areas, etc.,” in other words, “Don’t freak anybody out.” The only thing that mattered to the Archers was for it to be in the water. So they had chosen a spot off a long dock, seldom used since the main recreation center had relocated to the opposite side of the lake years ago. The bank on this side was wooded and heavily overgrown, only a thin strip of rocky beach remained visible with a clearing around the dock. From where they parked, Cady could barely see it through the brush.

  Her mother had taken the urn from Cady and gone first. Grampa helped Vivi try to negotiate the rough natural footing in her heeled rubber booties. Cady’s father followed, guiding Gram with one arm and holding Laura’s folded wheelchair in the other, while Pete carried Laura in his arms as if she were a new bride. Cady was left with no one to help or hold.

  Once they were through to the clearing, the lake spread out like a clean sheet settling on a bed, waves fluttering across the surface. Cady remembered the bright days of summer, when the blue skies, a few lone clouds, and the far tree line reflected on the lake’s mirror surface with dreamlike movement, but today was different. The sun had disappeared behind a shroud of thick clouds in watercolor grays, veiling the horizon completely. Dark wooded hills in the distance rose out of the haze like disembodied spirits. The long, narrow dock seemed like a gangplank into the River Styx.

  Cady was reminded of an old campfire story she’d been told some summer long ago. Lake Wallenpaupack used to be a town called Wilsonville, until an electric company bought all the land and intentionally flooded it. Now the waters were murky and dark, but supposedly when they first flooded it, you could see the whole town underneath, and to this day, during very dry summers, you could still glimpse the church steeple poking through the surface, although Cady never had. The part that scared little Cady the most, the part she remembered now, was about the old Wilsonville cemetery. Before they flooded it, they dug up all the graves and moved the remains to higher ground, but there were many more bodies than expected, and many were children. Legend had it that if you swam above the graves, the ghosts would grab your feet and pull you down. It was a good ghost story, because no one knew where the cemetery was, so it could be anywhere and everywhere, and there was always something touching your toe in a lake. Usually, it was Eric, trying to scare her. It always worked.

  Her family had gathered at the near end of the dock, the only spot broad enough to hold them all. Cady edged outside the huddle, the wet, cool breeze chilling her. Aunt Laura spoke first: “Okay.” She took a deep breath. “Andrew and Karen asked me to lead this ceremony on this sad, sad day. The three of us talked for a long time about today’s purpose and hope, and our wish for today is that it may provide each of us with some individual closure, and hopefully a degree of peace with this tragedy. We’re going to take turns with the scattering. There’s no right or wrong way to go about this. If you would like to say something or share a particular memory, of course, you are welcome and encouraged to do so. But if you would just like a quiet moment with Eric and your thoughts and prayers, please feel free to simply … let go. There is no right or wrong way to say goodbye. Just do what’s in your heart. Who would like to begin?”

  “I will,” answered her father, surprising Cady. He took the urn from his wife’s hands and looked down, inhaling through his nostrils like a bull. “This didn’t have to happen. I’m not sure I’ll ever understand why it did. I know we loved him so much, and we would have supported him through anything. I know we could’ve gotten through his struggles if we’d had more time. He should be here still.”

  He rubbed his eyes; when he opened them again, they were filled with tears, honest and vulnerable, the anger that had held him together released. When he spoke again, his voice broke, breaking Cady’s heart with it. “But he was sick. That sickness was not my son. I will remember my son as the brilliant boy he was, a lover of learning, of nature, this lake, these hills, a joy to his family, my buddy. And I will always mourn that bright future that is now lost to him, and to us, forever.”

  Gram put her hand on his arm. He hugged her close to his side. Her mother hugged him, too, and pulled Cady into the embrace. He kissed Cady on the forehead, then broke free of them and walked to the end of the dock alone. With his back to them, he lifted a handful out of the urn and let his only son pass through his fingers into the water.

  He walked back, and since Cady’s mother was crying, Aunt Laura went next. “I remember the day Eric was born.” Tears welled in her eyes. “He was so beautiful. Perfect and pink. Eric filled my heart with the happiness a child can bring.” She looked at Cady. “You both did. I never missed having children of my own, thanks to you two. And I felt so proud and blessed to have him in our family. I still do.”

  Pete coughed some tears away and roughly wiped his eyes before adding, “Little dude, it was a privilege to watch you grow up. I love you, and I feel lucky to have known you.”

  “We are lucky. We’ll miss you, Eric.”

  Laura tapped Pete’s arm, and he wheeled her to the dock’s end. Cady saw them hug each other and say something she couldn’t hear. They were always there for each other. You only need one person, Cady thought. Eric was her one. Had she been there for him?

  “Mom?” her father said, voice cracking. “Do you want to say anything?”

  Every line on Gram’s face was shaped by sorrow. Her pale blue eyes looked on, searching, as she gripped her son’s arm and shook her head. “This is not right. He was a good boy!” Her mouth hung partly open, her tongue panting in distress—in that moment, Cady saw the DNA of the same directionless anger her father had of late. But just as quickly, Gram’s energy was spent, and her expression regained a more familiar cast of resignation, soft and sad. She began again, “I am old. Why I am the hand and not the ash, I do not know. If I could trade places, I would. But the Lord works in ways we cannot understand, and He loves us all. I hope this child may find peace with Him now.”

  “Ready?” her father asked, after a moment.

  Gram nodded, and he carried the urn while helping his mother walk down the dock. She was unsteady, more than usual, so they didn’t go as far down as the others, only about fifteen feet, to the side of the dock where the wind was in their favor. Cady could see Gram put her shaky hand into the urn and hear her say “Then shall the dust return to the earth, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. Sweet child, I will see you soon.” Gram released the ash from her knotted fingers.

  Cady blinked and saw all of their eyes aimed at her with expectant expressions. It was her turn. “I don’t know what to do,” she muttered, her lips sticking to her teeth.

  Her family nodded in sympathy, although Cady hadn’t meant it metaphorically. She felt panicky, and her gaze flitted from person to person for guidance.

  “You don’t have to say anything, sweetie,” said Aunt Laura. “Just take your time, let yourself say goodbye.”

  She reluctantly took the box that held her brother and turned to walk down the dock, her horror increasing with every step. When her feet reached the end of the wooden planks, she knelt at the edge of the dock and placed the urn beside her. Cut into the swirling wood was a small keyhole with a smaller golden key already in it, tasseled with crimson silk cords. Her hand trembled as she turned the key.

  Inside was gray sand. With her heart pounding, her eyes scanned the contents for any piece that might be recognizable, a tooth, a finger bone. Any small token of Eric’s humanity would be both grotesque and comforting, but she found none. Just a pile of crumbs, some big as a chip of gravel and some small as a grain of sand, but all gray, dead. The first time she touched the pulverized bones, her hand jerked back involuntarily—her index and middle fingers were tipped in the ashy powder, as if they were as lifeless as the substance that covered them. She tried again, and this time her hand
sank in deep like quicksand, as if the bones possessed a pull.

  Her vision blurred under the thick veil of memory. Images of her brother at different ages and states flashed in succession, images she had seen a thousand times and ones only imagined: as a teenager, in profile, driving her somewhere; as a boy with his back to her, facing the lake, the breeze blowing the fine hair on his oversized head; and one imagined memory, the sight of him lying on the ground, dead, eyes open, eyes closed, she didn’t know which so she saw them both ways, as if he were blinking at her. And now this was all of him, burned down and in a box, small enough to fit under her fingernails.

  Say goodbye. It was so surreal. She had lost her sense of reality when reality became so frightfully unreal. Her brother, her point of reference for the world, was dead. Reality had become something for which she took other people’s word. But other people’s words plagued her. Everyone had been saying the same things since it happened, repeated so often as to become unintelligible—such a shame, all that potential, could have been, how did he do it?, he was so bright, jumped, I heard, and at Harvard, everything going for him, did you know? whole life ahead, what he could have accomplished, died on impact, at the beginning of his, it’s horrible, could’ve done something, bright future, what a waste, a shame, the potential, lost—this unceasing murmur played over and over in her mind, a stream of numbing platitudes punctuated by with the occasional innocent, careless comment that could rip out her heart. Numbness and anguish. She felt both right now.

  She lifted a fistful of his remains and let the excess spill back into the urn, the light fragments of bone tickling the inside of her wrist as they tumbled down, then she reached over the water and stopped. Ashes covered her entire hand, but instead of rendering her hand lifeless, it was as if she were giving life to his ashes, reanimating him. Cady’s heart beat so fast it hurt. It didn’t feel like a goodbye, it only felt like getting rid of him, and she wasn’t ready to do that. She didn’t want to let him go. She wanted to put him back together again.