by W E DeVore
Clementine.
I feel like screaming. Like raging at the world. It’s worse than when that bastard killed Avi, because I should be able to find these fuckers and put them down. It’s just not right. And it’s my fault. I know it wasn’t a gang initiation. It makes no sense. It’s too neat. Too clean. And murder is never either of those things.
I decide to write Avi a letter and turn on my laptop.
Dear Avi. I type. I’m losing her. She won’t take my calls. ‘Please, just leave me be.’ Five years of friendship reduced to five fucking words.
But I can’t continue. Not this morning. Not again. Because Avi already knows what I knew the morning after that stupid party. She’s leaving me. Leaving us all. And I don’t know how to bring her back.
I scroll back in time through my letters, wanting to remind myself of what she used to be like. Back before. The joy. The confidence. That fragile grace hiding a warrior’s heart. I try to remind myself that there used to be happiness here. She didn’t use to be so hollow.
Dear Avi. I had dinner with Clementine and Ben, tonight. They’re so lost in each other. It’s such a joy to watch. I see people on the worst day of their life, every day at work. But when I’m with them, I see all the good in the world that I stopped seeing after you and Ima went away. Ben reminds me of you, sometimes. No make-up, of course. Very straight, of course. Handsomer than either of us, I’m sorry to say. But he’s so evolved, just like you. Does that make sense? I think he might be the most evolved person I’ve ever met - like those Buddhist monks Aba took us to study with when he went through his flirtation with meditation. He’s so completely himself. Just like you. He makes me miss you. Sometimes more. Sometimes less. Tonight, it was less.
Speaking of you, because I know it’s your favorite topic, I told Clementine about you last night at a party. It felt so good to talk about you. I decided I should do that more often. Talk about you. Because you were real. You were here. You were my brother. My sweet, funny brother. By the way…and I know I’ve said this before, but fuck you for not teaching me how to tell a joke of my own. It’s so exhausting always being the serious one in the room. Especially in New Orleans. It’s so hard to keep up.
Anyway, Clementine wants to set me up with Ben’s sister, Yvonne, and I’ve been fighting it, but I met her tonight. Avi, she’s so funny and so smart. You’d kill for her legs. You, on your best day, never had such legs. Conveniently, this happens just as I find out I’ve been running around with a married woman. I’ll tell you about it later, ach sheli, you don’t want to know and I don’t feel like talking about it.
I did your opening routine for Clementine, and Ben, and Yvonne tonight after dinner. Just the way you taught me. Of course, coming from me, it was inherently hilarious: the serious detective prancing around the dining room, pretending to be you. But I still managed to fuck it up. I told that stupid joke. The one I told you to stop telling. And I get it now, why you wouldn’t stop, I mean, because Ben laughed until he couldn’t breathe when I told it. And I realize now, after all these years, that it wasn’t your fault. I’ve been blaming you for so long…but you didn’t do anything wrong. It was a good joke.
But tonight, I told it before I could even think about it and Ben’s laughing, Clementine is laughing, Yvonne is laughing (and she has a wonderful laugh). And then, I start crying right there, in front of all three of them. Sobbing, like an infant. I still don’t know why I told that fucking joke. I should have quit while I was ahead.
Yvonne and Ben left the room after I broke down. Left me alone with Clementine and all I could do was cry. She didn’t say anything, Avi. Just let me get it out and told me to drink some whiskey. I think maybe that’s the key to this whole problem of mine. She’s so much like Ima. So, tough and strong. “Drink it. All of it.” That’s all she said to me and it worked. Then she made me laugh. I don’t know how she does it, but somehow, she knows just what to say to make the world make sense.
And so, we’ve arrived at the million-dollar question: Do I still think I’m in love with Clementine Toledano?
And the answer, for once, is no. Hopefully, it will stick this time. I’m trying, Avi. I really am, and maybe it’s working. Tonight, she wasn’t the woman I sometimes think that I’m in love with. Tonight, she was my best friend who reminds me of the mother who I miss every day.
Speaking of, give Ima a kiss for me. Tell her that her baby boy is healthy and exercising and eating right and considering a date with a very nice shiksa that a lovely Jewish woman has recommended, which should sit well with her sense of irony. Love, Always and forever, your baby brother, Aaron.
Clementine’s voice whispers in my ear, “Liar, liar, pants on fire.”
I scroll through my letters and pick another at random.
Dear Avi. I told her. I said the words. I said, Clementine, I’m in love with you. And the look on her face hurt more than the bullet that was pushing its way deeper into my gut. She doesn’t love me, ach sheli. She’ll never love me. Your baby brother is a fucking fool.
Tears sting at my eyes and I look out the window as dawn finally decides to join me. Morning keeps coming earlier every day. I can’t sleep knowing how much pain she’s in. I can’t sleep knowing that I can’t take it from her. But really, if Avi were here, he’d tell me that all my insomnia is caused because I know I could finally hold her in my arms, in my bed, now, if I wasn’t such a fucking pussy. In love with another man’s wife and incapable of doing anything about it.
It’s time to get out of the house. To go for a run. To go do anything.
ANYTHING!!! My rage screams in my ears.
Anything that doesn’t involve this case or watching Clementine die a little more each day. She’s lost too damned much. And I don’t know how to bring her back. I’m failing her. I failed Ben and I’m failing her. I can’t even do my damned job and catch his killers. How am I going to save his wife?
While I’m putting on my running shoes, the doorbell rings and then a flat hand starts pounding on my front door.
“Aaron!” Yvie’s frantic voice is yelling for me on the other side. “Aaron. Please!”
I leave my shoes where they are and rush to open the door.
“She’s gone. Oh, fuck. Aaron, she’s gone.” Yvie comes inside and starts to pace the floor. She looks haggard and drawn, the weight of losing her brother has aged her. “She’s gone, Aaron. Oh, fuck. What did she do?”
I put my hands on her shoulders and try to settle her down. “Who’s gone, Yvie? Calm down, sweetheart. What’s wrong?”
She looks at me and I see Ben in her eyes. “Q. She’s gone. She wouldn’t answer her phone last night and I got worried, and Daddy and I went over there this morning and the house… Oh, Aaron, the house – it’s all smashed up. The nursery, her piano – oh fuck, her piano - all the pictures of her and Ben…”
I hold her to me and remember how good we were together. How she used to make me laugh. How close I was to letting go of…
Clementine.
And then I remember what day it is. Or rather, what day it was. “Yvie. It’s November 17.”
“So?” she asks.
“So, yesterday was November 16.”
Yvie’s eyes widened. “Oh god, we forgot. We all forgot. How could we forget?”
Clementine and Ben’s wedding anniversary. We’ve all pushed it aside and let it go. All of us. Except Clementine.
Yvonne looks up at me. “Aaron. You have to find her. You have to bring her back. Ben wouldn’t want her to be like this. I can’t let him down. Do you understand? She can’t…”
Die.
The word hangs in the air, unspoken. We both know it’s only a matter of time until Clementine decides to join her son and her husband. It’s been written all over her face for weeks. But we both have our reasons for wanting to stop it from happening. Yvie, because she’s trying to take care of the person her brother loved most in the world. Me, because I’m trying to save the only person who makes me forget all the ugline
ss in this world. The only woman I’ve ever completely loved. And to keep a promise I once made to her husband.
I let go and start putting on my shoes. “You go back to her house. Wait for her. Maybe she just went for a walk to cool down. It might be nothing.” I’m lying and she knows it. “I’ll go look for her.”
“Daddy’s in the car,” she says. “Oh god. If something’s happened to her… Why didn’t I go over last night? I just thought if I gave her some room…”
“Yvie, it’s not your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. Take your car back to the house. Big Ben and I’ll take my truck. When her neighbors wake up, ask them if they saw or heard anything. Call Josh, so you’re not alone. Promise me?”
She nods and kisses my cheek. “Aaron, you have to bring her back to us. Whatever you have to do, you bring her back. It’s the only thing that matters. It’s what Ben wants. We can’t let him down. Whatever you have to do, you do it. I mean it.”
This is Yvie: giving me permission. Telling me to stop lying to everyone and to admit what she figured out the moment she saw my face when her sister-in-law danced her way into that Mardi Gras party two years ago. That I’m in love with Clementine Toledano and there is no room inside me to love anyone else because of it.
“One step at a time, Yvie.”
As Ben’s father climbs into the passenger side of my truck, I’m struck by how much he looks like his son. But my friend, Ben, will never be his father’s age. He’ll never grow older. He will always be handsome, young, strong.
I start the engine and Mr. Bordelon says, “We need to bring her back. Ben wouldn’t want her to be like this.”
I nod and start to drive, not knowing where to go, but agreeing that Ben didn’t put himself between a bullet and his wife just for her to find new and creative ways to destroy herself. It’s our responsibility to make her see that, and so far, we’ve all failed.
“Are you still in love my daughter, Aaron?” he asks, looking forward and not at me. I can hear the panic and fear in his voice.
“Yvie’s lovely, Mr. Bordelon, but no, I don’t love her, not like that. Not anymore.”
“Not Yvie, Aaron. Q. Do you love Q?” He paused for a minute. “I’m only asking because Yvie said you were. And Ben… well, he said he could always count on you to do the right thing, and right now, I’m thinking he’s counting on you more than ever to do just that. You see, my son, he loved his wife. Loved her so damn much. And when I saw what she did to that house… Aaron, she needs someone to love her enough to bring her back from this and we’re all trying. I just don’t think we have the kind of love she needs.”
I look straight ahead and hope he’s not expecting me to say anything. He’s not.
“I lost my son,” he says. “I lost my grandchild. I can’t lose one of my daughters, too. Something good has got to come out of all this sadness. So, tell me right now, do you love my daughter?”
I nod and finally say, “Yes, sir, I do. Very much.”
I wait for retribution. I wait for him to call me a traitor for loving his only son’s wife while saying I was also his only son’s friend. But there is no retribution. There is no anger. Just relief that his suspicion is correct and that he has a solution he can hold onto.
“Good. Then you and me? We need to figure out a way to keep her out of that grave she’s so determined to climb into.”
And then, I know. I know exactly where Clementine is, and it fills me with terror. “I think I know where she is.”
When we get to the cemetery, I pull in behind Ben’s black Audi, cursing to myself before I jump out of the cab, leaving Ben’s father to follow me. I pound on the guardhouse door, yelling, “NOPD, it’s an emergency.”
The sleepy-eyed guard opens the door and I flash my badge and show him a picture of Clementine on my phone. “Have you seen this woman?”
He looks at me helplessly and I turn away, running through the pre-dawn light towards Ben’s grave, hoping I’m wrong. Knowing I’m right. And then I see her. Sleeping against the front of the mausoleum, one arm dangling down the steps, her fingers resting in a tumble of dead leaves. My heart stops, waiting for her chest to rise or fall, waiting for some sign that she’s still breathing.
I push through the gate and hurry towards her, crumbling to my knees. I smooth out her hair and she’s so pale, so cold. I try to wake her and her body goes limp in my arms. I slap her cheeks, calling her name. I force her eyelids open and am relieved to see the pupils contract against the security light overhead. I shake her and scream for her to wake up over and over. But her body is wilted. All that strength that I admire so, it’s all been sucked out of her.
Sitting her up, I hold her to me. Her breath is shallow and her pulse is too slow. I can feel her slipping away from me. I kiss her, rocking her like an infant, whispering near her ear and staring helplessly at the tomb that will be hers if I can’t get her to come back. “Clementine, don’t you leave me. Please, my love. You can’t leave me here alone. I won’t make it without you. Please, come back to me. I love you. Can you hear me? I love you. You have to wake up. Please, Clementine. You just have to try. Wake up, my love. Please. I love you. Do you hear me? I love you. Oh god, please don’t leave me.”
She doesn’t respond and I howl with rage, shaking her as hard as I can. She lolls back into my arms and I scream until my voice is raw, “Wake the fuck up!!! Wake the fuck up!!!”
Her eyelids flutter open. For a moment, she smiles up at me, but then her face twists in grief as she realizes it’s me and not who she’s been waiting for.
“No…” she whimpers like a wounded animal. The way her voice sounds makes me sick. “They were right here.”
She points to where Mr. Bordelon stands and shrieks at me to leave, screaming like she did that day at the hospital. Punching me. Clawing at my face in numbed, impotent anger. The violence of it rouses her body and it finally battles whatever she took to kill it. She collapses down the steps of the tomb before I can catch her, and she’s on her knees, retching up whatever is in her stomach. I hold her head, trying not to hear her choke against the ferocious heaving of her body.
“That’s it,” I say. “Get it all up. I’m here now. It’s going to be ok.”
She finally stops vomiting and she tears at my neck, struggling to hold onto me. “They were right here, Aaron.”
I pull her onto my lap and lean against Ben’s grave, rocking her back and forth as she screeches for Ben and her son and her own death; pounding her fists against my back and arms. The grief she’s struggled to suppress all these months with anger and alcohol has come up to the surface. Hot tears pour down her face.
I start to think that maybe she was right. That now that she’s finally crying, she’s never going to be able to stop. I look for Ben’s father and find him next to the guard, who has followed us. Big Ben’s arms are folded. He watches on in silent concern. The guard is covering his mouth with his hands.
“I didn’t know, officer,” he says. “I didn’t see her…”
Big Ben claps him on the shoulder and holds out his hand for a handshake. The guard takes it. “No one’s blaming you, mister. We’ll take it from here, if you don’t mind.”
Endless tears fall from her face. Endless sobs rack her body. I lose track of how long I’ve been holding her, waiting for her to calm on her own; to release all that pain and drain away the venom that’s been attacking her from within, tempting her to the void. As I hold her against me, waiting for her sorrow to subside, I finally know what I have to do. I’ve let how much I love her blind me to it. Blind me to who her killers were and blind me to what she’s been doing to herself.
I stand up with her still in my arms and she curls her body around me, whimpering as her tears continue to fall.
Big Ben gathers up her satchel and her pillow and places his hand against his son’s name, caressing it with his palm. “Don’t worry, son. We’ll keep her safe. You rest now.”
We walk in silence all the way back to my truc
k. I lay her down on the seat and cover her with my coat. Her body is trembling against the cold night air and the poison she’s ingested.
As I smooth her hair away from her face and try to rub some heat into her arms, she whispers my name and I am flooded with the warmth of it. My love for her fills me, but I force it back down to that place where I’ve kept it locked away all these years. I harden my gaze, feeling the betrayal of what she did to herself all the way through to the pit of my stomach.
“We’re done, Clementine,” I say. “You and me are going to have a talk. This shit ends now.”
She looks at me in horror and I leave her alone.