by J. A. Crook
Of Love and Death
Her death stunned me. The world ripped from my hands my wife and the mother of my child. I stood in the threshold of my empty home for hours and stared into Amber’s residual spirit. I was consumed by her presence. Her shoes littered the floor, shoes of every kind, of kinds I thought she didn’t need. Her smiling pictures on our walls. I was so proud behind her and Desirae. Pots filled the sink and shredded cheese sat on the counter. She never put things away. I did that for her. The bed was made to perfection. She was meticulous. She was. I shivered at the thought of the past tense and how she lived in the world of what was, not what is. I went to the bathroom to wash from my eyes the nightmare. I hoped that when I rose from the sink, my eyes would be back in the world that was taken away from me. Her hair straightener’s red “on” light flashed at me and the phantasmal wisps of heat rose still smelling of her warm hair. I turned it off. I killed it.
There was no therapy sitting in a room full of tears. Lisa, Amber’s sister, sat on the couch with her arms around Desirae. She clutched my daughter and whispered to her that things were going to be alright. I sat in her chair and ignored my own. I rocked and thought of how her body moved to and fro in the warm seat. I thought of her peace. Of our peace. I couldn’t cry. I was too busy untangling the riddle of this madness—of the plan behind it all.
I wondered. I wondered if I had kissed her one more time if it would have prevented her from being where she was when she ran into that psychotic woman in the street. I wonder if I would have hugged her a moment longer that morning if she would have managed to turn the steering wheel enough to avoid that light post. I wondered if I had called in to work and if I could have convinced her to do the same, if we would be together in our room, in peace. Could I have saved her?
At the hospital there were arrangements. Empty condolences in the wake of just another death. I realized it was impossible to be sensitive to every traumatic loss. It was impossible to be genuine. Another job. Another body.
“Do you want to see her?”
Lisa said that I didn’t. I did.
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.
“Don’t you think it’s best you remember her how she was, John?” Lisa asked.
“No.”
I needed the world to be honest with me. I needed the truth spoken from the mouth of the perpetrator. When I went, I stood in a room surrounded by the dead, full of people that were left to be remembered how they were and not how they’d become. The nurses escorted me to the bed and left. I watched the white curtain that surrounded the bed with contempt.
“Come out.” I whispered. “Come out of there. Stand up and come to me.” I took a step toward the curtain. “I know you’re in there. I know you’ve been waiting for me. Come out.” I took another step. “We have a lot of things planned, you and I. Remember that house? Remember Desirae’s crazy ideas? We have all that. What about all that? You want to see it, right? Come out.”
My fingers ran down over the curtain. It was thin and disposable. I saw her lying silhouette through the curtain and I expected her to roll over and smile and whisper something lovingly. But she laid there. Silent. Indifferent.
“Have you given up on all of those things? Do you not want any of it? What we’ve worked for? What we’ve built?” I curled the curtain in my hand and pulled it open.
Amber laid broken and bloody. Her bruised head and shattered skull. Her mouth hung open like a deranged wraith. Her tongue lay like a dry slug behind her bent teeth. Her body was caved and contorted in ways it wasn’t made to be. She watched the ceiling like it was coming down on her. I looked up to see if it was because, goddamn, it felt like it was.
The funeral was a haze. Black, hellish figures stood in all shapes, fat and skinny. They wiped their devil noses and pretended to care but none knew how to care. Amber’s friend Sara came and cried at me. I felt nothing. My daughter sat between me and Lisa. She watched me and waited for something. I know she wanted my tears but I couldn’t produce them. I stared at the coffin and wished it had air holes. I wish it had a means of opening it from the inside. I wished I had placed a shovel next to her for when she decided she would wake up and run back home. I wished I had rearranged her shoes. It would have changed everything.
That night at home, Lisa and I spoke.
“Are you sure you’re alright being alone for a while?” Lisa asked.
“I have things I have to take care of.”
“Can I help?”
“No. No, I need to do this.”
“I’ll keep Desirae as long as you need me to.”
“I know. I need to take care of these things.”
Lisa smiled and nodded. She hugged me for longer than I wanted her to. “Everything’s going to be alright,” she said.
My arms were limp and dead and sick with some unnamed disease.
I sat and did nothing on our bed. I stared at the wall and waited for her to come home. The hours slipped by. It was midnight. Every static click or groaning pipe excited my heart. She never came home. I lit her favorite candle. I played her favorite song. I made her favorite meal. She never came home. I went to the garage and grabbed my shovel.
I drove. I weaved through cars and drove as fast as I could. I pulled into the cemetery and scanned the map. 488C. The name written was so new. It felt wrong. Amber Crowley. I drove through the cemetery and awakened the restful spirits. Dead flowers laid amid the maze of gravestones. I went beyond the history of it all and stopped in the plot of land where the cemetery looked more like a construction site than a park. There was no grass. I got out of the car. I pulled my pistol out of the glove compartment and stuffed it into the back of my jeans. I grabbed the shovel from the backseat and marched to the fresh dirt. 488C. I felt her there under me. I felt the earth quake.
I dug. I slammed the shovel into the soft dirt and threw it away. “I’m coming.” Dirt flew. Sweat formed in droplets on my forehead. My arms ached. I felt the earth quake beneath me. It invigorated me. “I’m coming.” The hole grew deeper and wider. The dirt that separated Amber and I piled on both sides of me. When I felt my muscles start to give, I hit something solid. I tossed the shovel over the fresh mounds and pushed the dirt to both sides of the coffin’s face. I pried at the coffin and tried to open it but it didn’t give. I climbed up and grabbed the shovel and slammed it against the hinges. “I’m coming.” I shouted. Sparks flung like escaping spirits. They watched. I broke something and I fell to my knees again and pried on the lid of the casket. It broke away, lighter than it seemed.
Her twisted mouth was an abyss below me and I wanted to fall into it forever. Her eyes stared at something that wasn’t me. Her gown was beautiful and perfect white. I straddled her and placed my hands on her cold shoulders and whispered, “I’m here. Why don’t you wake up? I’m here right now. Wake up.” She didn’t answer. “Do you fucking hate me? Did you have to do this, huh? Did you have to end it this way? We didn’t decide this together. We never decided this.” But her broken head lolled like an empty doll as I shook her and tried to wake her. I grabbed the pistol and put it to my head and closed my eyes with my face lifted toward the white moon. “What else do I do?”
I felt her hand. I felt her sit up and press her chest against mine. I felt the kiss of her soft lips and the caress of her touch on my cheek. Her fingers trailed along my neck, across my jaw, up and to my temple, and her fingers wrapped around the gun. She pulled it away from my head. I opened my eyes and saw her smile. Her beautiful, beautiful smile.
“I’m here.” She said. “I’m here.”
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