Funeral for a Friend

by Brian Freeman

  Instead of the Duluth night, she saw her past with Jonny go through her mind, one memory after another.

  Getting off the plane at the Duluth airport, seeing Stride and Maggie for the first time, not realizing that her life had just changed permanently.

  Making love with him on the cold beach of the Point in the darkness.

  Jonny rescuing her from a burning shanty in the middle of a frozen lake, where she’d been held captive and tortured. The sight of his face, the love in his eyes, as he took her in his arms.

  The awfulness of him confessing that he’d slept with Maggie, the bitter separation that followed, the reunion that finally came when Cat entered their lives.

  And that moment at the green bench at the end of the Point—the sacred place where Stride confronted everything that was good and bad in his life—when he’d finally said goodbye to Cindy’s ghost and gone down on one knee to ask Serena to marry him.

  All those memories came and went in an instant, and she was right back where she was, in the hospital, waiting to see whether her husband lived or died.

  “Half the police force is in the lobby downstairs,” Maggie told her. In her own Maggie way, she added a joke. “Honestly, if you want to commit a crime in Duluth, this is a pretty good time.”

  Serena tried to find a smile, but it wasn’t there.

  “Everyone is praying for him,” Maggie went on. “He’s the toughest man I know, Serena. Not just physically tough, but soul tough. He’s determined. He never gives up. I don’t care what anyone says the odds are. He won’t leave you.”

  “Except we both know that’s not how life works,” Serena murmured.

  Maggie shook her head fiercely. “I don’t know that at all. Not tonight. I may be a cynical bitch most days of my life, and I may think the universe is mostly playing a big joke on us, but not tonight. I prayed, too. For both of you. I had to introduce myself to God, because it’s not like we’re best friends or anything, but I prayed.”

  “Thank you, Maggie.”

  Serena wanted to find comfort in the idea that the city was praying for Stride, but she didn’t know how to take any comfort in anything now. Her own soul was as alone and black as the night. The only glimmers she saw were the flashes of lightning on the other side of the rain-swept glass, and those bursts made her think of shocks of electricity trying and failing to start a heart.

  “I told Guppo I’d give him an update,” Maggie said. “I should probably find him.”

  Serena nodded. “Sure. Go.”

  Maggie turned to leave, but then she stopped. “You know, Serena, for what it’s worth, I remember when you were shot in the graffiti graveyard and almost died. I don’t know if Stride ever told you, but he and Cat prayed for you. They held hands and prayed. He swears that’s what brought you back.”

  “He told me,” Serena murmured, but she didn’t say anything more than that.

  Maggie squeezed her shoulder and left the small waiting room. Serena stayed by the window. She wasn’t even sure how much time passed, standing there in a kind of suspended animation. The room was silent, and silence was good, because the only thing that could interrupt the silence now was a door opening, and a surgeon coming in to deliver bad news.

  Right now, silence was keeping her alive. Silence meant Jonny hadn’t left her.

  Except it was too quiet. She cast her gaze around the waiting room and realized that she was alone. Cat had disappeared. The girl had been sitting on the sofa, and now she was gone. Serena spotted the door to the bathroom and saw that it was closed but unlocked. She went over, knocked gently on the door, and called Cat’s name. When she got no answer, she slowly pushed open the door. The overhead lights of the bathroom were harsh and bright.

  Cat sat on the tiled floor in the corner, her knees pulled up. Her cheeks were flushed beet red from crying, and strands of her chestnut hair fell across her face. She stared straight ahead with vacant, empty, horrified eyes. Serena went over and sat down next to her. She put an arm around the girl’s shoulder and stroked her fingers through Cat’s hair.

  “This is my fault,” Cat murmured.

  “It’s not. Not in any way.”

  “If he dies, I’m going to kill myself,” the girl said.

  Serena realized how selfish she’d been, thinking she was alone. Instead, she dug down into herself and summoned words. “No, you’re not going to do that. Neither am I. That’s not how this goes.”

  “How can you be calm about this?”

  “I’m not calm, Catalina. I’m terrified. But I’m not going to sit here and let you blame yourself. Whatever happens, we need to stay strong. I’m going to be there for you, and you need to be there for me, too. Got it?”

  Cat didn’t answer, but she felt the girl’s shoulders quivering as she cried.

  Serena waited a long time to say anything more. “It’s okay if you want to pray. You should.”

  “It won’t do any good. It’s a waste of time.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since always. Nobody’s out there. Nobody cares. You know what I told Stride when I first met him? I said death was just a cold nowhere. No heaven, no hell, no God. Nothing. I was a fool to start believing anything else. I mean, that’s what you think, isn’t it? You don’t believe in any of that.”

  “It doesn’t matter what I believe.”

  “When’s the last time you prayed? I mean, really prayed. God, please help me. Like that.”

  Serena hesitated. “In Phoenix. When I was being abused.”

  “Did it work? Did it save you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, see? It’s a waste of time.”

  Serena could almost see the girl’s faith taking flight, like a departing angel into the sky. The strange thing was, as Cat’s soul grew emptier, Serena felt something taking hold inside herself that she hadn’t felt since she was a small child. A belief in something other than what she could touch, hear, and see. It spread throughout her body, and she wanted to wrap Cat up in its warmth.

  “I have no idea what’s true or what isn’t,” Serena told her. “But one thing I do know is that if those terrible things hadn’t happened to me as a child, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I wouldn’t know Jonny. I wouldn’t know you. That’s the reality of my life. Does that make any of it better? Or less painful? No. Of course not. But I guess I’ve learned something in all my years of being hurt and angry. You have to be a little humble about knowing what it means to have your prayers answered. It may look very different from what you expect.”

  Cat shook her head. “There’s nothing good in this. There’s no plan.”

  “All we can do is wait and see. And hope.”

  She heard the girl’s voice grow shrill with despair. “There’s no hope. He’s going away.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  Cat twisted around in her lap and stared up at her. “He’s not here anymore! He’s somewhere else. I can feel it, and I know you can, too. Don’t lie to me. I can feel him going away from us.”

  “Shh. Don’t talk anymore.”

  Cat buried her face again, and Serena kept stroking the girl’s hair as Cat sobbed. The light in the bathroom felt way too bright, and Serena closed her eyes so that she didn’t have to see it. With her eyes closed, words simply sprang into her head, and she moved her lips to murmur them aloud.

  “God, please help me.”

  * * * * *

  Stride stood in the middle of Minnesota Avenue on the Point.

  He was alone. The world had turned black and white, all of the color sucked away. The trees and lawns had no green; the flowers and the sky were white; the houses were all painted in shades of gray. Not a single car drove up and down the street. He listened for the roar of the lake behind the dunes, but the water seemed frozen into silence. He felt no wind, no warmth, no cold, as if this were nothing
but a photograph of Duluth, not the place where he’d lived. He felt out of place here, a stranger. But along with it, he also felt no hunger and no pain. Every weight and care had been lifted from his shoulders.

  He walked down the street, passing houses he’d known for years, but they looked abandoned. All the doors and windows stood open, inviting visitors, but with no one coming or going. No one worked in the gardens or sat by the bay shore. When he walked up to one of the doors, he looked inside and saw no furniture, just empty rooms perfectly free of dust. The people had gone away and left only skeletons of their lives behind them.

  But not entirely.

  As he walked, he heard something human. Music. He heard the plink-plink of someone picking out a country tune on a guitar. He walked faster, because he knew who it was. He’d heard that melody hundreds of times before. When he got to the next block, he recognized Steve Garske’s house, and there was his old friend on a three-legged stool in the middle of his yard, strumming chords. Unlike everything else around him, Steve was in color, his flannel shirt patterned in green and red, his torn jeans a stonewashed blue. He wore leather cowboy boots, and his foot tapped along with the music he made.

  “Steve,” Stride said.

  His friend looked up. “Well, hey, buddy. Welcome.”

  “What is this place?”

  “Don’t you recognize it?”

  “I don’t. It’s not the Point. Not really. I don’t know what it is.”

  “Well, you brought us here. You chose the place.”

  “For what?” Stride asked.

  “For your funeral,” Steve told him. “We all got our invitations, so we’re here to welcome you. The living say goodbye, but the dead say welcome. We’d never miss a funeral for a friend, Stride.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Don’t worry. She’ll explain it to you. She’s here along with the rest of us.”

  “Who?”

  “The one you love. The one you miss.”

  “Where do I go?”

  Steve gestured down the Point. “Green bench, buddy. The usual place. She’s waiting.”

  Stride stared down the colorless road that led to the bench by the water. He felt an urge to keep going, to find her, to see her. He knew the face that would be there. And yet he didn’t want to leave.

  “I miss you, Steve.”

  His friend chuckled and kept playing the guitar. “Back at ya, buddy. Right back at ya.”

  Stride kept walking. Now he saw that he wasn’t alone. The farther he went, the more others appeared to welcome him. People from his past. The ones who were gone. The victims. He saw a teenage girl jogging the opposite way on the street, wearing a sports bra and shorts, her hair tied in a pony tail. She was soaking wet, even though it wasn’t raining. He’d never met her, but he knew who she was. He’d been trying to solve her murder when Cindy died. And he’d only done so years later, after he met Serena.

  “Kerry?” he called. “Kerry McGrath?”

  The teenage girl smiled with a sweet face he knew from photographs, but she didn’t break pace. She kept running, as if she had somewhere to go and would never get there. She pointed the other way, toward the end of the Point, because that was where he needed to be, and he was only halfway there.

  She ran past him, and when he looked back again, she was gone.

  Still he walked farther into the black-and-white world. More people came from the shadows. More of the dead. They emerged one by one, the people he’d left behind. The innocent ones, taken too soon. The deaths he’d investigated.

  Michaela Mateo stood by the side of the street. All of the bruises and wounds had healed where her ex-husband had beaten and stabbed her. Her chestnut hair blew into swirls, but he still felt not even a breath of wind around him. She was beautiful again, perfect, the spitting image of her daughter, Cat.

  “Oh, Jonathan, welcome!” she told him. “It’s so lovely to see your face again. Thank you for rescuing Catalina! Thank you for saving my girl! I wish you could stay here with me, but she waits for you. The green bench. She is there for you! Hurry!”

  Stride walked faster, as if he could lift off the ground and fly.

  He saw others returning to him, ghosts reminding him of their stories. Ahdia Rashid and her child, Pak, who had died in a gallery fire after the marathon bombing. Clark Biggs, whose heart had stopped in a lightning strike.

  So many others.

  Helen Danning.

  Tanjy Powell.

  Peach Piper.

  And Andrea.

  Andrea came out to see him, too. He didn’t understand why she was here. She had something in her hands, and he realized it was a suncatcher, looking vibrant in many colors against the whites, blacks, and grays of this world. She held it up to the light, and he could see images in the stained glass with a strange clarity. On her face was something he hadn’t seen in a long time. A smile. She was happy, as if somehow she’d been given a do-over for all of the things she’d missed in life.

  “I should have told you,” Andrea said to him.

  “Told me what?”

  “What I did.”

  “What did you do?”

  She shook her head. “Forgive every sin.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Andrea kept smiling as she waved him down the Point. “You need to keep going, Jon. There isn’t much time now. She’s on the green bench. She’s waiting for you.”

  And she was.

  The next moment, Stride reached the park where the road ended, frozen in black and white. The only splash of color he saw was the green bench by the bay. This was the bench that marked every crossroad in his life. The place of death, the place of new beginnings. Time had destroyed it in real life, but here, the bench looked as if it could withstand generations of winter and storms.

  Cindy sat on the bench.

  She looked as young and healthy as the day he’d married her, with her long, long black hair, parted in the middle and utterly straight. A sprite, hardly more than a hundred pounds. Her little nose, sharply angled like the blade of a knife. Her big brown eyes, always teasing him.

  “Jonny,” she said, in a voice he’d never thought he would hear again.

  He sat down next to her, drinking her in with his eyes, glorying that she was so vivid and alive. Over the years, his memories had grown blurry, and he’d had to take out pictures to remind himself of the details of her face. But here she was, back with him again. He never wanted to leave. He never wanted to see that picture fade from his mind.

  “Why are you here?” Stride asked. “Why am I here?”

  “Don’t you know by now?”

  “Steve said this was my funeral.”

  “Well, it is if you want it to be. Or maybe it’s your wake. Or maybe it’s your waking up.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  She made fun of him with a musical laugh. “Really, pirate eyes? You can’t figure it out? You take one bullet in the heart, and all your detective skills disappear. I’m disappointed in you, Jonny.”

  Stride looked at the black-and-white world around him. “I’m dead.”

  “Dead? Yes and no. I’m dead. Steve’s dead. Everyone around here is dead. You, you’re only halfway there. It’s up to you whether to stay or go.”

  “Is this real?”

  “What do you think, Jonny?”

  He searched his broken, wounded heart for the truth. “I think I’m dreaming.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe not. Who’s to say?”

  “I think I was shot. I’m on an operating table with my chest cracked open. I think my heart stopped, and the doctors are trying to get it started again.”

  “So what are you going to do about that? You have to make a choice.”

  He looked around at the gray world of the Point, a place that he loved but that
now existed only like a painting in a frame. This wasn’t his home. But then he saw his late wife in full color, exactly as she’d always been, and his heart ached. It literally ached.

  His heart felt shot through with pain, over and over and over.

  No heartbeat. We’re losing him.

  “I don’t want to leave you behind again,” Stride said.

  “I left you behind, my love. The question is whether you’re ready to do to Serena what I did to you.”

  “What will happen to her?”

  “What happens to anyone who suffers a terrible loss? If you give in, if you die, Serena and Cat will be left alone. Hurt, angry, devastated, the way you were after I died. But they’ll go on. You went on eventually, too.”

  “It took me a long time,” Stride said.

  “I know. I’m sorry about that. But you didn’t help matters, did you? I sent you Serena, and you nearly screwed it up with her. I wasn’t sure the two of you would ever get there. I can’t believe you slept with Maggie, by the way. How many times did I warn you about that?”

  “Oh, hell, not you, too.”

  Cindy laughed again. He’d missed that laugh so much. He wanted this moment with her to go on forever, but then she said, “It’s time to decide, Jonny.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Stay or go, my love. Those are the only two choices.”

  “I want to stay with you,” he said.

  “Then stay. Here I am. But Serena’s back there. She’s waiting for you, too.”

  “I can’t leave her behind.”

  “Then go.”

  “How do I decide?”

  Cindy leaned over and kissed him, and he could feel the touch of her lips like a jolt of electricity in his heart.

  “That’s up to you,” she said. “I can’t tell you what to do.”

  Another smile. Another kiss.

  Another jolt that made his whole body shiver.

  “Every story ends, Jonny,” Cindy said. “It’s all a question of when. So here we are. Is this the end of your story?”

  40

  Stride opened his eyes.

  The first thing he felt was pain. A deep ache radiated through his entire chest. When he took a breath, a stab like the sharp prick of a knife made him wince. He blinked, trying to focus, trying to understand where he was. Lights were low, and he lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. He tried to get up, but his body immediately protested with an even worse shiver of agony.