Liana hung on to him while he shook and cried. Mitch hadn’t ever wanted to be a parent—his own had convinced him that he had no taste for it—but when Violette had Sophie, he realized a kind of compromise in himself. He didn’t want to be a father, but he wasn’t about to let down a child who needed him. He stepped up whenever Violette followed their mother’s example and found something better than parenting to occupy her attention. When she left, he found that what he wanted meant less than what was owed. Someone owed Sophie a chance, and he was the only one left to give her that. Now that he was free of his obligation to her, he felt crushed. And worse, he felt alone. He’d gotten so used to her excitement at seeing him, her enthusiasm over simple things he’d long ago become inured to. She could find joy in a plum in a way that mystified him. To Mitch, it was just another option in the grocery store—one that was messy and often had to be thrown out because he would forget he bought them and they went to waste. But in Sophie’s hands, they were a delight. She would smile broadly and clap when he cut one up for her. She would devour them like there was no greater pleasure to be had and lick the dripping red juice off of her fingers without shame or self-consciousness. She taught him the things he needed to relearn about living after coming out of prison. She brought him back to life. Now, she was gone, and all his old wounds hurt afresh.
“Come on,” Liana said, letting go and pushing herself up. She held out a hand and pulled him to his feet. “You can hop in the shower while I fix you something to eat. You look like you haven’t had a thing in weeks.” It had only been days, but Mitch didn’t have a lot of weight to lose to begin with; he imagined his starved appearance was striking.
While he showered, Liana set about the task of cooking breakfast and helping straighten up the apartment. She opened the curtains and let the sun stream in, illuminating the dust motes floating in the air so thickly it looked like the apartment was under water. He dressed in clean clothes and sat at the kitchen table, watching her work while he ate. His hunger was an ember that roared into a lustful fire when properly stoked, and he devoured the eggs, bacon, and toast before any of it had a chance to cool.
When she finished putting the kitchen in order, she sat next to him and laid her hands on top of his. A touch of life returned to him at the feel of the warmth and softness of her skin. Finally, she said, “So, where is Sophie now?”
“I don’t know. They still have her in the hospital, I guess.”
Her neck straightened. “No one’s called you?”
He shook his head. With Liana’s alibi and Faye’s disappearance, his chances of being arrested and charged in her death were diminishing, but it still seemed unlikely that anyone at the hospital was going to welcome him with open arms. He was not her father. Worse, she’d died in his care. Stuck in his own hole, he hadn’t thought to ask how to claim her.
“Have you contacted a funeral home to come get her?”
Mitch stared at his empty plate. “I can’t afford a funeral. I can’t afford anything.”
Liana scooted her chair around the kitchen table to sit closer. “Oh, hon.” She pulled a smart-phone out of her purse and began typing into a search engine. After a few seconds she held it up to show a web page for a funeral home near Kingsport. “The man who owns this place took care of my cousin, Rawndell, after his accident. He’ll understand. He helps people who don’t have much.”
“It’s not that I don’t have much. I have nothing.”
“You have me,” Liana said, dialing the number.
12
The consultation suite at the Tremblay Funeral Home was bright but sober. In the center of the room stood a varnished table with matching chairs that resembled a dining room table without place settings more than a sales desk across which to discuss coffins, cremation, and memorial services. Light filtered in through the long white sheers, but Mitch couldn’t see outside. There would be no gazing out the windows at the people walking up the street. No daydreaming he was someone for whom an afternoon spent planning a child’s funeral would be unthinkable. There was just this.
Mitch chose to sit on the chocolate-colored leather sofa at the far end of the room instead. Liana took a place beside him, holding his hand. Except to work, she hadn’t left his side since the morning she’d come to his door. Her insistence on doing what needed to be done, whether or not it was doable, was starting to seep through his pores. He got up in the mornings, he showered, ate, and did all the things people who were alive did. He felt the stirrings of the kind of intention he’d known when Sophie was alive. Perhaps there was life after death after all. Given time.
An older man, simply but professionally dressed, entered through a door at the opposite end of the room. From his modest clothes to his undyed gray hair and neatly trimmed beard, he seemed immune to pretension. He walked toward the sofa and extended a hand directly to Mitch. “I’m Anthony Tremblay,” he said. “But please, just call me Tony.”
“Michel. But most people just say, ‘Mitch.’”
“I’m happy to be able to help, Michel.” Tony said his name perfectly. He grabbed both of Liana’s hands and gave them a light squeeze before pulling a chair from the dining/conference table over in front of the sofa. Mitch wondered how hard it was to navigate all of the usual polite things that people added to welcomes and introductions like “It’s nice to meet you” and “A pleasure to see you again.” Tony seemed to be able to express those sentiments with a modest smile and a firm grip while maintaining the delicate reality of the situation: no one wants a mortician to say how wonderful it is to see you again. Because it isn’t. Not on their turf, anyway.
Tony guided them directly, but sensitively, into a discussion of what he had on hand or would be able to order, showing Mitch pictures of caskets and urns in a binder catalog. He explained the details of each item, describing pillows and linings and exterior finish. He never mentioned prices. Though Liana had said he was giving a considerable discount, it was still money Mitch didn’t have. Especially not since he hadn’t shown up for work in over a week and a half. He hadn’t even called in. Unless his boss took special pity on him and let him come back to work, abandoning his job wasn’t going to go over well with his parole officer either.
Despite there being no prices listed in the binder, he tried to pick what seemed like the least expensive of every option available, saying, “I think I can afford this,” or, “I might be able to make payments on that, if you’ll let me.”
Tony held up a hand. “Don’t worry about the money. Liana and I have already discussed it and we’re covering the entire expense. You just pick what you need for your niece. The two of us will take care of the rest.”
Liana raised her eyebrows and shrugged like she had no idea that she and Tony had already colluded on how to settle accounts. Mitch gave half a smile and returned his attention to the funeral director. He thought about resisting and insisting that he be allowed to contribute something, even if it was just a token payment. It was clear, however, that his girlfriend—he dare not say that aloud for fear of being corrected—and her friend wouldn’t accept anything he offered. Still, he picked what he would have chosen for Sophie had he been expected to foot the bill alone. A modest casket for a viewing and memorial followed by cremation and a simple urn. He imagined himself eventually trying to find someplace where he could spread her ashes. But she hadn’t been enough places in her life for him to think of one that stood out, and he imagined they’d frown on it in a city playground. It didn’t seem right to just walk over to the shore and throw her remains out into an ocean she’d never played in. He would have to work to come up with someplace special. Someplace that would have impressed her had she ever been. He wondered if he could sneak her into a local produce farm with a plum orchard.
“So what’s next?” he said.
“I’ll contact the hospital and see if they’re ready to release Sophie to us.”
“Why wouldn’t they be?”
Tony sighed and straightened up in h
is chair as if the slight bit of extra distance between them might give his next statement time to soften along the way. “Although written results take time to come out, and there’s a backlog for the actual examination... the child fatality review team should have ordered the procedure done right away. Either way, I’ll find out where we stand and we’ll get her here as soon as possible.”
“Right. The autopsy.” Mitch’s shoulders dropped. “I guess we shouldn’t have an open casket then.”
Tony leaned in and rested a hand on his knee. “Don’t worry, son. The Middlesex County pathologists are good at what they do. You won’t be able to tell she’s even been touched. Trust me.”
Mitch wanted to trust him. Tony’s easy manner and calm attitude surrounded him like a blanket, making everything he said sound okay, even when he talked about autopsies and medical examiners. “Can I come with you to pick her up?” Tony swallowed and hesitated for a second. Mitch guessed that no one had ever asked to ride along for a pick-up before.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he finally said. “They’re good people over at the medical examiner’s office, but it’s not a nice place to visit. Let me bring Sophie back here and get her cleaned up for you. You can see her after I’ve had a chance to care for her.”
Mitch shuddered at the thought of what “cleaned up” meant. It was a common phrase he used with his niece. Time to get cleaned up for school. Let’s get you cleaned up for dinner. Bed time—let’s get cleaned up! It was part of a routine, a way to prepare a young child for something that she needed to see coming in order to approach it without struggle. The rituals eased the transition from play to the necessary tasks of day-to-day living. It hurt so bad to use the phrase in such a final setting.
“Okay.”
Tony squeezed his knee again and stood. Mitch and Liana rose along with him. Folding closed his binder and placing it under his arm, he took Mitch’s hand again, shook it, and held on, placing his left hand over their grip. “Don’t worry, Michel. You don’t have to go through any of this alone.” Liana leaned in and wrapped her arm around his waist.
For a minute, he believed them.
October
13
Mitch sat staring at Liana’s laptop computer, searching the job listings on the Internet. He’d tried to return to work at the coffee shop, planning to ask if he could get an increase in hours as well as back on the management track, but, as he expected, his boss had already restaffed his position. The old man had been apologetic and offered to give him a call if something else opened up, but made sure to mention that he couldn’t make any promises. He also didn’t seem to feel like management was a likely track any more. If something eventually opened up, he said, barista was all they’d probably have. Mitch thanked him and said he’d check back. The boss looked like he wanted to say “Don’t bother,” but just smiled and shook Mitch’s hand. On his way out, he caught glimpse of the old man pumping hand sanitizer in his palm, as if grief was catching.
Since then, he’d applied to every café across the city, but there were more people willing to pour coffee than there were shops able to accommodate them. Except for a couple of postings for an “assisted sales representative”—whatever that was—and something that looked like it might be a sidewalk food cart (Love Asian food? Love working outdoors?) it was all the same shit on the job boards as the last time he’d logged on. He stared at the computer screen. Unfilled, unskilled jobs in a college town were typically few, and in this economy they were even fewer. Liana told him she’d talk to Mike and try to help him get on at the grocery store. He’d filled out an application and she took it to her boss, but he was still waiting for her to say whether he’d gotten an interview. There seemed to be developing a limit to how much she could prop him back up. At first, she’d stayed a couple of nights at his house while trying to help put his life back in order. The apartment was as clean as it had ever been, and when she was there it felt almost like a home. But then she went to work and he had to try not to stare at Sophie’s room, imagining what was and wasn’t on the other side of the door he didn’t have courage enough to open. Schrödinger's girl. One afternoon, he’d lost an hour just staring at a piece of yellow construction paper with the squiggly circles and crude smiley faces she’d made him tape to her door to indicate which room was hers. He’d helped her write her name below the face. Those are my letters, she’d told him. My name letters.
Before long, he started staying at Liana’s place. It was both better and worse. He was able to focus, and mornings when he walked out of her bedroom, he didn’t have to face the sign with Sophie’s handwriting on it. But then came the guilt. He was starting to feel good for a little bit each day. And every day that feeling lasted a little longer. Sure, he was coping with his sorrow, but it was something else too. In the evenings, when he and Liana lay in bed snuggling, he felt free. Being held by the woman he loved and believed loved him, he realized that his life was his and no one else’s. Freed from the responsibility thrust on him, without anyone to care for but himself, he had permission to be himself for the first time since his sister had split.
And the guilt of it was crushing him.
He closed the laptop and moved over to the sofa. Liana had a television, but it was an afterthought. No cable, a digital antenna that worked only half the time, and an age of filmy dust on the screen. She listened to music obsessively, and her immaculate record player held the position of most exalted thing in the living room. Under it, a collection of meticulously cared for vinyl and the plug-in for her dual processor lossless audio player. No iPod and lossy, compressed audio for her. He felt intimidated by her record collection. It was broad, but mostly made up of small label and indie bands he’d never heard of. Everything was inside a plastic slip cover and the first three albums he’d pulled out all had silver numbers drawn on the covers: 150/500, 15/100, 13/50. Limited editions that were irreplaceable if he accidentally scratched them. He carefully put everything back the way he’d found it and instead moved on to the bookshelves on the opposite wall.
They bowed under the weight of paperbacks large and small, but commonly available and well-read. Behind the books stacked in front were more arranged in rows. Nothing on that shelf said “worth more than you.” She collected them the way he wished he could, habitually and without regard for subject or genre. He thought back to the last time he’d had time to read. It wasn’t a memory he wanted to revisit. He scanned the shelves looking for one that intrigued him. They didn’t appear to be in any kind of discernible order, but he noticed that slightly more of them were fantasy and science fiction than anything else. Even if he thought to look for a specific title, he wasn’t sure how to find one in the chaos. Liana knew each and every one and he’d seen her get excited, jump up and magically produce titles she owned almost without looking. He randomly pulled one off the shelf and turned to the table of contents. Short stories. Perfect! He settled down on the sofa to begin reading in the silence. Liana had dog-eared one page in the book. He turned to it and began to read a story called “The Horrid Glory of its Wings,” wondering what about that tale had inspired her to deface the book in a way she didn’t any other.
An hour later, Liana interrupted his paralytic trance by bursting in the front door, manic and out of breath. Mitch shamefully wiped at the tears streaking his face and dropped the book on the couch, resolving to ask her what a story was about first before diving in next time. “You’re home ear—”
“Quick! Get your boots on. We’ve got to go.” She moved frantically, tossing his Docs at him as she ran for the bedroom, stripping off her uniform and throwing on jeans and a Chelsea Wolfe T-shirt.
He leaned over and peered at her through the open door. “What’s going on, Li?”
“It’s Tony,” she called from the bedroom. “He won’t say what the deal is, but he told me to listen to the thing that’s all over the news. It’s unreal!”
“What thing? What are you talking about?”
She ca
me rushing out of the bedroom and grabbed his elbow, pulling him up off the sofa. He only had one of his shoes on and it was still untied. “We gotta go! Hurry up!”
Mitch fumbled his way into his other sneaker, Liana practically dragging him out the door as he hopped along trying to get his heel in. “I thought you were working until eight,” he said.
“I am. I was. I told Mike I was taking a personal day. I don’t really have those, but whatever.” She didn’t let go of his hand and continued to drag him down the stairway of her apartment building as he struggled not to trip on his laces and tumble down the stairs. Her car sat idling next to the curb outside. She ran around the front and jumped behind the wheel. Mitch slid into the passenger seat and she was off, tearing out of the lot and pulling into traffic before he could get his door completely shut and seatbelt latched.
Nerves worked up Mitch’s stomach and into his throat, threatening to choke him. If it was a problem Tony had alerted her to, that meant it was a problem involving Sophie. He couldn’t begin to imagine what that could be, but the images floating around in his head made him want to be sick. He had no stamina left for further indignities to be heaped upon his niece. It had been a month and he still hadn’t been able to pick up her body. Tony explained that the backlog at the medical examiner’s office didn’t just effect results, but also procedures. Usually, they moved untimely deaths ahead of “unattended” deaths and children were given first priority, but in this instance, they were taking their time. The delay heaped an additional helping of powerlessness on top of that which Mitch already felt. He couldn’t save his niece and he couldn’t even give her a decent burial because no one would let him have what was left of her. He wanted to move on with his life and get on the other side of everything that was dragging him down. Grief, guilt, loneliness, and despair all sat on his chest like two tons of earth he’d shoveled over himself. Only Liana had extended a hand, offering a way up and out from underneath it all. And so when she said, get in the car, he did without question. When the safety tether goes taut, you follow where it pulls you. He knew that was no way to build a relationship. Eventually, he’d have to cut the line, stand up for himself, and bring something to their romance if he wanted it to last. Right now, though, he was letting the lifeline guide him.
Come to Dust Page 6