We left the church and all the way to the cemetery, Libby twisted a handkerchief in her hands. She would spread it out flat in her lap, then fold it up into a neat square, then wring it out. Finally, I put my hands over hers to still them.
I held an umbrella over her as she walked toward the casket. Snowflakes started to swirl around her booted ankles. When we arrived under the white canopy, she moved to her seat without acknowledging Cass’ mourners. When everyone was assembled, Father Ski started with a prayer and then a simple child’s Bible verse. Then the assembly filed by one by one, dropping pieces of frozen earth on the top of his casket, Libby didn’t move when everyone had walked past. I searched her face but I couldn’t read her eyes behind her glasses. Her hand was full of soil, but she held steady.
Father Ski said, “God is subtle, but He is not malicious.”
A moment after he had made that simple statement, she extended her arm out in front of her, ground the soil through her fingers and laughed. It was anger-filled and must’ve come from somewhere deep within her.
“God is not malicious!” she screamed. “If God is not malicious, why did he do this? Why did he take the life of a small, innocent boy? What could he be to God that was more than what he was to me? God is not malicious! If this is not baleful injustice, I don’t know what is. God has been malevolent from the moment of my conception. Your God is spiteful and cruel!”
People rushed to comfort her, but I waved them off, speaking under my breath to her. “That’s enough, Libby.”
Max moved along her side, assuring me of his assistance.
I nodded my head at the groundskeeper, who lowered the coffin into the grave. When it was below the surface, Libby dropped to her knees and clutched at the side of the hole, as if she could stop its descent with the strength of her will alone.
She tore at the edges of the grave with her bare hands ripping away soil, trying to reach the coffin.
I got on my knees alongside her, pushing the mud back in the hole as easily as she tore it away in clumps. Her fingers clawed away until she caught sight of my hands, now damaged and dirty. Her eyes swung to mine. “You! You dug this hole deeper.” She pummeled my chest with her muddied hands. “I didn’t want it deeper.” She pushed me away and her hands smeared down the front of my once white shirt. “I don’t want Cass in there. Why did you dig this out? Why?” She sullied me with poisoning phrases as she beat on my chest like a crazed woman.
I caught her wrists to steady her and stop her violent assault. I shook her once to get her full attention. “I did what needed to be done. I did it for Cass, and I did it for you. Even when it hurts like hell, you have to do the right thing for the people you love. Pain is a small price to pay for loving. Years ago, you paid that price for my career and let me go. I had gained all and lost myself, while you lost everything, but gained yourself. You taught me this.”
She brought her muddied hands to her face and I pulled her into my chest. Everyone melted away. She cried, and finally it wasn’t with anger, but laced with remorse. I stroked her back while she emptied the bottled-up emotions. I dug out another handkerchief and wiped at her cheeks before I helped her up. She looked down at the coffin, opening her purse and dumping the contents over his grave as a final offering: gum balls, M&M’s, and Skittles pinged and popped over its mahogany surface.
5 p.m.
After Libby’s outburst, she was finally able to grieve, and she huddled in a corner with Ollie, who was taking the loss of Cass as if he was her own brother; with Vicki who thought of him as her own child; with Suzy, Jeanne, and my mother who grieved the loss of their grandchild together. Whenever I tried to approach, she waved me away. I respected her space, weaving my way through the throng of the room.
When the room cleared, I couldn’t locate Libby. I went to the kitchen where my parents were working together at the sink. They looked up from whatever heated exchange they were having.
“You don’t have to clean up, the cleaning service will.”
My father cleared his throat. “We don’t mind. It gives us something to do together. If you don’t think you need us, we’re going to go back to California tomorrow.”
“Unless you’d like us to stay,” my mother chimed in hopefully. When my father gave her a look of warning, she turned back to the sink and let the subject drop.
“Have you seen Libby?”
“She went out the back door awhile ago without a coat,” my father said, “but she promised me she was just going to walk around the house. I thought I heard the front door open.”
“That must have been someone else leaving.” I didn’t bother with a coat. As I went out the back door, I sensed that she was gone. I couldn’t feel her. I jogged around the house, then to the garage. Both cars were still in their spots. I ran back into the house, threw the front door open, yelling her name. We searched the entire house, but she wasn’t here, I couldn’t fathom where she went without a word, but she had vanished from under my ever watchful eye.
34
DEATH SENTENCE
No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.
C.S. Lewis
Libby
Once I staggered outside, I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t choke through the weight of any more strained sentiments or well wishes, even if I knew of their sincerity. Now that he was gone, buried in an icy, unmoving mound, alone and cold, all I wanted was escape. Fresh air soothed my nauseous stomach and my spinning head. I took my coat from the garage, before I sulked off alone down the alleyway. I ventured a trip around the block, but when I met the first intersection, I kept walking north.
It would be light for several more hours. I marched as if the journey would bring me to a destination where the pain ceased. I hiked for a few miles, and then thought to take a taxi. My feet hurt, but I had no inclination to even give a stranger the location where I would huddle and lick my wounds. My cell phone rang incessantly. I turned it off and dumped it in a trash can. I wanted to be alone in my grief, for three days I had shared it, and now I wanted to wallow in it all alone, I wanted to go to my own bed and lie there and pray for death to take me to my son. I knew, intellectually, I wouldn’t die, but I wanted it, in spite of everything that I had to live for, I wanted the kind God, whom Father Ski tried to convince me loved me, to grant me death as his final mercy.
I walked into the street without looking, making the sounds nothing more than muffled chaos to my ears. I ignored the cursing milkman, and the bus driver who laid on his horn, and I continued to walk. I must’ve been walking at a steady pace for several hours by the time I reached Sheridan Road.
I dragged my limbs until my feet were numb and I was certain I would drop into oblivion. I stumbled up the stairs, feeling along the doorframe for the extra key. Then I looked inward and felt along the edges of my heart for a spare memory of my child. I couldn’t focus on his face as tears crowded my vision. I didn’t bother with a light. I didn’t want anyone’s company. I sat down on the sofa in the dark and I cried.
A knock on the door made me push them away and listen. I sat perfectly motionless; hoping whoever it was would disappear.
Then I heard a man’s voice say, “Elizabeth, I saw you go in. Answer the door.” There was a prick of recognition with the voice, but the face wasn’t coming to me. Anyone who knew me well enough to be pounding down my door called me Libby. I sat quietly, hoping whoever it was, would give up and go away. I was sick to death of the media, and their questions, and it could only be one of those lechers who would be callous enough to want an interview now. “Elizabeth, open this door.”
Something compelled me to stumble to the entry. I cracked the door with the chain still in place. “What do you want?”
“Let me in, and I’ll tell you.”
I backed up and unchained the door, a burst of dizziness swept through me, and the world swam before my eyes as I slid down the door into a heap of blackness.
I came awake with a sudden jolt. I was lying on the sofa, and the lights were on. A large figure hovered over me before he spoke. “That was not one of the reactions I anticipated.” He passed me a glass of water and I focused on my father’s face.
“Were you expecting a welcome home party?” I asked wryly.
I scooted into a sitting position. “What are you doing here?”
“I saw the press conference on TV about Cass, and I wanted to see if there was anything I could do. I went to the cemetery, but they wouldn’t let me in.”
“So you’ve been hiding in the bushes? I don’t live here.”
“It’s not like Aidan Palowski’s address is posted on the internet. I figured someone would show up here sooner or later.”
“So you’ve been waiting here for me all day… why?”
“Because I wanted to make sure you were all right.”
I laughed to myself. “I am at the worst place in my life, and you think there’s a possibility that I might be all right? You’re more heartless than I thought.”
He ignored the dig. “I thought you might need me.”
“Need you?”
Seriously
? A burst of rage seeped through me. “I needed you when I was four-years-old and my mother dropped me with strangers all over town, as if I was a puppy to board. I needed you when I was six and wanted to learn how to ride a two-wheeler. I needed you when I was fifteen and my mother was sleeping around. I needed you when I was twenty-two, pregnant, alone and broken-hearted. But I’m twenty-nine years old, and unless you can raise the dead, I don’t need you and your fucking guilty shit in my life right now.”
His arms were resting on his knees, and his head hung between them, his shoulders slumped further. He stared at his loafers for several moments before he raised his head. “I thought I could tell you what I’ve learned about life.”
“I have just lost my only child, and I don’t have the inclination or the energy to deal with you right now. I can’t imagine what you thought to gain by coming here.”
“Life isn’t about the high notes or the low tides. It’s about the day-to-day living and loving. And I know you’re surrounded by people who love you, but maybe they love you too much to be straight with you.”
“You think this is a low tide? This is a fucking tsunami!”
“I thought I could help you straighten out your feelings, maybe explain that losing your son wasn’t any more your fault than not having a father around.” He rose to his feet. “I can see you’re not ready to hear what I have to say.” He put a card on the table as if this were a business meeting. “When you’re ready to hear what I have to say, give me a call.”
I got to my feet and teetered like a weeble and I heard, ‘Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down.’ My mantra: no matter how close I came to falling, I always caught myself before the ultimate tumble. “Don’t wait by the phone,” I bellowed.
The front door swung open and I met Aidan’s concerned face. “Babe, you scared the crap out of me. I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Why didn’t you answer your cell? I would have brought you here, if you wanted to ...” His eyes, so concerned for me, followed mine and he noticed we weren’t alone. “What the hell is he doing here?”
Mr. Tucker looked shell-shocked, as he swallowed.
I looked back and forth between the two men who should have cared about me more than anyone else in the world. “Aidan, you remember my sperm donor. Mr. Tucker, my husband.”
Aidan’s anger eyebrow shot up. “Our son just died. Don’t you think that’s enough turmoil?”
“My only intention was to help Elizabeth.”
“Her name is Libby, but you wouldn’t know that because you haven’t been around for the last thirty years,” Aidan bellowed.
Mr. Tucker’s head shot up from his chest. “I named her Elizabeth, while you were still in diapers, Band-Aid. And from what I’ve been able to piece together, you don’t have a much better record in this game than I do.”
Aidan lunged with his forearm across Mr. Tucker’s throat, pinning him to the living room wall. “In case you didn’t get the live feed, I’m here for her, and she’s more my wife than she’ll ever be your daughter.”
“What the hell is going on up here?” Max was bellowing from the open doorway. “Did someone break in?” He examined the confrontation between Aidan and a man unknown to him.
“Aidan, let him go.” I ground out. “Dr. Maxwell Rodgers, meet Mr. Charles Tucker.”
Max looked confused. “As in your father?”
“Biologically speaking.”
“Does your husband need assistance killing the whoreson?”
I twisted in shock at Max; I had never heard that kind of language or sentiment from him. Aidan stepped next to me and wrapped his hand around my angry fist.
“I didn’t come here to cause more heartache.” Mr. Tucker was straightening his clothes avoiding Max’s angry stance. “I thought El…I mean, Libby, might need help. I can see now she doesn’t. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll get out of your hair.” He scrutinized me and nodded to Aidan before starting for the door.
Max stepped into his path. “Let’s have a few words with you down at my house.”
“You want to talk? Or murder me?”
“I’m a lawyer. Do you think I’d be dumb enough to kill you in my own home?” Max opened the door and gestured. “After you.”
Aidan’s arms came around me. “Babe, I’m sorry.”
I was trapped in his coat and struggled to get out. “I want to go to sleep I’m tired.”
“Let me get you in bed.” He pulled me back to my old bedroom, helped me get out of my clothes, and found me a T-shirt. Aidan took off his coat, and started to pull his shirt out of his slacks. “You had us worried. Don’t run off like that again. How did you get here?”
“I walked.”
“Libby.” he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “That’s a long way, and its cold out.” He used the irritated dad voice. Then he softened. “Please, you’re scaring me.”
I watched him loosen his tie. “What are you doing?”
“I’m getting undressed, so we can go to sleep. I’m beat.”
“I came here because I wanted to be alone for awhile.”
“Libby, please?”
“Please go home.”
“Wherever you are is my home,” he said somberly.