Authors: Mila Gray
and steak at the wake, not vol-au-vents and quiches.
He wouldn’t have wanted classical music and hymns.
He would have wanted something uplifting, something
funny, maybe even some ironic Celine Dion.
I tried to argue this, but how could I win against
my mother’s zoned-out zombie face and my father’s
closed door? My dad barked the orders and here we
stand, staring at the flag-draped coffin surrounded by
grotesque-smelling displays of white calla lilies. How can
Riley be in there?, I think as I study the coffin. I still can’t
understand. I keep expecting to see him walking through
the crowd, keep expecting to hear his voice, his laugh.
Every knock on the door – and there have been many
over the last few days – I keep expecting to be him.
My mother is standing beside me. She’s wearing dark
glasses, but I know behind them her eyes are foggy and
dull. She isn’t crying. For the first time in five days she’s
quiet, and that scares me more than the hysterical crying.
How many Valium has she taken?
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On my other side my dad stands rigid in full Dress
Blues, the constellation of stars on his chest blindingly
bright. He must have been up all night polishing them.
His head is held high and his expression is as rigid as his
back is straight, yet when I look closer I see the cracks
starting to appear in the carefully constructed facade:
the quickness with which he swallows, the quiver of his
chin and a trembling bottom lip. He’s barely holding it
together and the realization surprises me, because it means
that I’m the only one out of all of us who isn’t falling
apart, and I wonder why that is,
how
that is, and then I
feel another wave of guilt wash over me.
I haven’t cried at all since that first morning. I keep
wondering if maybe there’s something wrong with me. I
can’t even make myself cry. I’ve lain on my bed for hours
forcing myself to think of Riley, dredging up memories
from way back – of us as kids, of Riley teaching me to
swim, of Riley and me hiding in a closet to evade the
wrath of our father, of Riley spending two hours trying to
pull out a splinter of glass from my foot when I was about
nine, of Riley letting me tag along to watch him and
Kit skateboard, even though it drastically reduced their
level of cool. I’ve spent whole afternoons holding Jo’s
hand, watching her cry, and I’ve felt nothing, just a
strange detachment as though I’m inhabiting the body of
a stranger with no connection to the people around me.
Even now as I stand staring at the stars and stripes
draped over Riley’s coffin, I feel nothing except a weird
emptiness and echoing bewilderment.
Jo is standing beside my mother. Her mother and sis-
ters are with her, comforting her as she cries.
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Finally, I lift my head and scan the dozen marines who
are off to one side, holding their guns at the ready for the
final salute. He’s there. My heart slams into my mouth
and I think for a moment that I’m going to collapse, be-
cause the ground starts shaking beneath my feet. I wasn’t
sure if he would be here. Kit’s dad told me he was home,
that he was going to be here, but he hasn’t answered any
of my phone calls so I wasn’t sure I believed it. But seeing
him now, eyes fixed resolutely ahead, his chin held high
and his back ramrod straight, I finally feel a surge of heat
rocket up my throat and tears start to burn the back of my
eyes.
I fight both the urge to call his name and my instinct,
which is to run to him. Instead, as the chaplain drones on
about noble sacrifice and greater good, I stare at Kit, will-
ing him to look my way. But he doesn’t. He keeps staring
resolutely straight ahead. His jaw tenses, though.
I know he can feel me watching him. So why won’t he
look at me? Why has he been ignoring my calls? What’s
going on?
Kit’s dad told me he was struggling to deal with what
had happened, but what the hell does he think
I’m
doing?
Having an easy time of it? I’ve lost my brother.
I’m torn between wanting to run over there and throw
myself into his arms, to sob and cry and rage against him,
and wanting to race over there and punch him and hit
him and scream at him that I hate him. Because how can
he do this to me? How can he ignore me like this? How
can he not know how much I need him right now? I hate
him so much. And I love him so much. And I know he’s
hurting. But so am I.
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Riley’s commanding officer takes the podium and
starts to speak, but I don’t hear any of it. I can’t concen-
trate on anything. My breathing is so loud in my ears it
mutes everything else and I can’t tear my eyes off Kit.
Finally the time comes to toss earth onto the coffin,
though. It’s the part I’ve been dreading most. Jo and I go
together, our arms gripped tightly around each other. The
soil dribbles through my fingers and the sound it makes
as it hits the top of the coffin – that hollow pitter-patter –
makes me flinch. It’s followed by a dozen ear-splitting
cracks as the marine guard sends a volley up into the sky.
I look over and see Kit pulling the trigger on his rifle
once, twice, three times, his expression set in stone. Jo lets
out a terrible sob as the sound of the volley fades. I can
barely hold her up and someone comes forward to help
me.When I turn around I see my father standing at the
head of the grave, his face carefully arranged into a
blank expression as he stares down at the coffin now half-
obliterated by clods of dirt. Tears brighten his eyes and
his hands are clenched at his sides. I feel an urge to go to
him, to bury myself in his chest and have him hold me, to
hold him, but I can’t seem to make my feet move and I’m
not sure how he’d respond if I did go to him.
My mother is standing in front of the row of white
plastic chairs holding the folded flag from the coffin as
though she’s been handed a joke. She looks completely
lost, unsure what to do, until Didi walks over to her and
puts her arm around her to lead her away.
Someone is talking to me. I glance at them and recog-
nize the someone as Todd. He’s saying something to me,
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but I can’t make out the words properly so I just say
‘thank you’ – my stock reply whenever anyone speaks to
me these days – and turn away. I need to find Kit. I need
to talk to him.
The service is over. Everyone has started disbanding,
scattering between the rows of square gravestones like
ants, heading towards the line of black town cars waiting
at the entrance to the cemetery. I scan the crowd two
times, my eyes frantically flying to the men in uniform,
checking them each off in turn, before finally accepting
that Kit has gone.
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Kit
I could feel Jessa’s eyes on me the whole time, could
sense her trying to get me to turn and look at her. And
what did I do? I ignored her. I kept staring straight ahead,
focusing on the cool steel of my gun locked against my
shoulder, the reassuringly heavy resistance of the trigger
beneath my finger, focusing on anything but Jessa, any-
thing but the coffin, anything but the images crowding at
the edge of my vision trying to get my attention almost as
insistently as Jessa.
At one point I did throw a quick glance her way. When
she and Jo were standing at the graveside I saw her catch
Jo as she stumbled. I wanted to go to her then, to both of
them, and beg forgiveness. I almost dropped my rifle to
the ground and ran to her. I had to fight to stay where I
was, force myself to keep staring into the middle distance
with a blank face.
And even now, with the service coming to an end, I
don’t see how I can go over there and talk to her. How the
hell do I walk past her mother knowing that her son is
dead because of me?
How do I walk past her father know-
ing how much he’s always hated me, how much he
must wish it was me that was dead and not Riley? He
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must have read the report by now. He must know by now
that it was my fault, that I was negligent, that I broke the
rules, and because of that Riley is gone.
Has he told Jessa? I almost hope he has, because I
know I can’t tell her. What could I possibly say? She
asked me to take care of him. She made me promise. And
I failed her.
As soon as the chaplain stops talking, as soon as we fire
off three volleys in a farewell salute and the funeral
guests start to wander back towards the town cars that
are waiting, I shoot a glance in Jessa’s direction and my
heart takes a beating when I see her talking to none other
than Todd. I spin around and start heading away from the
mourners, away from the grave, away from Jessa. All I
can think of is putting some distance between me and
everyone else.
I veer like a drunk towards a large oak tree and duck
behind it, pressing my forehead to the bark, sucking in air
as though it’s going out of fashion and grabbing at the
tree to stay upright. Out of nowhere a sob bursts up my
throat, taking me by surprise. I punch the tree, savouring
the jolt of pain that vibrates up my arm, the flames that
shoot through my hand.
I punch the tree again and again in a fury, and by now
I’m sobbing so hard that my nose is running and every-
thing’s a blur, but it feels good. It feels like release. And
maybe if I keep punching, the pain in my fist will eventu-
ally engulf me completely and cancel out the pain raging
inside. But suddenly, just as I jerk my arm back to throw
another punch, someone catches me around the waist and
hauls me backwards. I try to fight them, kick them off,
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but I’m half exhausted with all the punching and they’re
holding me too tight.
‘Son, it’s OK,’ my dad whispers. His arms are a vice,
and at the sound of his voice I instantly stop fighting and
collapse against him. He holds me up and I just cry. I cry
onto his shoulder just like when I was a kid and he came
to tell me my mom had died.
When all the funeral guests have left and the town cars
have driven off, my dad and I walk back towards the
grave. Ushers are stacking the chairs, dismantling the
podium and carrying it away and picking up the litter.
The flowers surround the graveside like white-dressed
mourners. They look wrong – the kind of flower you’d
see at a grandmother’s funeral.
Riley always said he wanted a huge party if he died.
And maybe that’s why it doesn’t feel as if he’s really
dead, as if this funeral or even this grave is his. But then I
read his name spelled out in a floral display (he would
have laughed at that) and it hits me all over again with
the force of a tornado: he’s dead.
My dad and I stand side by side. Two men with
shovels are hovering at the edge of the grave and I see my
dad gesture at them to give us a minute.
‘What do I do?’ I ask after a minute of silence, staring
down at Riley’s coffin. I look at my dad, feeling tears still
streaming down my face. What I mean to ask is, how do
I get through this
?
I know I’ve done it before, with my
mom, but that was different. I wasn’t to blame. Then I
had cancer to rage against. Now I have only myself to
blame, and I don’t know how to handle it. I look at my
dad.
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‘You need to say goodbye properly,’ he says. ‘He was
your best friend, Kit.’
I frown and look away.
‘I know you’re angry and you’re hurting and you just
want to run away and find some way of burying the pain
– believe me, I know. Why’d you think I was drunk for
six years after your mother died?’ He shakes his head.
‘Don’t make the same mistake as me, Kit. Jessa’s hurting.
So is her family. You need to be there for her, for Jo. I
wasn’t there for you and your sister. I failed your mother.’
He squeezes my shoulder. ‘Don’t fail Riley.’
My eyes burn as though I’ve had acid thrown in them.
‘I don’t know how I can face her,’ I say so quietly I
wonder if he heard me. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘You’ll figure it out,’ my dad says, putting his hand on