Authors: Kimball Lee
“Of course. Are you alright Miss Stuart?” His voice sounded concerned, “I can put you in the suite next to Mr. Perrin.”
“No, I don’t want to see any one; I just need a room, please.”
He gave Emily a questioning look, “Certainly, something on a lower floor then, whatever you need, just pick up the phone.”
We settled into a two bedroom suite, Emily had my cell phone, she’d been answering all my calls, informing those close to me of what’d happened.
“Sit down, take a Xanax,” she said, “there are things you need to know. John’s parents have been calling; the police contacted them when they couldn’t reach you. The old man is inhuman, as you know, Rob sent them a Cease and Desist Order, so you won’t have to deal with them ever again. But, there was a mix up, the police we’re confused as to what to do and when the coroner was done with… his body, his father had him sent to the cheapest funeral home he could find to be cremated.”
I tried to speak, to rage, but my voice had left me, I could barely squeak out a word and wouldn’t be able to for days. Emily would be my voice now.
“I want to see John,” I wrote on a pad of paper. “Don’t let them come here, please. His parents, I don’t want to see them.”
“They’re not coming, Cate, you know they wouldn’t put themselves out or spend the money. And there’s the restraining order. The mother is pretty torn up but she won’t go against her husband, it’s all a nightmare. We can go to the funeral home first thing tomorrow, as soon as they open in the morning.”
***
A car from the hotel drove us to the address Emily gave them, it seemed to take forever and when we pulled into an abandoned strip mall on the outskirts of town I was sure there must be a mistake. There was a sign in one window that said,
Affordable Funeral Home
. Inside there were shelves of cremation urns, two cheap looking caskets and a pine box large enough to hold a body. I looked at Emily and her face registered the horror I felt.
A bedraggled woman greeted us and said, “You must be here for John Foster, he won’t be done ‘til tomorrow, you might take a look at the urn his family chose, no offense but I wouldn’t bury a dog in it.”
I opened my mouth in vain, wanting to shout but nothing came out.
“She’d hoped to maybe see him one last time, just to touch his hair…”
“Too late for that, we we’re told to go ahead with the cremation, guess I should’ve thought to get you a lock of hair, but you know he’d been dead several days when they found him.”
I looked at Emily shocked that she hadn’t told me that; she held my hand and squeezed it, guided me to a chair and had me sit down.
“I’d like to see the urn that was chosen please,” she said calmly and the woman went to fetch it. Emily squatted beside me and said, “Let’s just do this; pick an urn, there’ll be hell to pay when Rob deals with all these idiots. I know you wanted to see him, but let’s get through this, are you with me?”
I nodded my head, just a slight gesture, all I could manage.
The funeral home woman returned and placed a maroon plastic box on the table; it was much like a Tupperware container. “How’s that for a final resting place?” she asked, shaking her head.
We picked a natural wood urn, earthy and beautifully carved and arranged to pick up his ashes the next day. On the way to the hotel I wrote a long note and handed it to Emily.
“Okay,” she said, “but I’m going with you, you can’t even speak.” I shook my head no, but she nodded emphatically, held a finger to her lips and said, “Hush, now!”
I intended to let Emily go to high limit and give my request to Mark but I decided to go with her. We located him and Emily asked if it would be possible to have a minister pay a visit to our suite tomorrow afternoon. He said of course without raising an eyebrow. I reached in my purse and handed Mark my lock box key and pantomimed smoking a cigarette and drinking a drink.
He motioned for the cocktail server, told her, “Vodka martini, no olives and menthol lights.” He looked at Emily and she said, “The same.”
He motioned for us to follow him, seated us in a small room, placed the box on a table and left. I opened it and pushed it toward Emily.
She picked up stacks of money and looked like a deer caught in headlights, “Is this stolen, is that why you left John?”
I shook my head, took out the pad and pen and wrote about Drew, how we won it with his money and had insisted that I take it and then I’d won even more.
“This must be a half million dollars or more!”
I nodded my head, took out fifty thousand and locked the box.
“Are you out of your mind, you’re going to gamble now?”
I handed her half the money and as she started to protest, I smacked my hand hard on the table and gave her a ‘
not one more word
’ look. We settled in front of two twenty-five dollar machines and I wanted to laugh at her shaking hand as we clinked our martini glasses together. We threw our drinks back and ordered more and when her machine hit the magic bow tie she jumped up screaming before it had time to make an offer.
She won seventeen hundred dollars and was dancing around the room.
Someone slipped into the chair next to me and said, “You didn’t want to see me?”
Drew smiled and those huge black eyes made me want to cry and tell him about John. I finished my second martini and as the server handed me another, he asked her, “How many has she had?”
“Three,” she said.
He took the drink for himself and handed me a bottle of water from her tray.
“What’s happened, Cate?”
I blinked back tears, lit a cigarette and couldn’t care less when the bow tie hit.
“No voice,” I mouthed as the machine made offers and I absentmindedly hit ‘try again’.
Emily sat down and I motioned for them to introduce themselves, I smoked and hit the ‘try again’ button until the final offer said, “Twenty four thousand dollars. Boy you’re a winner!” Emily was going wild and I just sat there looking at Drew, I stubbed my cigarette out, took his from his mouth and smoked it.
“Your husband?” I nodded my head and he asked, “Divorce?”
I looked into those bottomless eyes and shook my head.
He stared for a minute and then said, “Fuck.”
As the attendants and guard buzzed around my machine, I wrote on the pad of paper, “Lucky at slots, unlucky in love.”
The three of us gambled and drank and it seemed I couldn’t lose, when I stood up to leave I had about a hundred forty thousand to add to the lock box.
Emily won fifteen thousand and handed it to me; I shook my head, and walked to the elevator. She argued and I continued shake my head until she separated her winnings from the money I gave her and stuffed that into my purse.
“I’ll keep what I won, and shut up, I’m glad you can’t talk!”
Drew walked with us to the elevator and asked what our plans were; Emily told him what I’d written on the pad earlier. When the urn was delivered tomorrow a minister would come to the suite and say some words over it, a prayer for John’s soul, then we’d catch a flight to L.A., drive out to the Santa Monica Pier, sprinkle his ashes in the ocean and fly home.
“Are you flying on the casino’s jet?”
“No,” she said, “Southwest.”
“No way,” he said. “Airport security and an urn full of ashes? You’ll fly back with me and I’ll drive you out to the pier, then my jet can take you home.”
Emily started to protest but I just stepped in the elevator and as the doors were closing Drew put a hand out to stop them and said, “Call me tomorrow when you’re ready to leave.”
As soon as we were in the suite McKay called and he couldn’t believe what Emily was telling him, he asked her to hand me the phone. I held it to my ear; my voice was coming back although it made my head feel as if it would explode to push out any sound.
“Cate, I’m not sure what to say, words can’t make it better and I don’t want to make it worse. I want you to let me come to Texas and get you as soon as you’re back. Don’t say no, you’re going to be miserable wherever you are, at least I can watch over you. I’ll be in San Antonio tomorrow night at
La Mansion
on the River Walk, call me when you get home, if I don’t hear from you I’ll just come and get you. Are you there, Cate?”
“Yes,” I struggled to say, handed the phone to Emily, walked to my bedroom dropping my clothes as I went, crawled into bed and buried my sobs in the pillow.
When my eyes opened in the morning the bedside clock said six twenty-four. I rolled over, flipped to the cool side of the pillow, tried to go back to sleep. Finally, I opened a Diet Coke, stared out at the Strip, then emptied my purse on the coffee table. I inhaled the shirt and put it away from me to keep from falling off the edge I studied John’s wedding ring, the words inside, “John and Catey forever.” I opened his wallet; it was nearly empty, only his driver’s license, social security card, a picture of me at our wedding and a few dollars. I scrolled through his phone and there were only three numbers, mine, his parents, and Jimmy, who I assumed was his lawyer friend in Los Angeles, although there was no last name. Only three numbers, how odd. I dialed Jimmy’s number and got the same out of service recording that I’d been getting from John’s number for the past three months.
Jimmy, Jimmy
, what was his last name?
***
Rob and Emily walked with me into the bar at
La Mansion
; my parents sat at a table with McKay. We’d come straight from the airport and although the carriage house was only a few blocks away, I had no intention of going back there. We all embraced, ordered drinks, I felt them watching me but I didn’t care. Let them see me alive, that I’d survived yet again, I would go with McKay, which should satisfy everyone. No matter what I wanted, I would do the right thing.
In his hotel room I dropped my clothes, stepped into the tub, turned on the water. It was cold as it rose around me, he bent down and adjusted the temperature. When it was warm he bathed me with a sponge and some fragrant gel. When I got out of the tub he dried me, left and returned with one of his t-shirts. He dressed me in it and tucked me into bed then sat on the balcony overlooking the river as I drifted off to sleep. In the night I woke, he was on the far side of the bed; I curled myself against his broad back. He turned and enveloped me in his arms and we returned to dreams we wouldn’t remember.
In the morning I woke to the sound of McKay ordering room service coffee, I turned toward the clock, it was six twenty-four.
Chapter Twenty Four
We dove into remodeling his condo as soon as were back to Destin. I needed the busy-ness of it, the picking and choosing of materials, the last minute moving of walls. The constant decision making— this glass tile, that marble, trim, hardware, pecky cypress, knotty alder. Only the best craftsmen to build doors and cabinets and bookshelves by hand. A blacksmith to fashion hinges and latches, light fixtures and fireplace screens and handrails. A pair of men were brought from Italy to apply and polish layers of Venetian plaster to the walls and on and on.
I was an exacting task master, down the smallest details, nothing happened unless I approved it. McKay was content; no amount of money was spared to turn his home into my dream house, a place I’d never want to leave.
We’d begun shopping for furniture and he suggested we drive out to Grayton Beach to look at art. We stopped at the Studio Gallery, picked several paintings and drove to Seaside for lunch.
“Are you starving? I’d like to show you something first.”
“Alright,” I said, “I’m interested.”
It was a late autumn day and storm clouds gathered over the Gulf, the first drops of rain pelted the sand as he unlocked the door to a grand Gulf front house and we stepped inside.
“Oh wow! Who lives here, is anyone home?” I asked, it was a house I might have built and furnished just for myself.
“No, not right now, come upstairs and see the view, it’s stunning.”
The rooms were large and high ceilinged, the main living area on the second floor had wall to wall French doors that were at least twelve feet tall. A deep, wide porch extended out over the dunes facing the Gulf and was furnished as beautifully as the living room. I walked to the railing, with the wind whipping my hair and the rain flying sideways stinging as I stared out to the body of water that had always been a part of me.
“It’s incomparable,” I said, turning to ask again, who owned this splendid house and he was holding an open ring box, his face hopeful.
“Incomparable,” he said. “Like you, Cate,” and he asked if I would marry him.
“I’m not what you need,” I said, as he led me out of the storm, slipped the ring on my finger and held me in his arms.
“You’re all I want,” he said.
“Whose house is this?”
“Ours,” he said, and there was such trust in his voice.
“But, who lives here?”
“We will if you want to, I can sell the condo, or give it to my kids. You deserve to be happy and I’m happy as long as I’m with you.”
“I don’t know what to say,” I said, my mind reeling.
“Let go finally and let me take care of you.”
I looked at the ring, it was dazzling, a huge, cushion cut, impossible to turn down ring.
“Did you pick this yourself?”
He nodded and it was such a dear, ‘I hope you’re pleased’ gesture that my heart melted a little.
“No one lives here now?” I asked.
“No.” he said quietly.
I took his hand and led him into the bedroom, pulled his mouth to mine and kissed him just like I had when we stood by the Jeep a year before. His hands got lost in my hair, and as he kissed me back I felt other parts of my body melting and I realized how cold I’d been for so long, frozen to the core since the day I left John.
We made love slowly, “I want to see you,” he said, and when I stood naked before him, “You’re Venus.”
I was shy with him, the man who’d been my friend, I fumbled with the buttons of his shirt, caught my breath at his muscular, athletic body. I undid the belt and button of his pants and my hands shook so that he steadied them with his. We laughed self-consciously, then lay in bed clinging to each other. Sex seemed like a forgotten gift, as if we’d been too long away from the attentions of a lover. He was slow and gentle at first and then when he entered me and I was burning hot our movements became wild and rhythmic and as I cried out and felt that I was falling, falling, he followed me willingly.
We lay still together finally and he talked, about the house, about what our lives would be, the heart-mending joy that lay ahead. I was glad he couldn’t see my face and know that I’d imagined John as we made love, I told him I needed time to think, it was too soon to commit. He understood, he wanted to be selfish and demand an answer but if he could at least have me with him every day, in his life and bed, it would be enough for a while.
I told him not to buy the house if it depended on me living in it, what if it didn’t work out? Of course he’d bought it already, to hold and sell later if I didn’t want it, we could move in right away and drive into Destin during the day to finish the condo. It would keep us from living in the midst of a construction site.
“Change the furniture, buy new paintings to suit you, do whatever you like to make it your own. Christmas is around the corner, let’s invite our families and celebrate, let’s go all out and have the real deal,” he said and his smile had never been more hopelessly enchanting.
On the drive back to Destin I called Mother and Daddy and the sisters and Emily, told them I might be engaged, they’d better come for Christmas and help me make up my mind. They were all so excited, I put each person on speaker phone and they welcomed McKay to the family and made plans for the trip. McKay called his boys and they would join us as well. The thought crossed my mind that my loved ones were never as excited about John Foster. Then again, maybe he and I had been so wrapped up in our own little world that there wasn’t room for even one more.
The night before our families arrived for Christmas I had martinis ready when McKay walked in the house. He hugged me to him and we toasted to only good things happening and that we could all put our heads together and come up with the perfect name for the new house over the weekend.
We laughed and agreed and I said, “McKay, my mother is bringing some old home movies she and the sisters put on DVD, I haven’t seen them since… since we lost Brooks and Henry. You’ve been great about not pushing me to talk about things… about their deaths before I was ready. The family will be here and so will the dead in stories and memory, I want to tell you what happened.”
He sat at the other end of the sofa from me, close at hand but with space between us.
I’d been staying away from the bottle of Xanax, but I opened it and shook one into my hand, “I have to have this,” I said, and then I began.
“Brooks was so good at everything he put his mind and hands to. He was moved ahead in school twice; he played soccer, tennis and basketball and won dozens of trophies. When he was twelve he was given an IQ test, it was 186, genius. He finished high school at sixteen and we didn’t want him to go far away since he was so young. We argued with him about that and persuaded him to do his first year in Texas; he enrolled at Rice University and moved into a dorm with a roommate. When he came home for Christmas, he was drinking around the house which was unusual, he wouldn’t even be seventeen until January fifth. I ignored the drinking and other signs I suppose. We had a big family Christmas with all the cousins, he was the only boy, you know, my parents had three girls and my sisters each had three girls.
We went snow skiing after Christmas; he brought a couple of friends along so we could celebrate his birthday early. The day before he went back to school Henry was busy at his office and I was involved with some social thing, I can’t remember what. Brooks was standing by the door as I rushed out, I was late and he said, “Goodbye, Mom.” Maybe if I had talked to him before he left that day but I didn’t, I was in a hurry.”
“He went back to Houston, bought a shotgun at ten thirty at night; the salesman at Walmart
said he was happy, that he said he was going hunting with his grandfather. He drove his car into an empty lot near his dorm, left the car door open so someone would find him afterward. He wrote a note and taped it to the leg of his pants so it wouldn’t blow away; he knelt over the gun with the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger.”
Tears poured down my face and my voice was hoarse and raw as I spoke. McKay reached out for me but I shook my head and went on with the story.
“I never saw the note, Henry told me it was… blood spattered, and I shouldn’t see it. It said that he was sorry to hurt us but he didn’t feel like he belonged here on Earth. That he loved all his family and that he wanted to be cremated. Henry said he must have thought it all out, he’d done it in such a way to cause the fewest problems for anyone, not in his dorm room or car but kneeling in the grass. A security guard found him in the early morning. So there it is, my son took his own life, I don’t know where I failed him but I did, I must have. He turned seventeen that day and had everything in the world ahead of him.”
“So nothing was ever the same between Henry and me, grief is such a solitary thing. We couldn’t find our way out of it, we’d gotten so up tangled in guilt. Henry had always been able to fix any problem, but there it was, a boy who chose death and the two of us left behind, all unfixable. We lived under the same roof but we became strangers. When we finally went looking for each other the timing was just off. Henry died of a heart attack six months and eleven days later while driving to his office; he was just a few blocks from home. A lady in the car behind him said he never hit the brakes, just slumped over and the car slowed and veered into a fence.”
“Our minister told us that the belief that suicide is the unforgivable sin is untrue, it’s nowhere in the Bible, it’s just some bullshit superstition. Two men in the Bible took their own lives, Sampson and King Saul, both men of God. That gave us some comfort, even though the logical part of your brain says a loving God would not condemn a confused boy, its hell that there are no concrete answers to the first and last questions a parent ever asks, “Where is he, is he alright?” And my guilt is endless, what did I do or not do? I was the primary caregiver, I must have failed him somehow.”
“Brooks never gave us a bit of trouble, anything he put his hand to, flourished. There was one thing, a period of time when he was about twelve, he questioned life and death and asked what it all meant. What did it matter, he wondered, if a person did tremendous, life altering things when everything in existence was temporary? Mankind would eventually die out and the earth would burn to nothingness, there would only be the void. I took him to a therapist and she said he asked questions at the beginning of his life that were meant to be pondered at the end. Eventually he seemed to move past those thoughts and I was glad, I couldn’t imagine that there might be a flaw in my fairytale, so I let it go.”
“I think he must hate me because I can’t dream of him, not once, not one blessed dream. Any happiness for me is fleeting, don’t you see? To live to old age knowing that if I’d done this or hadn’t done that, he might have lived. Of all things in the world, regret is the hardest to live with.”
He pulled me to him and held me as if he, too, wanted to save me from the truth of my life.
“Cate, my love, I wish I could change it all for you, I can’t for one second imagine your pain, losing a child, I see a certain look in your eyes and that alone is like a knife in my heart. My father was a Methodist minister; did I ever tell you that? My older brother killed himself after finishing his last college exam. We never suspected that anything was wrong and my Dad never got over it, he was a servant of God, why couldn’t he save his own son? He drank himself to death over the next few years. My mother went on with her life for the rest of us. A week after my brother died the results came in the mail for his exams, he got perfect scores on all of them. His death never made any sense, we couldn’t comprehend what irrational thoughts brought him to a place so narrow he couldn’t get past it. We grieved and never forgot and never stopped loving him, but there just wasn’t an answer.”