Harder (6 page)

As though he’d like to tear the hug off them, throw it on the ground, step on it.

Look away
.

Coffin again. I burp, taste vomit, wobble a little on my heels, and stagger, prompting me to reach out to steady myself.

White satin lining, cool against my skin.

I remember reading that funeral homes charge the grieving a fortune for stuff like satin linings and urns to put the ashes in, and you don’t get any choice because it’s not like they’ll let you turn up with a reusable Ziploc tote and say
Fill ’er up
.

Everything costs money. West’s grandma is living on Social Security and her dead husband’s medical benefits from a union job he had with the railroad. If she didn’t own her house outright, she wouldn’t be able to get by. As it is, Michelle’s been giving her money for groceries.

Michelle “borrows” about five hundred bucks a month from West, sometimes more. She’s not working since Wyatt got killed. This dusty pink carpet, the tasteful hush, the rows of side tables full of flowers—West is paying for it. Paying to embalm the man whose fists crashed into his face.

I look at the corpse again, because that’s all he is now, a corpse. I stare at his face until I can see the makeup—mascara on his lashes, creamy foundation, blush.

Not West. Just some asshole who donated the sperm.

I’m glad he’s dead.

The man who’s been talking to West’s mom touches his wife’s elbow and leans down to say something in her ear. She lets go of West finally, smiling, nodding.

They say their goodbyes and move away.

West glances at me. Cuts to the coffin. Mumbles, “Stay with my mom.”

He walks away.

Damn him.

Damn him for lying to me, damn him for not talking to me, and damn him for pretending there was ever someone else.

There was just West, here, convincing himself he could never come back to me. That there wouldn’t ever be a way for us to be together again.

West deciding I’d be better off if he let me go.

What’s she look like?
I’d asked him.
Does she make you laugh? Do you love her?

No reply.

I spent a day fuming, analyzing, talking, drinking, and came back at him with
Do her knees go weak when you kiss her? Does she smile when you fuck her? Does she say your name?

I was drunk and bold that night. Righteous, shouting.

West hung up on me.

My best friend, Bridget, had to pry the phone from my hand, because I was shaking with anger. I didn’t feel the tears until she wiped them away.

I study his retreating back, his stifled shoulders moving through the room. Moving away from me.

I understand him better than anyone alive. I just don’t know what the fuck to
do
about him.

West’s grandma liberates me.

She whispers, “Go on,” and takes Michelle’s arm.

I weave between the rows of chairs set up for the service
in half an hour, out of the room and down the broad main hallway of the funeral home, with its fussy old-fashioned couches and its wall art no one could ever possibly object to—mostly shepherdesses and cows, with a seascape thrown in for good measure.

West is nowhere in sight. He must have gone outside to smoke.

Near the exit doors, I see the man who’d been talking to West’s mom by the coffin. I start to pass him, and he says, “You’re Caroline, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

He extends a hand. “Evan Tomlinson. May I speak with you for a moment?”

Tomlinson.
Dr
. Tomlinson. West calls him Dr. T.

This is the man who paid for West to go to Putnam. “Of course.”

From the viewing room where West’s dad is, I hear a door slam. Someone going outside? They’d have to use the big set of double doors by the coffin. The door scrapes open and slams shut again.

“I was surprised to find you here,” Dr. Tomlinson says. “I understood West had cut all his ties to Putnam.”

“He’s tried.”

He sinks his hands into his trouser pockets. His eyes flick across my face, seeking. I guess he finds whatever he’s after, because he says, “I’m going to cut right to the chase. West Leavitt making wood chips is a waste of a life. It’s a waste of intelligence, and we don’t have so much intelligence to spare in this world that I like seeing it thrown away. I’ve been trying to get him back to Putnam, and I’m hoping you can help.”

Yes
.

Yes, I can help
.

Yes, yes, yes
.

“What did you have in mind?”

“As an alumnus and a major donor, I’ve been offered the opportunity to recommend a student to the college for a legacy scholarship. It’s an attractive deal—tuition and board are covered, and all West would have to demonstrate is an ability to benefit.”

So far, so good. I can’t think of anyone with greater ability to benefit from a Putnam education than West.

“If you control a legacy scholarship, why didn’t you recommend West for that before?” I ask. “Instead of paying his tuition and everything yourself?”

“This is a new thing I’ve been developing with the financial aid office since I sent West to Putnam. I think it was my sponsoring him as a student there that got their attention.”

“I see. And have you mentioned this to West?”

“I have. He turned me down. He wouldn’t say why.”

“When did you ask him?”

“Just the other week. Before his father …” He loops his hand in the air, encompassing everything surrounding us.

… got shot
.

… ended up here
.

“Did you mention his sister when you made this offer?”

“No.”

“He won’t leave her behind.”

“He’s too young to be responsible for that girl.”

I shake my head, unwilling to agree or disagree. Sure, West is too young, but what does that mean anyway? He’s the age he is. He’s the person he is. He’s been responsible for his sister a long time, and he’s going to take care of her regardless of what Dr. T or I think. Regardless of what
anyone
thinks.

“Dr. Tomlinson—”

Just then, the funeral director comes through the front door. He’s red-faced, and he reeks of panic. “Where’s Mrs. Leavitt?”

“She was in the viewing room.”

“She isn’t now. Could you do me a favor and look in the bathroom? It’s important that I find her.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“There’s a … some unpleasantness in the parking lot, and if anyone can put a stop to it …”

I’m already on my way out. I’m familiar with West and unpleasantness. He has a bad habit of swinging instead of thinking. I have a bad habit of walking into his punches.

Outside, I find a crowd bunched tight between two parallel rows of cars. I duck and weave like an eel to get a view of the action, and then I’m not sure what I’m looking at.

West has both arms out, holding his uncle Jack apart from a man I don’t know. “No respect!” his uncle is shouting. “No excuse for this fucker!”

The guy being yelled at has a shaved head. He’s built like a brick wall in a suit. I clue in to his identity when he flinches at the word
killer
.

Bo.

There are others shouting, too, adding to the chorus of voices. Frankie’s in the crowd behind him, white-faced, silent.

“Calm down,” West says to his uncle.

Jack is Joan’s son—West’s dad’s brother. He doesn’t work. I overheard his wife, Stephanie, telling West’s aunt Laura that she put the kids to bed last night and then spent two hours driving around looking for him so she could drag him home and dry him out for the funeral.

He sounds like he’s plenty wet now, though. “I’ll fucking calm
down
when that fucktard is gone from my brother’s fucking funeral!”

“He came to pay his respects.”

“He should be in jail!”

“That’s for the police to decide.”

“He shot Wyatt, West! Cold fucking blood! I can’t believe you’re taking his side. Fucking
staying
with him, driving his truck around—it disgusts me.”

I’m close enough now to smell the liquor fumes coming off Jack. I search for West’s mom, knowing she and Bo are the two poles of all this conflict. Two points in a triangle whose third point has been removed.

When I find her, that’s when I know this situation is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

I once went out after a storm with my dad and saw a downed telephone pole in the road, the severed end of a power line showering electricity into the dark night. That’s what West’s mom’s eyes are like. That much energy, loose and sparking. Lacking only a glancing touch to cause damage beyond measure.

“You got some nerve, coming here,” Michelle says. She jerks her chin up. For one frozen instant, I see a strong resemblance to West. It’s in her jaw. In the fire in her eyes. “After what you did?”

Her voice is rising.

“After what you said to me, what you promised, and now you’re disrupting his funeral? His
fucking
funeral, Bo! You take him from me and you can’t leave me that much?”

She’s stalking toward him now, warming up. Bo’s protests are too quiet to affect her gathering momentum. Her curses fall on him like rain. Dark and cold.

They pelt him, and he squares his shoulders. Looks into the distance, past her. It’s not until she tries to slap him that he lays a hand on her, but one hand is all it takes.

She tries to wrench her arm away, shouts in pain when she fails, and bloodlust ripples through the crowd, a tangible wave of ugly impulse.

I want to keep it from getting any worse, but no one I see has a stake in stopping this. Laura is so nonconfrontational, it’s a shock her spine hasn’t dissolved. I’d hoped Stephanie could be counted on to prevent her husband from behaving like a jackass, but the excitement in her eyes says she loves this. Heather’s not someone to be counted on. The cousins are strangers to me. The funeral home director is missing.

My gaze collides with West’s. He mouths the word
Frankie
.

The least I can do.

I look for the fastest way to get to her. It’s a straight line, so I cut through the empty space between Bo and West, ducking under West’s outstretched arms.

“Come with me,” I say. “We have to find your grandma.”

Her eyes are on Bo. “He shouldn’t be here.”

“I know. Come on.”

I pull at her arm, and she falls against my side. We zip indoors, casing the joint for Joan. Family room, bathroom, hallway, coffin room. We find her alone in an empty visitation room. When I tell her what’s going on, she just sits there, gazing at a lit cross in a niche.

“Please,” I beg.

She meets my eyes, and her gaze tells me she’s no stranger to this kind of thing. The people out there are her family. She made them with her body, watched them make others, weathered years’ worth of this behavior.

Drinking problems, health problems, abuse, alienation, violence, death.

I wish she’d at least had a chance to bury her no-good son with some dignity, but I want her to step in and help West even more.

“He’s on his own out there,” I say.

She closes her eyes. Sighs.

Gets to her feet.

When she walks across the threshold, I want to go with her, but I’m worried about Frankie. I can’t protect her and be with West both.

It’s killing me not to know what’s happening to him.

“Will you stay here?” I ask.

She bites her lip. Shakes her head.

“I’m supposed to keep you out of trouble, but your brother …”

Is out there
.

Is the only thing I care about anymore
.

“You really love him, huh?” she says.

I feel the tears coming up, but I take a deep breath and swallow them back down. “Yeah.”

“I won’t come all the way out,” she says. “I’ll stay in the doorway, so I can see what’s going on.”

“Good enough.”

We hustle toward the front of the funeral parlor. I’m halfway down the hall when she takes my elbow. “Caroline?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry.”

Her apology rings in my ears as I hurry away.

Sorry
. As if this is her fault.

I hear sirens in the distance. Did the funeral director call the police? I think he must have, and it feels like overkill until I step through the door and into a disaster.

I see a man in a suit jacket throwing a punch. A woman teetering on high-heels, bent double. I hear a high-pitched whistle, the smack of bone against bone.

I watch a stranger head butt another stranger, the spray of blood the single most repulsive sight I’ve ever witnessed.

This is a brawl,
I think.
This is what a brawl looks like
.

The chaos is random, not coordinated like in a movie, and I can’t locate West, can’t even penetrate the first layer of heaving bodies, which is hard for me to understand because there aren’t a hundred people in this parking lot. There are … twenty? Twenty-five? I should be able to get to the middle of them.

I try, but my instinct for self-preservation is too healthy. Every time a hip or fist or elbow comes at me, I jerk back.

Then suddenly the melee breaks open and I see West’s mom and Bo. He’s got his arms around her from behind. She’s completely wild in his grip, shouting obscenities, trying to break loose. She looks like the madwoman in the attic, her hair wild, voice rough, mascara streaking down her cheeks.

I glance toward the entrance and locate Frankie where she said she would be. Seeing this.

I’m sorry, too, Franks
.

Bo’s trying to get Michelle out of the middle of the tumult. West’s grandma is helping, I realize—she’s the one who cleared the path, the one whose shrill whistle keeps cutting through the noise—and West is holding the crowd off Bo’s back.

He shoves someone. Throws a punch.

He takes a hit to his cheek, his head snapping back, and then I’m running right for him. Sprinting toward West as the air starts to flash and bleed red.

The screams of the sirens split the sky.