Ink (17 page)

“Jason.”

Dad, come back. Don’t stay in that white room.

“Jason.”
 

This time, the word was little more than a gasping breath.

Jason's eyes snapped open. The heart monitor beeped chaos, and his father’s hand clutched his chest. His eyes rolled wildly in his sockets, his feet danced under the sheet, and he held out one hand toward Jason. His eyes were

scared, he’s scared

cloudy and filled with pain. A strange huffing noise emerged from his throat, a strangled cry for help. His mouth moved as if he wanted to speak, then his eyes
stopped
. They fixed on Jason’s, and a growl spilled out of his mouth, a growl with words underneath, but they were unintelligible and even more horrible because of it.

“Oh, God, Dad.” Jason jumped up from the chair and moved to the bed.

His father reached out one hand, grabbed Jason’s arm, his left arm, and squeezed. His fingers dug in like claws. “I saw,” he forced out with a thick voice as if he spoke around a mouthful of sand and shells.

He’s speaking through the sunset
, Jason thought and knew the words made no sense, yet they were true. Then his father’s eyes rolled up until only the whites were visible, his mouth opening in a silent circle of pain.

No more words, no more sunsets.

Several people rushed into the room, and Jason stepped back from the bed. He had a chance to see his mother’s empty chair before a nurse propelled him out into the hallway. Short, clipped voices followed him out, a strange, controlled routine that sent dread into his heart as he stood against the wall, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

This isn’t a sunset dream anymore. This is real, and my father is dying in that room. That white room. And they don’t know. They don’t know about the things in that room.

A sensible voice piped up in his head.
Shut up and wake up. There is no white room. This is the hospital, and your father is having another heart attack.

A nurse raced by, pushing a cart into the room—an evil-looking thing, with knobs and paddles and plastic-wrapped syringes. Jason wanted to walk away; fear held him immobile. The heart monitor stopped its frantic chirp, and the sound became one long tone. Flatline. It meant his father was—

Lost in the white room.

“Clear.”

A male voice, gruff and practiced. An odd, jumping noise. The smell of static heat. The monitor droned on without pause.

Lost and gone.

“Clear.”

What did you do?

His father’s question. Like an accusation. The monitor went on and on. Muffled voices, then the same male voice.

“One more time. Clear.”

Come on, Dad. You can do this.

Tears burned in Jason’s eyes. His father’s traitorous heart had abandoned ship. The double doors swung open at the end of the hallway, and his mother walked through with two cups of coffee in hand. She stopped five feet away, locked eyes with Jason, then her mouth dropped open in a silent O. The coffee cups in her hand tipped forward in slow motion, landing on the floor with a liquid thud. Coffee sprayed out in all directions; the smell cut through the antiseptic hospital stink.

The heart monitor droned on, still that steady

flatline

single tone.

His mother looked down at the coffee puddled around her feet and stepped over it as her mouth closed. Her chest rose and fell as she took a deep breath.

She knows. She’s steeling herself for the news. It’s that sad, sure knowledge when the phone rings in the middle of the night. Nothing you can do but hold yourself tight and wait for it all to be over.

Someone turned off the heart monitor. Hushed, matter-of-fact voices filled the ominous silence. His mother stepped forward again. Once, then twice, and when a nurse came back out of the room with a grim expression on her face, a low wail emerged from her lips. Jason rushed over and grabbed her before she sagged to the floor.

“No,” she said and shook her head. “No, oh, no.”

The nurse walked over to them, and his mother held her hands out in front of her as if she could push the nurse away, push away the news, and pretend for just a little while longer. Her hands dropped, her shoulders shaking as she cried silent tears in his arms. Jason held her close, trying to forget the look in his father’s wild eyes before the chaos started.

Didn’t you read the fine print?

9

Jason didn’t like the funeral director, a prim, dour-faced man named Edward Vaughn, on sight. He didn’t like his prissy way of speaking or the way he rubbed his right earlobe from time to time. Mr. Vaughn ushered Jason, his mother and brothers into a room with thick, dark carpet and pale walls. The dark coffin at the far end of the room gleamed under the lights. The scent of several large floral arrangements masked the stink of the funeral home, but it lingered underneath—the sharp, chemical smell of suppressed decay.

His mother, her eyes red-rimmed but dry, held onto his right arm as they walked in. This was their private goodbye. Soon enough, the room would fill with people paying their respects, but for now, it was theirs alone. Soft music, meant to be soothing, drifted down from speakers set into the ceiling, but it wasn’t soothing at all. The hair on the back of Jason’s neck stood up and screamed as the high-pitched notes trickled down.

My father’s de—

He couldn’t even think the word.

Who’s going to ask me if I’m really doing okay now?

Prissy Mr. Vaughn said a few words to his mother, then slipped out of the room, walking like he had a rod of iron in place of a spine. They walked up to the coffin together: he on the left, Ryan on their mother’s right, holding her arm, and Chris halfway behind them both, with his hand on the center of her back. At first, only the dark wood of the coffin’s side and the white satin lining of the opened lid were visible. Then the edge of the fabric inside the coffin. Another step revealed the top of his father’s head, yet another, the dark blue shoulder of his suit.

His only suit. The one he wore to funerals and weddings. Such is life, but it isn’t. It’s not fair. He wasn’t old enough to d—

That word again. That awful, ugly word.

He wasn’t old enough to go away.

His mother stopped, turned her face into Jason’s arm and sighed heavily.

“Okay,” she said, straightening herself up. She tugged her arms from both Jason and Ryan. “Give me a minute, boys, okay? I’d like to spend a little time with him alone.”

They stayed back while she took the last few steps to the coffin by herself. She didn’t make a sound, but her shoulders shook as her head bent down. The minutes passed long and hard while Jason resisted the urge to go to her. Chris took a half step forward, then back. Ryan kept his head down with his fists curled up tightly at his sides.

A lump, horrible in its finality, grew in Jason's throat.

We shouldn’t be here.
He
shouldn’t be here.

Jason tried, but he couldn’t hold in the tears. They fell down his cheeks, far too cool for the twisting pain inside his chest. It wasn’t right. His father was too young. The words echoed in his head and drowned out the music.

Dad, I still need you. Everything isn’t okay now. I need you to ask me the question because I’m not okay. Not now. Not really.

Their mother finally motioned them forward, and Jason closed the distance with heavy feet. The flowers pushed out their cloying scent, making the back of his throat itch. Up close, they were as strong as Shelley’s perfume. His father's face appeared calm, restive, as if he was asleep, not dead.

But he was. It wasn’t a bad joke or a nightmare. He was gone.

Jason reached out and touched the casket, the wood slick under his fingers. Reaching forward, he touched his father’s stiff, unyielding arm, and the coldness of his skin pressed through the fabric to Jason’s fingertips and shattered the illusion of sleep. The tears ran down. Blurred his vision. Jason put his hand atop his father’s. For one quick instant, Jason had an image of his father rising up to pat him on the head, and he wanted to roll back the years, capture the feel of his father’s hand when it was warm and alive and tuck it in his pocket so he would never forget.

I won’t ever forget him, but I can’t remember how his hand felt. Now it’s just cold—cold and gone.

He was vaguely aware of his brothers next to him, of his mother not so far away, yet he didn’t reach out for any of them. The sound of a sob cut through the music. His mother’s? His brothers’? His own? He didn’t know. Jason pulled his hand away from his father’s and gripped the edge of the casket, holding on until his fingertips ached, with an ache in his heart a thousand times worse.

I didn’t tell him I loved him. I thought he would be okay and I forgot to say it. Why didn’t I tell him? I was there with him, and I didn’t say I loved him.

10

An endless stream of well-wishers filed into the funeral home. Family, some Jason hadn’t seen in years, and friends, all whispering ”I’m sorry” and ”let us know if there’s anything we can do.” He knew the words were spoken with sincerity, but by eight o’clock his head pounded with a steady throb, and he wished the night were over.

His mother’s face showed the strain of the day, and Ryan took a smoke break every fifteen minutes. Chris’s replies were little more than monosyllabic murmurs. Jason kept his eyes away from the coffin. It was safer that way. If he didn’t see his father, he could almost convince himself it was all a dark dream. Almost.

When Shelley walked in the viewing room, Jason stifled a groan. He hadn’t been expecting her to show up. She’d sent flowers, wasn’t that enough?

I can deal with her presence for a little bit. For the sake of my mom. And my dad.

Shelley went to his mother first. At first she stiffened when Shelley put her arms around her, then she smiled and leaned into the embrace. They spoke in soft tones, too low for Jason to hear, then Shelley said a few words to Ryan and Chris but embraced neither. As she walked away from them, toward Jason, Ryan rolled his eyes, and Chris shook his head. She gave Jason a brief hug, and the smell of her perfume made his head throb anew. When she pulled back, she smiled and the ring on her right hand gleamed very blue in the overhead lighting.

“I’m very sorry,” she said.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, after all.

“Thank you.”

She looked around the room and gave him another smile, one he knew too well. His hands tightened into fists, tight enough so the edges of his fingernails dug into the skin of his palms.

“I’m surprised your new friend isn’t here.”

His nails pressed in harder.

Why would she do this? Why here?

To a casual observer, the question wasn’t cruel. A simple query. But he knew Shelley, and he knew what the smile meant. At the bookstore, he’d made her feel small. She hated that. This was her way of getting even, of getting in a last, little dig. She wouldn’t stick the knife in too deep, just enough to sting. Even here.
 

“Or hasn’t she met the family yet?”

She made a face of disdain that turned her face ugly.
 

“Thank you for coming,” he finally said through clenched teeth and walked away.

11

When Jason stepped out of the limousine, the impossibly green color of the cemetery grass gave him pause, even through the lenses of his sunglasses.

Of course it’s green. Good fertilizer here.

Jason shuddered and helped his mother step out. In the five days since his father’s death, he thought she’d lost at least as many pounds. Always thin, she now verged on skinny, the sharp ends of her collarbones jutting out from beneath a veil of flesh. Jason and his brothers took her out to eat after the funeral home viewings, and she’d simply picked at her food. After a while, she stopped pretending and set her fork down. Maybe when the funeral was finished, she’d eat. There was plenty of food at her house.

Jason understood the corollary between death and food, making sure the loved ones left behind didn’t have to worry about something as mundane as cooking. When he’d opened his mother’s refrigerator this morning, it was crammed full of casserole dishes, pies, cakes and a large tray of deviled eggs. Neighbors and friends, she said when Jason asked. The eggs were from her sister, Betty, for after the funeral. Out of curiosity, he’d peeked in the freezer and found more dishes there. The handful of people coming to her house after the funeral would not even put a dent in the food.

And why are you thinking about food right now?

They walked over to the gravesite in silence.

Because it’s easier.

The low quack of ducks startled him out of his thoughts. A pond not far away shimmered in the sunlight. Who put a duck pond in a cemetery? That took the whole
let’s make the death of your loved one as nice as possible
thing too far. A loose, rubbery sensation raced through his abdomen as they moved closer to the gravesite.