Soul Catcher (23 page)

Mom tried to talk me out of going to the funeral, saying it would only make me feel worse. But I had to go, I had to see Patrick off. In my heart, though, I did not really believe he was gone. Dead. Each time the word came to mind, my emotions blanked. It didn’t make any sense to me. How could someone you knew, someone you loved, someone on whom you pinned your dreams, be simply obliterated from life? It was impossible to me that I would never see Patrick again. Wasn’t I going to see him now, preparing myself to visit his home and meet his parents for the first time? He would be there, waiting for me in his parents’ house. I could not imagine that he would be unable to open his eyes and say hello, to kiss me.

I had planned to wear my new green dress the next time I saw him. I cut off the
Fiesta
tag and prepared to wear it now. I wanted to please him one last time by wearing something pretty, a dress of one of his favorite colors. I couldn’t believe that we would never share our thoughts and feelings and bodies again. I could feel his hands on my breasts as I stepped into the dress. My nipples shivered and hardened. I felt so weak, I couldn’t pull the zipper up. It was as if he were passing through my body, stealing some of my life, and I had no resistance. Every time I moved, nausea rose to my throat. I wanted to crawl back into Mom’s bed, where I’d huddled, frozen, despairing, for a day and a night. I couldn’t
eat; the thought of food sickened me. I smoked cigarettes to suck back the nausea. I lit one now, and sat on the bed with the zipper spread open across my back. All of a sudden I felt cold.

When I got off the train, I saw a couple standing against the railing and knew they were Patrick’s parents. The man had short blond hair and blue eyes, and the woman had red hair and pale skin. To me, they looked more like his children, similar bodies that resembled him, had been born of him. Patrick was the original, his colors and features were the ones I knew.

When his mother saw me, she stepped forward. ‘You’re Kate,’ she said.

‘I can’t believe it.’ It was all I could think to say.

We walked in silence to the parking lot and got into a blue Buick. It must have been Mrs Nevins’ car because she drove. Mr Nevins sat beside her. I had to remind myself that they had been divorced for a long, long time. Now, the last shred of their union was dissolved. The death of an only child of divorced parents completes the reversal of love; whatever had once been between them no longer existed in anything but memory.

Mrs Nevins lived in the modest white split-level house where Patrick had grown up. He had described it to me, and I recognized it immediately as we pulled up. Peeling white paint, green window boxes sprouting red geraniums, a long straight walk leading up to the front door. Cars lined the street. The neighborhood was eerily quiet. Two small children played in a yard next door, but otherwise there was no sign of life. Just death. Everything felt so empty, so stark.

Visitors sat in the living room. So much black. So much silence. A bay window let in the bright sun, but no one sat where it was warm, everyone sat in the shadows. Against one wall was a large electric percolator, a stack of styrofoam cups and a pyramid of sugar-dusted donuts. My eyes traveled over the staring faces of the mourners, to the table, and
to the corner where another wall began. In the periphery of my vision I saw the long black coffin. I stared into the cool white corner for a minute, an hour, a thousand years.

Patrick was in that coffin.

The soft touch of Mrs Nevins’ hand jolted my gaze to the right — to Patrick. Tears sprung into my eyes, and I looked at her. Her short red hair was curled tightly and she wore clip-on pearl earrings. Nothing, though, no makeup and no smile, adorned her face. It was roundish and pale and her eyes were dim, embedded in puffy folds. She leaned close to me and whispered, ‘Go see him.’

I felt the mourners’ eyes on me as I crossed the room to the coffin. They were looking at my green dress and trying to see my face. I felt their eyes stuck like glue all over my body as I leaned above the coffin. I felt trapped, I couldn’t breathe; their eyes would not release me.

Patrick was dressed in a grey suit that made him somber and dignified in a way he had never been. I leaned closer, just a foot above his face. His closed eyelids were round and perfect like the dome. Tears rolled down my cheeks and dripped from my chin onto the severe shoulder of the ill-fitting suit. I’d never seen such a white, peaceful face. Such stillness. I leaned even closer, nearly in the coffin myself now. I felt his body on top of mine on the princess’ bed, his breath on my neck, whispering, ‘Kate,’ and ‘I love you,’ and pushing himself further into me. I could feel the sharp pain between my legs as my heart contracted into a tight fist. I stopped breathing, just stared at him. Patrick, my husband, wake up. But he just lay there, frozen, aloof — dead — his body straight and his arms folded over his middle. Someone had parted his hair on the wrong side.

Just as I noticed a glimmer of gold on his pinky — our ring — a voice whispered, ‘The hearse is here.’ It was Mrs Nevins. She drew me away, and a man in a dark blue suit lowered the lid of the coffin.

We got back into the Buick and Mrs Nevins started the
engine. Mr Nevins turned around and smiled sadly, and I saw that he had his son’s eyes.

The funeral procession moved slowly along the unfamiliar web of streets, through and beyond a small town, and onto a highway. I felt no sense of time as we drove. Eventually the line of cars, headlights shining into the bright sunlight, snaked into an exit. We were in another town now, but its small boxy houses and manicured lawns looked just like the Nevins’ — until we reached the graveyard. Then we were in another world. The rolling expanse of lawn studded with grey tombstones was like nowhere I had ever been, though I had passed many graveyards before. I had never
seen, felt
beneath the surface before, understood what was buried there. Now I knew: a graveyard was full of love, it was an airtight treasure chest, never to be opened, locklessly shut tight forever.

We walked past tombstones until we reached a newly dug grave. When I saw it, my fist-tight heart expanded in a rush of blood. Patrick’s final bed. I desperately wanted to lay there with him. A small group of people gathered around the grave. Some of the mourners shaded their eyes against the sun but I let it burn into mine.

A bald priest all in black stood at the head of the grave. After a moment of silent prayer, he spoke. I barely heard the eulogy, but certain phrases sliced through my numb brain.
Martyr. Tragedy. Symbol of today’s youth. A lost generation.
The priest was wrong. I wanted to say something, but what? It would have been like trying to talk to Silvera: a waste of time.
We were not symbols, we were not toys.
It was the society of our parents, as much as our own reaction to it, that was casting us out. Patrick’s death was an example of nothing but a series of mistakes.

The shining black coffin was lowered slowly into the ground. The grave was filled with soil. A breeze made my dress balloon upward and I forced it down with my hands. Mrs Nevins was crying into Patrick’s father’s chest. The funeral party dissembled as two men smoothed the grave
with the backs of shovels. There was no tombstone; it had all happened too fast.

Later, I re-read Patrick’s postcard. Beaches. Palm trees. A hot sun.

Jerry and Mom insisted on taking me out that night. They chose an expensive restaurant on the East River, with blue table cloths, long white candles and a wall of windows that let in too much night.

‘It is a beautiful evening,’ Mom said. She looked at Jerry and smiled sadly.

‘Kate!’ Jerry suddenly said. He indicated my wine glass with his chin. ‘Make a toast.’

‘There’s nothing to toast.’

‘I can think of something.’ He lifted his glass. ‘To my son.’

‘You don’t have a son,’ I said. I didn’t want him to try to cheer me up; he didn’t understand.

‘I did. I will always have a son, in my heart.’

‘Jerry,’ Mom said, her hand on his arm. ‘Don’t.’

‘I want to tell her about him.’

‘Not now.’

‘I think this is the perfect time. To the memory of my son, David. David was fifteen when he took his life. I will always love him and never forget him. Please, toast David’s memory with me now.’ He lifted his glass again, and waited.

My eyes stopped focusing and Jerry’s face became a blur. Patrick, I thought. Who was David? How had Jerry survived the death of his own son?

‘And to Patrick,’ he said, his glass still raised. ‘To two good boys who didn’t make it through. And to a wonderful woman who did. And to a beautiful girl who will. To life.’

Our glasses touched above the table with a tiny clink.

The next day I called Dad and invited myself over for dinner. Dinner was just an excuse; I couldn’t eat, I just wanted to see him. I wanted him to know how much I loved him,
that I would always be his daughter.
I guess I needed to
know he would always be my dad. He didn’t question the lifeless tone of my voice when we spoke on the phone. Mom must have told him.

He was living across town in an old West Side brown-stone, where he occupied a studio apartment on the third floor. I was surprised at how tiny it was. It seemed overfurnished with only a twin bed, a card-table and two chairs. There was a single window. The white walls looked greyish, as if they hadn’t been painted in years. The wooden floor was dull and scratched. A bouquet of fresh yellow tulips was the only sign of life in the whole place. I suspected he’d bought them that day, for me.

‘Nice place,’ I said, but didn’t mean it.

‘Well, I’m comfortable here,’ he said. ‘I planned to buy something nicer eventually, but I’m thinking maybe I’ll stay.’

‘It’s a nice place,’ I said again, nodding, thinking of how lonely and sad it felt.

‘You don’t have to say anything, sweetheart. Have a seat at the table. I made chicken. You always liked baked chicken.’

He brought out a bottle of wine and two wine glasses that still had price stickers on the bottom. As he served plates of chicken, broccoli and rice, the phone rang.

‘I won’t answer it,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to talk to anyone tonight. This is too special.’ He lit a candle.

It relieved me that there was someone out there who wanted to reach him, that maybe he wasn’t as alone as he appeared.

I tried to be talkative and lively, and I could tell he was making a big effort, too. But I just couldn’t shake the feeling that my life had been buried with Patrick’s. We had not even known each other a year, yet I felt we had been born together. Dad and I didn’t mention Patrick at all that night. But as he put me into a cab, he kissed my forehead and told me, like a fact, that I would be all right. I sensed the depth of his own desperate feeling of loss and error, and instead of
gliding right over me, his words sank into my heart.

Everything will be all right.

To the girl who will...

B
y the time I got back to Grove, everybody knew. There was a sense around school that Patrick was some kind of hero who had fought valiantly and been struck down suddenly in a great battle. But that was as far from the truth as the priest’s martyr interpretation. Patrick was no hero, and he was no martyr. He had needed some confidence to live his life, and found it in a potent chemical that killed him. He might have lived instead. It was that simple.

Everyone knew why Patrick had died — and when and how and where — but no one would say it.
Patrick’s death was pointless.
No one, that is, except Gwen. She was the only one who treated it specifically, not like some generic tragedy. Even Silvera, who summoned me to his room, disclaimed what had happened. He said, ‘We couldn’t really help him here,’ and shook his head. But I didn’t need the fat man to tell me that Grove was not the answer to our problems.

I lay awake in bed all that night; my body was exhausted, but my mind wouldn’t stop asking questions. Why did Patrick die? Was there meaning in his death, or just the arbitrary ending I felt inside? Were my feelings for him permanent, as I so deeply felt them to be, or would they dissolve in time? Where was he now? From whom would I
derive my deepest love? To whom would I offer it?

Finally, at about five o’clock, I got out of bed. I put on my faded jeans, an old yellow sweatshirt, and my red ProKeds. I tried to be quiet, but the door hinges squeeled.

‘What’s going on?’ Gwen said in her scratchy wake-up voice. She sat up and looked at me. Her eyes were open in tired slits, and her hair was molded in kinky bends from too much hair spray. ‘Where are you going?’

‘I’m just taking a walk.’

‘Where to?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Hold your horses,’ she said. ‘I’m coming with you.’

‘I’m not running away, I’m just going out.’

‘Wait. You need me.’

I could have sprinted ahead and left her in the room, searching through her neat piles for something to wear, but I didn’t. My desire to be alone was vague, undefined. I did need someone, and maybe I would let it be her. It didn’t seem to matter much who it was. A voice, a body, someone next to me.

We crept out of the dorm together, into the damp early morning.

‘Jesus F. Christ,’ she said. ‘It’s cold.’ She laced her arm through mine, pulling me close. ‘That’s better. Where to?’

‘Do you have a cigarette?’

She pulled a pack out of her jacket pocket. ‘I have a lighter somewhere,’ she said, fumbling through her other pocket. She pulled out a handful of papers and handed them to me. ‘Here it is.’ It was a white Bic lighter with a red heart on either side. ‘John gave it to me, isn’t it cute?’

We hovered over the small flame and lit our cigarettes. Then she handed me the lighter. ‘Keep it,’ she said.

‘But it’s from John.’

204I’ll buy another one. He’ll never know.’

I put the lighter in my pocket. ‘Let’s go see the dome.’

‘I knew that was where you were headed.’

‘I didn’t.’

‘Yeah, but it’s the only logical place.’

We walked down the path arm-in-arm.