The Feathered Bone (33 page)

I hold the phone to my ear long after Carl has disconnected the call. A loud buzz tone breaks through, pulling me from the distant haze of shock. I shake my head and try to gather my wits. I struggle to dial 911.

Then I call Raelynn. She calls Beth, Preacher, and Jay. Within minutes, my house is filled with first responders, police officers, the coroner, our pastor, friends.

I feel only fear. I hear shattered sounds. Syllables bounce around me, out of sync. Nothing makes sense. Everything is broken. The words, the room, my world. All broken.

When Raelynn puts her arm around me, I break too. Beth catches me as I fall, pulling me to the sofa to ease me against the faded cushions. She is here with Preacher, whispering something I can't quite make out. She holds me close, passing me a tiny blue pill and a plastic glass of water. “Take this. It's from my doctor. It'll help.”

The pill lands on my tongue, hard and small against the roof of my mouth. I tilt the cup to my lips, its bottom an eternal void. I want to disappear into it and never raise my head again. Into the black I go. Through silence and whispers and well-intentioned hugs and prayers, all is darkness.

A part of me has followed Ellie right out of this world, and the slender sliver of my spirit that is still alive is being pulled by the dark arms of death. A loud, horrible moan fills me. My blood becomes thick with the sound. I hear it. I feel it. I look down to see my heart pounding in my chest, throbbing against my rib cage, as if my very soul is banging to be set free.

“Where's Carl?” I ask no one in particular.
I need to see Carl. I need him here, right now.

“He's with Jay,” Preacher says. “In the back.” He points toward
Ellie's bedroom. When I try to stand, my body stays slack against the sofa. I peel away from it. Suddenly I am in no pain at all. I am consumed by light. I float outside myself, across the living room.
Am I dead?

I move without my body to Ellie's bedroom, where Carl and Jay are tucking Ellie's fingers into the long black plastic bag. Carl kisses her before pulling the zipper shut. His hands are covered in blood. And my heart is scarred forever.

“No!” I want to scream. “She's my daughter! You can't have her! Where are you taking her?”

But no words come. I'm nothing but air as the men from the funeral home move beneath me. Their black shoes march in sync. Left. Left. Left, right, left. A battalion of bizarre betrayals. A war against reason. Against all that is good in the world.

The bag is zipped, her body removed. Downward stares avoid me as I float suspended above them all. I begin to understand the truth. My daughter pulled the trigger. Ellie did this. Ellie, my only child. The one with a pitch-perfect singing voice and a laugh that could light up the night. Ellie, who rode bareback in fields of wildflowers and swore she'd never leave the mountains. Who dared to jump from the high dive at camp, ride her bike with no hands, and do a backflip on the trampoline. This beautiful spirit who called me Mom . . . she is gone. Ellie is gone.

In a flash I am outside the house, where yellow crime scene tape flaps in the wind. The men are carrying my daughter's lifeless body out of our home. They slide her into the back of the hearse and take her away into the cool October wind.

If I were in my own skin, if I had bones and muscles and ligaments to move me, I would run full speed after the taillights. I would scream, “You can't have her! You can't have her! She's my
daughter. She's mine!” But I am nothing here, above the living. Trapped in a dark realm, the in-between.

As the lights fade into the autumn night, there is a snap. I am inside my body again. Feeling it all. The noise, the pain, the weight.
No, no. I don't want to come back. Take me with her!

There's Carl.
I need you, Carl. Come be by my side, Carl. Come!

Instead, my husband walks past me as I sit on the sofa surrounded by friends and church members.

The people. Who are these people? Why are they here? Whispers and hugs. And Brother Johnson with his prayers. Disappear! Disappear!

Carl looks right through me.
Can't you see I need you?
He moves to the patio, leaving the door wide open. Nothing but cold, damp air to fill his space.

Under the pergola he built for us with his own two hands, he lights a cigarette. He hasn't smoked since high school, but now he's bummed one from a friend and taken a long, deep inhale before sending a cloud of smoke against the carport light.

I know the truth. I know the truth. I'll walk among the dead now. Too broken for this life.

Chapter 22

Monday, October 30, 2006

C
ARL SITS IN THE DRIVER
'
S SEAT OF OUR FAMILY CAR
. I'
M TO HIS
right, his passenger, but we're going nowhere. His door is open and the engine is off. “Take Beth with you. Or Raelynn. I can't do this, Amanda. I'm sorry.”

“Carl, we have to do this. We don't have a choice. You can't make me go there without you.”

“Choose something nice. Simple. Don't let them swindle you into spending a lot of extra money.” He fidgets with the keys.

“Please, Carl, don't make me do this alone.” I barely finish my sentence before he drops the keys in my lap and leaves the car.

“I'm sorry,” he says again. Then he heads for the house.

I sit in shock for a few minutes, certain he is not really leaving me to plan our daughter's funeral without him. When he doesn't return, I move behind the wheel, start the engine, and head down Walker North, trying to reach Beth and Preacher.

“Beth?” I call as I drive. She responds with concern. “Carl won't go with me to the funeral home. I can't do this by myself.”

“Of course you shouldn't be by yourself. I'm coming to meet you.”

“I'm driving your way now,” I explain. “I'll be there in a few minutes.”

By the time I turn off the highway onto Beth's gravel driveway, she is already waiting outside, purse in hand, ready to go. “Let's take my car. You shouldn't be driving.”

Without resistance, I pull to the side and park in the large space made for visitors. Before The Day, the Broussard home was frequently filled with guests, either teens for youth group activities or families coming to view their famous Christmas light display. Now a weathered Merry Christmas sign rests against a pear tree. Its letters were once painted to spread holiday cheer, but that was before. Before I lost Sarah. And my husband. And now, my own child.

“Thank you,” I tell Beth. As I climb into her car, it's all I can say.

Beth brings me to Seale Funeral Home, where she's friends with the owners. Time has warped again, and I am immediately drawn back into the memory of planning my mother's funeral just a few years ago. But that was different. She and I sat down together and decided every detail in advance. It was difficult, but it was nothing like this. Now, as the funeral director shows us the room filled with caskets, asking me to choose one for my daughter, it is all I can do not to scream.

“Unfortunately, my insurance doesn't cover suicides.” I can hardly say the word. No matter how many times I've gone out on call with Jay, counseling survivors of suicide, I never imagined I'd be in their shoes.

The director says nothing. My insurance is not his problem. I'll have to pay him either way.

I stare at miniature color samples for satin pillows, trying to get my brain to choose a permanent resting place for my only child. Despite his best efforts to be considerate, professional, the salesman might as well be pushing a used car. It's clear he has never known this kind of loss. I choose something simple, with a soft
cream interior.
This is nothing I should have to do. Just as printing out missing-child fliers is nothing Beth should have to do. Yet here we are, the two of us, and both our girls are gone.

Next we sit at a polished wooden table with a bowl of mints in the middle. The room is cold and quiet. The man checks his calendar. “Will the services be held here or at your church?”

“Here,” I say.

Beth reacts with open-eyed surprise.

The man nods, and we set the wake for tomorrow, five to nine, despite my concerns about trick-or-treat. Other parents will be ringing doorbells, collecting candy with their costumed children. I'll be burying my daughter.

“That's fine.” I feel nothing. “I guess we'll bury her here too.”

“Not at the church?” Beth questions. “Next to your mother?”

The whispers come back to me now. As I sat in my home last night, surrounded by loved ones, one woman, a neighbor I never knew very well, asked Brother Johnson if Ellie would be allowed to be buried in the church cemetery. “Suicide,” the lady said, questioning his rules. I can't tell Beth. The lady doesn't even go to our church, but if she was thinking it, others will be too. I can't deal with that kind of hate. Not now.

“Here is fine,” I say, and the man follows us out to view the vacant plots.

I choose a shady spot at Evergreen Memorial Park. Then Beth drives me over to Edrie's, where the florist asks me what kind of flowers Ellie liked. “She likes wildflowers,” I say, unable to talk about my child in the past tense.

The lady isn't sure how to respond. So Beth points to a photo and suggests, “How about all white?”

“That's always lovely.” The florist appreciates Beth's guidance.
Then, not knowing the details of Ellie's death, she gives us two price quotes—one for an open casket, one much more costly if closed.

“Closed,” I say, handing her a credit card. I've never done anything more difficult in my entire life. Paying for my daughter's funeral expenses on credit. If I didn't feel dead inside, I could be consumed with hate for Carl right now.
Why didn't he take his gun?

Leaving the florist, Beth sits with me in the parked car. “Amanda, you know it's a lot less expensive if you have the services at the church. We even have men to dig the grave. You don't have to pay all that money.”

How can I tell her? How can I explain how I feel?
I shake my head and say, “This is fine.”

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

I have spent all morning staring at Ellie's bedroom, trying to ignore the smells—a putrid mix of cleaning supplies, blood, gunpowder, and candles. Now I sit in the family room of Seale Funeral Home and confess to Jay, “I don't know what happened. Did someone call Clean Scene? I'm sorry, it's all a blur for me. I don't know who to thank.”

“I called them, but I had to cancel the order,” he says. “Raelynn's brother took care of it before the cleaners could arrive. And Gator. He helped too.”

This leaves me speechless. I've seen this happen when we've gone out on call, especially in more rural locations, out in the country where people are used to taking care of their own, but it's usually relatives. Kinfolk who stick together. I have no family here, and yet Jay says these men cleaned my daughter's room for me, going so far
as to haul the mattress out to Gator's woods and burn it all to ash. There is no way to measure that kind of love.

Jay sits beside me on the sofa. He wears the pin indicating he is family. No one here is related to me. But these are the people who love Ellie. The people who love me. Carl is nowhere to be seen.

“Ms. Salassi?” the funeral director whispers respectfully.

I look down at my hand. I still wear my wedding ring.

“Mrs.,” I correct him.

“Sorry, ma'am.” He clears his throat. “Would you like to see your daughter one final time?”

Jay helps me stand. “I'll go with you.”

“No,” I tell him. “Just me.” I don't mean to sound sharp, but I feel a fierce protective urge to guard my time with Ellie.

We enter the room. The funeral director closes the doors behind us. Now here we are, with the open casket. The space between my daughter and me feels eternal, and yet it's nothing I can't bridge. In a few minutes this man will lower the lid and Ellie will be gone forever.

I don't know how I manage it, but somehow I leave the director at the door and make my way to the casket. My child's casket. Ellie.

I feel only loss. Absence.

Her face is wrapped completely. There is nothing for me to touch but bandages. No sweet brown curls. No smooth, soft olive cheeks.
Stand up, Amanda. Do this.
I am determined not to lose this time with my baby. My girl.

I touch her arm, a stiffened, painted version of the daughter I love.

I fix her dress, straighten the folds, feel the pull of the cotton around each turquoise blue button. Her first-day-of-school dress. The last special occasion outfit we bought together. Laughing as she came out of the dressing room with a twirl.

Behind me, the director clears his voice and speaks softly. “Excuse me, Mrs. Salassi. It's time.”