Reed Coleman - Empty ever after

“Well, yeah. Jack’s grave will be left alone from now on. I’m sorry for your troubles. Be well, Mary.”

Blaney kept it short and managed not to scowl during the graveside service. Maybe the priest did have a heart. Still, he used it sparingly. Fallon hung back, waiting for us to clear out before filling in the earth atop Patrick’s newest coffin. The caretaker had already done a masterful job of repairing the damage to the plot. The grass bore none of the scars of the desecrations, the hedges were trim and perfect, but Fallon was no miracle worker. It would be another month before my father-in-law’s new headstone arrived, so Fallon had fashioned a serviceable wooden cross to mark the grave. The simple cross suited him well. In the end, Mr. Roth was right; Kaddish and ashes was the way to go.

With the last Amen of the day, the Prager family of Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, New York, broke fully and finally apart. I found myself thinking of what Howard Bland nee Judas Wannsee had said a few days back about the soft tissue of dinosaurs and how it was lost to history. So it was for us, the bonds that had tied us together as one were gone. In the grand scheme of things, the dissolution of my family was no more significant than the death of a may fly. The earth kept turning. There was now only Katy and Sarah, Sarah and me. I pulled Sarah aside.

“Listen, hon, I’m going to get out of here.”

“I think that’s best, Dad. Mom will be okay. This is her shit she’s dealing with. Someday she’ll be okay and we can be-get together, the three of us. What are you smiling at?”

“You really are the best of us, kiddo. So what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to stay with Mom until mid-August, then I’ll head back up to school.”

“I don’t suppose the cute deputy sheriff has anything to do with your staying up here.”

She cat-grinned. “Robby? Maybe a little.”

“Stay away from cops. They’re nothing but trouble.”

“Not all of them.” Sarah slipped into my arms and kissed me on the cheek. “Not you, Dad.”

“Me most of all.”

“I love you.”

“Me too. Come down and visit before you go.”

I watched Sarah and Katy get into Katy’s car and drive off. Sarah looked back at me. Katy never did.

I had heard that it was possible for a man to float on quicksand, but I didn’t know if it was possible for a man to walk across it. I couldn’t have anticipated that I was about to find out.

The page was turning on the first week of August when Sarah came down to Brooklyn on the day after her birthday. We went to dinner at a Thai place in Sheepshead Bay, had Carvel for dessert, then we drove into Coney Island to ride the Cyclone and the Wonder Wheel. The Cyclone was great. I must’ve ridden it a thousand times since I was a kid. On the other hand, I despised the Wonder Wheel. I never met a Ferris wheel I liked and the Wonder Wheel was my least favorite. For one thing, it was gigantic and it had big cars that rocked and slid along rails as the huge wheel turned. My daughter always took perverse pleasure in watching me go pale and squirm.

“You crack me up, Dad. You’ll ride any rickety, crappy, old roller coaster, but this thing scares you.”

“I just always feel like the bottom’s going to drop out.”

Sarah clucked at me like a chicken.

“How’s your mom?”

“Nice segue,” she said.

“Seriously.”

“She was doing well for the first week or so after the burial, now…I don’t know. She’s been really quiet and to herself for the last couple of days. Kinda nervous and jumpy. I guess she’s just got stuff to work through.”

“I suppose. You all set to get back to school?”

“Yeah.” Sarah frowned.

“Robby can come visit, you know?”

“No fooling you, huh, Dad?”

“Nope.”

We had Nathan’s hot dogs for a nightcap and Sarah dropped me back at my condo. She made some noise about wanting to get back up to Janus to see Robby, which was probably true, but I could tell she was worried about Katy. I hugged her tight, then let her go. I was doing a lot of that lately, letting go.

When I got inside, my answering machine was winking at me. I gave serious consideration to not listening. Aaron was pissed at me because I extended the time I’d taken off to work the case into a vacation. When he started ranting, I reminded him about what he had said about the stores thriving without me for twenty years. He didn’t much care for my throwing his own words back at him. It was a big brother vs. little brother thing. Still, I’ve never been good at avoidance or procrastination. Bad news was better than no news. I pressed PLAY.

First message:

“Hello, Moe, it’s me, Connie Geary… Oh, this is terribly awkward, isn’t it? I’ll just say it then. Truthfully, I got tired of waiting for you to call me, so I decided to call you. I hope you weren’t simply humoring me that day when you said we could have dinner together. It was great seeing you and it brought back the happiest times of my life. Let’s say you pick me up on Friday at eight. If I don’t hear from you between now and then, I’ll assume we’re on. Okay then, that’s Friday the eleventh at eight.”

It had been a long time since I had that nervous feeling in my belly. Suddenly, I was back in high school again, staring at the phone, trying to summon up the courage to ask a girl out. Oh, God, the terror of those days. I had the phone in my hand even before listening to the second message. I put it down.

I wasn’t going to live out the rest of my life in monk’s robes and if I was going to be dating again, Constance Geary was a hell of a start. We had shared history, people in common, things to talk about. There wouldn’t be any of those endless, awful silences to be filled in with uncomfortable stares or panicky trips to the rest rooms. And Connie was certainly pleasant enough to look at.

Next message:

“Yo, Five-O, dis Marlon Rhodes, man… You remember me… from Cincinnati? We talked once ’bout dat crazy lady, Jack White’s sista. I got all up in your face and shit. Dat was a bad day when y’all called me. You still interested, I can be put in a better mood, if y’all hear what I’m sayin’.”

End of new messages.

I heard what he was saying, all right, but that ship had sailed. Poor Marlon had missed his big payday. Yet, I couldn’t help but wonder why he’d chosen today to call.

I opened my eyes on the Irish Wolfhound of dog days. It was nearly a hundred degrees by noon and the humidity was beyond ridiculous. You could have baked French bread on the sidewalk and grown orchids in your car. Even the stop signs were wilting. When I was a kid, this weather never bothered me. Back then, summer weather divided up only two ways: it was either raining or it wasn’t; you could play ball or you couldn’t. It was simple. Life was simple. My biggest concern was how many innings of stickball I could pitch. Nothing was simple now, especially not sleep.

Sleep was heavy on my mind because I woke up in worse shape than when I went to bed. After sending Sarah on her way, I hadn’t been able to get to sleep and then, when sleep finally came, it kicked my ass. I tried blaming it on the weather. That was total bullshit. My condo was as cold as a meat locker. No, something was up besides the heat and humidity. It wasn’t the stress of the final breakup or Sarah’s impending return to school. It wasn’t even those damned phone calls, though they were part of it. Connie’s call made me happy and nervous. Marlon Rhodes’ made me curious. Curious had its dangers.

The truth was that had I never received either call, I still wouldn’t have slept well. I hadn’t slept well since the day John James was murdered. I knew it was ridiculous, but it still bugged me that the kid lied about his name. I made the mistake of sharing that information with Carmella.