Paul Cleave - Cemetery Lake

The connection between Alderman’s wife and my own is a strong one in some ways, but not in others. We both lost our own lives the day we lost parts of our family. He spiraled into an abyss that he is still in now. I have an abyss of my own. I figure if Alderman had done something all those years ago, maybe he would be a different man. But like he said, he did nothing. I figure if I’d done nothing, I’d be a different man too.

Better men? We could be. Or we could be worse.

“You took the law into your own hands,” he says. “You did it after the accident, and you did it again last night. You killed my son. You killed him for doing nothing. Ten years ago, when Lucy died, I did nothing. Not this time. This time you are going to pay. Your wife is going to pay. And this time your friends in the department can’t do a damn thing to help you.”

The temperature in this impossibly cold house drops even further. It’s like somebody has just strapped a block of ice onto my back. I can feel the weight of it pushing me down. I tighten my grip on the phone. The air is thick and damp and tastes like sour sweat, and all the words in the newspaper article seem to swirl around as if the ink is wet and running.

“You better be kidding right now, you son of a bitch.”

“You think the police are kidding and my son isn’t really dead? What do you think, Tate?”

“My wife has nothing to do with this.”

“How can you be so stupid as to think bad things don’t happen all the time to innocent people? You know that first hand. You experienced it last night when you killed my boy. You experienced it two years ago. And you’re experiencing it right now.”

The phone goes dead. I look at the display. The battery hasn’t gone flat. Alderman has hung up.

I dial him back. He doesn’t answer.

I hit the driveway running. I reach the car and the tires shriek a little and leave some rubber behind. I speed past the cemetery where a patrol car is just entering the gates. The driver looks back over his shoulder, but he doesn’t turn around and try to pull me over. The cemetery and the patrol car quickly get smaller in my mirror. I call the nursing home where my wife lives-if live is an appropriate word. She resides , maybe, not lives . A nurse I’ve spoken to only a few times answers the phone. I ask for Nurse Hamilton. A moment later she comes on the line.

“Theo? What can I help you with?”

“It’s Bridget.”

“What about her?”

“I think she’s in danger,” I say, and I hold the phone between my ear and neck so I can change gear. “I need you to go and check on her.”

“Danger? What kind of danger?”

“Can you just check to make sure she’s okay? Then stay with her until I get there.”

“But. .”

“Please, I’m on my way. Just go and check on her.”

“Fine, but I can tell you now there aren’t any problems. We provide excellent care, as you know, and-”

“I’ll stay on the line,” I say, hoping it will hurry her up. It does.

I continue to speed. I wish I had my car from two years ago with the siren installed. I wish I could flash and sound it at the surrounding traffic to get them the hell out of the way.

I hit three green lights in a row; I run through two oranges. And I slow down for a red before accelerating between cars to a chorus of blasting horns.

Nurse Hamilton comes back. I hear her pick up the phone, but she doesn’t say anything. It’s as though she’s on the other end of the line composing her thoughts. Trying to figure what she needs to say. Figuring it because there’s a problem.

“Carol?”

“Bridget is in her room,” she says.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure,” she says.

“Is somebody with her right now?”

“We have very adequate staff here, Mr. Tate,” she says, speaking formally, as if giving testimony to a jury.

“That’s not why I’m calling. Look, it’s hard to explain, but I’m almost there. Please just do me the favor of staying with her until I arrive.”

“Very well, Theo. We’ll-”

I don’t hear the end because the phone cuts out. I look at the display and watch it going through the motions of powering down. I try to revive it so I can call Landry or Schroder, but the battery is completely drained.

I get to the nursing home ten minutes later. The day has cleared up even more, bits of blue sky threatening to grow as the afternoon moves on. I look around at the other cars, trying to figure if one of them is out of place, but I don’t even know what Alderman would be driving.

Inside, I rush past the nurses’ station. The woman at the desk recognizes me as the guy who rang not long ago and gives me the sort of look that suggests I’ve ruined her afternoon.

Bridget is sitting in front of the window the same as any other day. Being here in the early afternoon is no different than being here in the early evening. She’s not watching TV. Not getting up and taking a shower or doing a crossword puzzle. Her world is twenty-four seven and there are no breaks. I rush to her and hug her and she doesn’t hug back, but that’s okay.

“This is all very out of the ordinary,” Carol Hamilton says.

I pull back and hold Bridget’s hand. “Has anybody come here to visit her?”

“Nobody who hasn’t visited before.”

“What about somebody else? Anybody unknown show up to visit, anybody at all?”

“What is your point, Theo?”

My point is simple for me, though perhaps not for her. Still, I decide to give it a go.

I explain the conversation I had with Alderman, touching only on a few of the points, and even then only briefly. She takes it all in stride, as I figure only a cop or a nursing-home professional could-both have seen way too much to be surprised anymore. In the end she points out that nothing bad has happened, therefore the man who threatened Bridget must have been lying, must have been making a desperate attempt to upset me because of his son. The care home is a top-rate facility, she reminds me, and they let nothing happen to their charges. She does make a concession about being more vigilant, and tells me to call the police. I tell her that I will.

She leaves me alone with Bridget. I don’t want to leave her here. Not anymore. I want to be able to take her with me, but where to? Back to my house? How would I even begin to look after her? No. She’s safer here.

Carol comes back. “There’s a phone call for you. You can take it in the office.”

I follow her back downstairs.

“Hello?”

“How did it feel, huh?” Alderman asks. “To think she was dead? To think I had done something to her? That’s how I feel, you bastard. You killed my son, so for me the feeling is always there. It’s going to stay the same. I wanted you to know how it was going to feel. I wanted you to imagine the loss. And not the same loss you suffered two years ago. But the kind of loss that’s deliberate, the kind of loss you can only experience when one human being goes out of his way to kill someone you love. Hurts, doesn’t it? But I just did you a big favor and left your wife out of it. It wasn’t her fault. I still want to make you suffer though. I want your pain permanent. And you still have another family member who won’t care what I do to her.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You took my son,” he says. “You still owe me.”

He hangs up.

I hand the phone back to the nurse, extending my arm without really seeing her. The desk, the paintings, the window into the office behind her-they all seem to lose detail and disappear.

“Theo?”

I know Carol is speaking to me, but I don’t look at her. The phone has gone from my hand, but I’m still holding out my arm ramrod straight.