Elizabeth Hand - Generation Loss

“Whatever,” he said, and put his arms around me. “Just go to sleep.”

Gradually the cold ebbed from my body; gradually the room grew light. I listened to the humming in my head and the sound of Gryffin’s breathing.

Finally I slept. It wasn’t exactly the sleep of the just. But for those few hours, it was enough.

“Get up.”

I buried my face in the pillow and groaned.

“Get up .” The voice came again, louder. The bed shook. It was a moment before I realized this was because someone had kicked it, another moment before I figured out the someone was Gryffin. I rolled onto my back and stared up at him, blinking in the morning light.

“What?”

“My mother.” He was fully dressed but looked terrible: unshaven, eyes bloodshot, his face knotted with grief. “You have to get up. My mother’s dead.”

“What?” I sat up and felt as though someone had jabbed a steel rebar through my skull. “Oh shit .”

“For God’s sake.” He lowered himself onto the bed. “Something happened, she fell or something. She—”

He covered his face with his hands and began to shake.

“Your mother?” I didn’t have to mime shock as memory overwhelmed me, her pallid skin, the pinprick froth of red on her lips. “Gryffin…”

He didn’t look up. I touched his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, so softly I wasn’t sure he heard me. He turned, and I leaned against him. His entire body shuddered as I stroked his arm.

At last he pulled away. He removed his glasses and wiped his eyes. “It’s terrible.” His voice was raw. I wondered how long he’d been awake. “I heard the dogs in there whining. She—it looks like she fell. By that goddamn woodstove, she never even uses it—”

He choked and got unsteadily to his feet. “You better get dressed and come downstairs. The sheriff’s on his way over.”

“What?”

But he was gone.

I got up and dressed. I have as many words for “hangover” as an Inuit has for snow. None of them did justice to how I felt. I tried to make myself look presentable. I hadn’t imagined I could feel any worse, but the thought of being questioned by a cop pushed me close to panic. I popped another Adderall and hoped it would kick in before the sheriff arrived.

I went downstairs. The door to Aphrodite’s room was shut.

I found Gryffin in the kitchen. The deerhounds loped across the room to greet me, whining. I looked at Gryffin.

He sat staring out the window. It was overcast—high, swift-moving clouds but no fog, just an endless expanse of steely water and sky. A raven pecked at something on the gravel beach. On the horizon hung a ragged black shadow. Tolba Island.

“There’s coffee,” he said at last. He gestured toward the pot but didn’t look at me. I poured myself some then sat by the woodstove. After a minute, he turned.

“I went up to let the dogs out. Usually they come downstairs if she’s not awake. It looks like she hit her head on the woodstove.” His voice cracked, and he took a gulp of coffee. “I—I guess she was drunk and she tripped. I mean, every time I come here, I think I’m going to find something like this. And now…”

He squeezed his eyes shut. “God. Do you remember what time it was when we came in? Was it around midnight?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“And you didn’t see her, did you? Before you—before you came in to get warm.”

“No.” I cupped my hands around my mug.

Tears fell onto his shirt. He rubbed his eyes. One of the dogs turned and raced toward the mudroom and began to bark. The others followed, yelping. Gryffin ran a hand across his face.

“That’ll be him.” He went to get the door.

I waited in the kitchen. I thought of when Christine had died, and how the fact that we hadn’t gotten along or even recently spoken just made it worse. Any chance of making things right was gone.

I pushed the thought away, tried not to think about what lay on the floor upstairs. I heard the door open. The dogs’ barking rose to a frantic crescendo then diminished. There was the sound of male voices, a rumble of sympathy. Gryffin walked back into the room, trailed by a uniformed policeman and Everett Moss. Moss looked at me in surprise.

“I forgot you had company,” he said to Gryffin. “Well, I just needed to escort the sheriff over here. Marine Patrol will take over, I guess, when you need to get back. And other arrangements—”

He shook his head. “I guess State Office’ll deal with that. I’m sorry for your loss, Gryffin. Let me know if I can do anything to help.”

He left. Gryffin restlessly smoothed back his hair. He looked young and vulnerable. Frightened.

“I’m so sorry about all this, Gryffin,” said the sheriff. He nodded at me. “I’m John Stone, Paswegas County Sheriff.”

He was short, gray-blond hair, slight paunch, a worn face with a kindly expression. The kind of cop who, after retirement, becomes a school bus driver and remembers everyone’s birthday.

“I know this isn’t the ideal time to ask you questions,” he said, “but I’ll have to do that.”

He took out a notebook and a pen, set a camera on the table.

“Go ahead,” said Gryffin.

“It shouldn’t take too long. I was coming over anyway to question you about Merrill Libby’s girl. Which I’ll have to get to after this.”

He sighed. “The dispatcher’s already called in about your mother. They’re sending down someone from Machias, but it’ll be a little while before he gets here. So I’ll try to finish this up as fast as I can.”

“Who’s coming from Machias?” asked Gryffin.

“Criminal investigator. Homicide. I’m sorry, but this is all routine, Gryffin. What you have here is what we call an unattended death. So we have to do this. I’m real sorry. I’ll start with you, then your friend.”

He sat at the table and began filling out a form. I took a seat and drank my coffee, trying to stay calm as he went down his list: Who was there, Where did Gryffin find the body, What time. Had her doctor been notified.

“Any sign of forced entry?”

“No.”

“Purse missing? Any money missing? Any valuables?”

“No. No. No.”

“Keys gone?”

“Sheriff, I have never seen a set of keys in this house.”

John Stone leaned back. “Well, you know, yesterday Tyler Rawlins had a set of keys disappeared down at the Island Store. So these things do happen.” He glanced at his clipboard again. “You said you were here last night.”

“Yes.”

“Did you see your mother?”

“No. Not since sometime in the afternoon.”

“Do you usually see her?”

“No. Usually she takes the dogs out, she’s gone most of the day. We’re not close. I was just here on business. You know she drinks, Sheriff.”

The sheriff gave a brief nod. “But you were here last night?”

“No. We went to Ray Provenzano’s for dinner.”

“Your mother with you?”

“No. Just me and her—” Gryffin indicated me. “You can check with Ray.”

“Okay, I will. What about when you got home? You do anything? Go right to bed?”

“Yes.”

“Your bedroom’s upstairs? Did you hear anything unusual? Before you went to bed. Or later. Did you look into your mother’s room?”

“No. I don’t come up here much. I—”

He stopped. John Stone wrote down something then asked, “Were you by yourself? When you went to bed?”

For the first time Gryffin hesitated. “No.” His face reddened. “I was—she was with me.”

He pointed at me. John Stone sucked at his upper lip, made another mark on his sheet. “Okay. Anything else you can think of? Anything out of the ordinary? Those dogs—”