Vincent Zandri - The remains

It had everything to do with Whalen.

How he could have kept the horrible story of that house and the people who had been murdered there from Molly’s and my ears for so long a time was beyond me. But certainly not impossible. Not when it came to my dad. Not when it came to protecting his daughters. Molly and I knew about Whalen’s rape conviction; knew that he’d been sent to prison for a time that seemed forever. We felt secure because he wouldn’t be able to get to us from prison. He wouldn’t be able to hurt us or our parents. We knew about his arrest but we never knew about his murders. And I’m glad we didn’t.

Caroline stood.

“Joseph Whalen,” I said, my voice stuttering, stammering, eyes tearing. “When Molly and I were twelve…” She pressed her open hand against mine. “We… never… told anyone.”

She too began to cry.

“I know,” she said, patting my hand. “I didn’t always know. But now after what happened to you in the woods on Friday… after what the detective told me… now I know.”

We were silent from that point forward.

Until Franny came back.

He had a smile on his round face.

I didn’t know whether to attribute the smile to the pie he’d just eaten inside the hospital cafeteria or to the painting he was about to give me.

The final painting.

As he picked it up and brought it to my bed, I felt my heart beat. In my head, flashes of images. Faces. Michael. Molly. Whalen.

Like the other four before it, this image took my breath away. Unlike the others, however, it did not frighten me. What this image represented was the end of something.

It was an almost exact representation of Molly and me. We were sitting by the stream in the woods, still dressed in our cut off jeans and t-shirts. Molly was washing me with the stream water, washing my hair, touching me with the cold, clean water and her gentle hand. It had been only moments since Whalen had attempted to do terrible things to us and failed. But now he was gone and Molly was being strong. Strong enough for the both of us. Molly was washing me in the stream. It was a baptismal ceremony; Molly making all things new again.

I laid my head back on the bed, into the soft pillow. I wanted to cry. For Molly, for Michael, for Franny, for everyone. But I felt that I couldn’t possibly cry another tear.

This painting was the end of something.

Somehow I was happy about that. Happy and sad at the same time.

“What’s its title Franny?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“’Touch’,” he said softly.

Maybe there were no more tears to shed, but I felt myself choking up. I felt my heart and my lungs and all my organs twist inside out.

“You were there, weren’t you?” I said. “All those years ago in the woods. You saw what happened to Molly and me. You must have seen it all through a basement window.”

He stood by the bed in his baggy jeans and yellow suspenders and he began to cry. He cried for the both of us. It was all too true. Franny had witnessed the attacks and couldn’t find a way to express what he’d seen. He couldn’t communicate it until now; this very week. Like me, like Molly, Franny had been carrying the burden for nearly his entire life.

He must have known that Whalen had been freed. He must have used his special extrasensory gifts to intuit Whalen’s intent-the intent to come after me. Franny sensed the danger and he tried to warn me through his art, his special language. In a word, he tried to save my life even before it required saving.

The nurse came back in with my lunch, which she set down on the table beside me. I couldn’t bear the thought of eating. Attached to the nurse’s clipboard was a strip of paper. She pulled the piece of paper off the board and held it in her hand. Just a small strip of litmus paper about the size of a cigarette, its tail end painted with pink.

When the nurse glanced at Caroline, I could only assume that she took her for my mother, and Franny for my brother.

“I have some good news,” she announced. “You’re going to have a baby.”

For some reason I could not explain, the news didn’t throw me into the least bit of shock. The effect it had was good and kind. It made me feel warm inside; it made me feel healed.

Caroline came to me, hugged me without getting in the way of the wires.

“From out of the bad comes the good,” she whispered in my ear. “Where there is death, there is life.”

I believed her.

In my mind I’d thought about all the people I’d had relations with over the past twelve months.

Michael. He was the only one. I pictured him doing what he loved-working at his laptop, biting the nail. I saw him sitting at a small table sipping cappuccino outside a Paris cafe; I saw him working at a desk inside a New York City hotel room. I felt him lying beside me in bed, our bare feet touching.

Michael, don’t die.

Michael was being kept alive inside a clear partitioned room in the ICU Caroline wheeled me into the dimly lit room, pushing me directly to the bed that held my husband’s comatose body. When Caroline left the room, I took Michael’s hand in mine. Already it felt cold and as frail as Molly’s had just before she died all those years ago.

There was an IV attached to his left forearm by means of a needle and clear plastic tubing. The monitors set beside the bed recorded blood pressure and heart rate.

Although dark hair veiled more than half his face, I could see just how pale was.

“We’re going to have a baby,” I whispered. “How about that? A couple of divorcees starting a family together.”

I squeezed cold fingers together and I began to cry. For a brief second, Michael’s eyes opened up. I felt my heart race. But just like that, the eyes closed and a short breath was exhaled out his mouth. That’s when the green line on the monitor went flat and an electronic alarm sounded.

“I’m sorry,” I cried. “I’m sorry, Michael.”

A nurse came in then. She didn’t look at me at all. She approached the machine and turned off the alarm. Glancing down at her wristwatch, she made a mental note of the time. Before walking back out, she set her hand on my right shoulder and gently squeezed.

“Stay with him for a bit,” she said.

She closed the door behind her.

I stayed with Michael for a while. I cried and I also talked to him, planned things out. But after a time I knew it was no use. Michael had waited to die until I came to him one last time. Until I said goodbye.

Michael waited to die. He loved me that much.

I let go of his hand knowing I would never hold it again. I let go of his hand. But still I felt it in mine.

Michael.

I let go of his hand. It was time to let him go.

One week later I received my discharge. My doctor’s healing instructions in hand along with a big fat bill (the Albany Art Center couldn’t afford comprehensive health care), I packed up my bag with get well cards, sympathy cards, and gifts and tossed out the now wilted flowers. Then I wrapped Franny’s final ‘Touch’ painting in aluminum foil that one of the nurse’s had snatched up from the floor kitchen. Everything set to go, I settled into an A.M.C. wheelchair.

I’d lost five pounds over the past week, but the weight loss didn’t make me feel any lighter. Nor was it good news for my pregnancy. Maybe Michael’s parents were still alive, but in their mind I was still his wife and they saw to it to wait on burying him until I was well enough to attend the funeral. But I was no longer his wife even if I was the mother of his unborn baby. Only when the funeral was over would I share the news about my pregnancy with Michael’s parents.