Chris Mooney - World Without End

The woman working the garden looked as frail as her tulips. She was dressed in jeans and a plain gray T-shirt spotted with dirt. It was ten o'clock; she had been out here since seven this morning, digging up dirt and planting with a feverish intensity, only pausing long enough to push her glasses back up her nose. Her husband, dressed in chinos and a crisp white shirt, came out every hour or so to give her a fresh glass of water.

Conway's phone rang. The woman looked up from her work and stared in his direction. He picked the phone up from the seat and answered it by the third ring.

"I'm at your place, and you're not answering your door," Booker said.

"Where are you?"

"Out doing errands."

"Why you whispering?"

"I'm trying not to be one of those cell-phone assholes who feels the need to broadcast their conversations to the rest of the free world.

What's up?"

"Me and the family are going down to Falmouth this weekend."

Falmouth was part of Cape Cod. Booker's family owned a house near the water. During college summers, Booker would invite Con-way and Riley to this place on weekends, and when Booker was older and more established, he bought the house from his parents and then purchased a boat, a cabin cruiser that slept four comfortably. Sun and water and good food and drinking. Lots of drinking.

"Sounds like a good time," Conway said. The woman had stood up. She was brushing off her jeans with her hands, walking toward him.

"That's what I'm saying. Get back here and pack your bags."

"I'll see you in an hour."

Conway hung up. The woman stood at the car window. She was maybe five-five, razor thin, and had the delicate bones of a bird. Her blond hair was tied behind her head.

"Good morning," she said brightly.

Conway cleared his throat.

"Hello."

"I heard your phone ring and when I looked up, I thought I recognized your face. Were you at the school yesterday?"

"Briefly." He knew she was the director of a nursery school that was half a mile down the road. Yesterday, and the two days before that, he had been parked out in the lot, watching her play with the toddlers at lunch, and at night, around six, the time she left work, he watched her climb into a beat-up red Honda and drive back here to her home. A wedding band and an engagement ring were on her left hand. She was married.

"I didn't mean to startle you. I'm new to this area," Conway said, not wanting her to think he was stalking her or the kids at the school.

"I'm thinking of having kids. I heard a lot of good things about this neighborhood and about your school, so yesterday, I thought I'd stop there and, you know, check it out on my own."

"Sometimes that's the best way to do it."

"And then this morning, I was driving by here, checking out houses for sale and saw you working " "You stopped and have been sitting here this entire time, wanting to come up and ask me some questions."

"Something like that. I hope I didn't spook you."

"No, of course not. My name is Claire Arlington."

"Stephen," he said, and stuck out his hand. She shook it. It felt like a crackle of electricity hit him. His mouth went dry.

"Why don't you stop by the school Tuesday morning around nine and I'll give you the official tour."

"Sounds good."

"I look forward to seeing you then."

"Yes. Likewise."

"Enjoy your holiday weekend. Try to stay cool."

"Yes. You too. Thank you."

She smiled, accenting the tiny web of lines near the corners of her eyes, turned and walked back toward her home where her husband was standing outside waiting for her with a glass of ice water clutched in his hand.

They decided to do it Saturday morning, early, when the world lay quiet and still. Just before five, Conway and Booker crept away from the sleeping house, went down to the dock and climbed aboard the boat. The sky was a dark blue and the sun was up, peeking over the horizon, its red and gold colors washing over the bellies of the rolling clouds, the air cool and sweet. It would turn colder once they got out in the water. Conway was dressed in jeans and a beat-up gray UNH sweatshirt and wore his dark blue Red Sox baseball cap, a birthday gift from John Riley. Booker drove. Conway sat in the back in a padded white-leather chair, holding the urn tight against his hip.

The ocean makes you reflect on things. What Conway thought about in that peaceful, early-morning stillness was religion. Growing up at St.

Anthony's, Catholicism had been drilled into him hard. He could recite any prayer on command; knew when to sit and kneel and stand; knew when to give thanks. He had performed the rituals with the manufactured, robotic joy of a toy dog programmed to bark and sit.

Conway didn't believe in the great Catholic watchdog God who followed you around twenty-four-seven and marked your activities and transgressions on a clipboard. And he didn't know if he believed in another world that existed beyond this one, some island paradise of blue skies and clouds and the sort of eternal joy that could send you to the kind of great heights of pleasure that only existed in dreams.

What he did believe in was the power of nature. His time spent in Colorado had showed him how the simple act of taking a moment to give yourself to the view of a snow-capped mountain, or to watch a sunset, could bring you a sense of eternal peace that couldn't be found in pills or booze or listening to the worn-out sermon of a white-collared man who didn't know how to stir the joys or settle the fears that moved through your soul. When he looked out at the color of the sky, when he heard the water splashing hard against the boat and smelled the salty air in the cool wind, Conway felt a sense of peace, an acceptance and serenity that couldn't be forged from a store-bought Bible or recycled sermon.

Booker turned the boat around so that it was facing in the direction it had just traveled. They were far away from the bay, out in the water, but not far enough so that Conway couldn't see Booker's home. Booker cut the engine and turned around and leaned back against the wheel, his face hidden by his sunglasses. Conway stood up. His stomach was knotted. He went to hand the urn to Booker.

"No," Book said.

"You need to do it."

John Riley's will asked Booker to spread his ashes across the sea in full view of Booker's home. Conway knew that Booker's change of heart was an invitation for Conway to share a final moment with a close friend, to start the process of grieving and, hopefully, closure.

Conway navigated his way to the bow with the urn tucked under his arm.

The wind had a solid push to it; it swirled around him, whistling past his ears. His feet firmly planted, the bow rocking up and down against the water's current, he looked down at the urn he held in both hands and thought about family. Conway only had two people in his life he could call family. One was behind him, and the other he held in his hands. John Riley, the essence of his short life, all the memories, everything he stood for and loved was now compressed into black ash and resting inside this urn.

Conway placed his hand on the urn's lid. The images he had seen in the video, images that haunted his sleep every night, banged from behind their locked doors. Conway didn't want to remember Riley this way, not here, not now. But the memory was strong, and what Conway saw in his mind was The two of them sitting in an outdoor bar in downtown Vail in the middle of winter after a long morning of skiing. It was early afternoon, and the sky was a bright blue, the sun -warm on their faces, fresh powder everywhere you looked. John Riley had just kicked back in his chair, propped his boots up on the railing and smiled as he watched the good-looking people who lived off of trust funds walk the streets in their top-of-the-line ski wear. A Jimmy Buffet song was being pumped over the outdoor speakers.