Harlan Coben: Fool Me Once

Just keep it moving.

Most offered a low “Sorry for your loss,” which was pretty much the perfect thing to say. Others talked too much. They started in about how tragic it all was, what a waste, how the city was going to hell, how they were almost robbed at gunpoint once (rule one: never make it about yourself on a receiving line), how they hoped the police fried the animals who did it, how fortunate Maya was, how God must have been looking out for her (the implication being, she guessed, that God hadn’t cared as much about Joe), how there is always a plan, how there is a reason for everything (a wonder she didn’t punch those people straight in the face).

Joe’s family grew exhausted and had to sit midway through. Not Maya. She stood throughout, maintained direct eye contact, and greeted each mourner with a firm handshake. She used subtle and not-so-subtle body language to rebuff those who wanted to be more expressive in their grief via hugs or kisses. Inane as their words might have been, Maya listened attentively, nodded, said, “Thank you for coming” in the same sincere-ish tone, and then greeted the next person in line.

Other hard-and-fast rules of the receiving line at a funeral: Don’t talk too much. Short platitudes work well because innocuous is far better than offensive. If you feel the need to say more, make it a nice, quick memory of the dead. Never do, for example, what Joe’s aunt Edith did. Never cry hysterically and become the most theatrical “look at me, I’m suffering” of mourners — and never say something chillingly stupid to the grieving widow like: “You poor girl, first your sister, now your husband.”

The world stopped for a moment when Aunt Edith voiced what so many others were thinking, especially when Maya’s young nephew, Daniel, and younger niece, Alexa, were within earshot. The blood in Maya’s veins thrummed, and it took everything she had not to reach out, grab Aunt Edith’s throat, and rip her vocal cords out.

Instead, Maya said in a sincere-ish tone: “Thank you for coming.”

Six of Maya’s former platoon mates, including Shane, hung back, keeping a watchful eye on her. That was what they did, like it or not. Guard duty seemed to never end when they were together. They didn’t get in line. They knew better. They were her silent sentinels, always, their presence offering the only true comfort on this horrible day.

Every once in a while, Maya thought that she could hear her daughter’s distant giggle — her oldest friend, Eileen Finn, had taken Lily to the playground at the elementary school across the street — but maybe that was just her imagination. The sound of laughing children felt both obscene and life affirming in such a setting: She longed for it and couldn’t bear it.

Daniel and Alexa, Claire’s kids, were the last two in line. Maya swept them into her arms, wanting, as always, to protect them from anything else bad happening to them. Eddie, her brother-in-law... Is that what he was? What do you call the man who was married to your sister before she was murdered? “Ex-brother-in-law” seemed like something more for a divorce. Do you say “ former brother-in-law”? Do you just stick with “brother-in-law”?

More inanity designed to distract.

Eddie approached more tentatively. There were tufts of hair on his face where he’d missed with the razor. Eddie kissed Maya’s cheek. The smell of mouthwash and mints was strong enough to drown out whatever else might be there, but then again, wasn’t that the point?

“I’m going to miss Joe,” Eddie mumbled.

“I know you will. He liked you a lot, Eddie.”

“If there’s anything we can do...”

You can take better care of your kids, Maya thought, but her normal anger with him was gone now, leaked away like a raft with a pinhole.

“We’re fine, thanks.”

Eddie went silent, as if he too could read her mind, which in this case he probably could.

“Sorry I missed your last game,” Maya said to Alexa, “but I’ll be there tomorrow.”

All three of them suddenly looked uneasy.

“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Eddie said.

“It’s okay. It’ll be a nice distraction.”

Eddie nodded, gathered up Daniel and Alexa, and headed to the car. Alexa looked back at her as she walked away. Maya gave her the reassuring smile. Nothing has changed, the smile said. I will still always be there for you, just as I promised your mother.

Maya watched Claire’s family get into the car. Daniel, the outgoing fourteen-year-old, took the front seat. Alexa, who was only twelve, sat alone in the back. Since her mother’s death, she seemed to always be wincing as though preparing for the next blow. Eddie waved, gave Maya a tired smile, and slipped into the driver’s seat.

Maya waited, watching the car drive slowly away. When it did, she noticed NYPD homicide detective Roger Kierce standing in the distance, leaning against a tree. Even today. Even now. She was tempted to walk over and confront him, demand some answers, but Judith took her hand again.

“I’d like you and Lily to come back to Farnwood with us.”

The Burketts always referred to their house by its name. That probably should have been clue one of what would become of her if she married into such a family.

“Thank you,” Maya said, “but I think Lily needs to be home.”

“She needs to be with family. You both do.”

“I appreciate that.”

“I mean it. Lily will always be our granddaughter. And you’ll always be our daughter.”

Judith gave her hand an extra squeeze to emphasize the sentiment. It was sweet of Judith to say, like something she was reading off a teleprompter at one of her charity galas, but it was also untrue — at least the part about Maya. No one who married a Burkett was anything but a tolerated outsider.

“Another time,” Maya said. “I’m sure you understand.”

Judith nodded and gave her a perfunctory hug. So did Joe’s brother and sister. She watched their devastated faces as they stumbled toward the stretch limos that would take them to the Burkett estate.

Her former platoon mates were still there. She met Shane’s eyes and gave him a small nod. They got it. They didn’t so much “fall out” as quietly fade away, being sure not to disturb anything in their wake. Most of them were still enlisted. After what happened near the Syrian-Iraqi border, Maya had been “encouraged” to take an honorable discharge. Seeing no other real option, she did. So now, instead of commanding or at least teaching the new recruits, retired Captain Maya Stern, for a short time the face of the new Army, gave flying lessons at Teterboro Airport in northern New Jersey. Some days it was okay. Most days she missed the service more than she’d have ever imagined.

Maya finally stood alone by the mound of dirt that would soon cover her husband.

“Ah, Joe,” she said out loud.

She tried to feel a presence. She had tried this before, in countless mourning situations, seeing if she could sense any sort of life force after death, but there was always nothing. Some believed that there had to be at least a small life force — that energy and motion never die completely, that the soul is eternal, that you can’t destroy matter permanently, all that. Perhaps that was true, but the more of the dead Maya hung around, the more it felt as though nothing, absolutely nothing, was left behind.

She stayed by the gravesite until Eileen came back from the playground with Lily.

“Ready?” Eileen asked.

Maya took another look at the hole in the ground. She wanted to say something profound to Joe, something that might give them both — ugh — closure, but no words came to her.

Eileen drove them home. Lily fell asleep in a car seat that looked like something designed by NASA. Maya sat in the front passenger seat and stared out the window. When they got to the house — Joe had actually wanted to name it too, but Maya had put her foot down — Maya somehow managed to release the complicated strapping mechanism and eased Lily out of the backseat. She cradled Lily’s head so as not to wake her.