Richard House - The Kills

Then: a touch of relief as Cathy understood that there wasn’t honestly any other narrative Matt Cavanaugh would decide for himself.

* * *

Cathy sat beside the bed, simply because being low, close to the ground was a comfort. She called Cissie because she wanted to do something, and learned that Matt was at Northwestern, downtown.

Once on the El, Cathy began to seethe. Why did she have to be so reliable?

She called Maggie to tease out her anger. ‘I tried calling Rem. They’re nine hours ahead so it’s, what, three in the morning already? He never answers. It’s pointless calling.’ She stared hard at the tracks, and focused her aggression on the apartments beside Wilson. ‘I don’t know what to do. This whole thing has been chaos.’ She couldn’t answer questions about Matt and looked at the apartments, the ornate cornices and balconies, and wondered if they were supposed to look Spanish or Italian, like haciendas or palazzos. Who knows how anyone is going to react? There’s never any telling. She could barely anticipate her own reaction to any situation at any given moment. Cathy rolled her eyes, tipped back her head. ‘You know what I resent? I resent being on my own with all of this.’

She loved the curve before Sheridan, how the track veered left after the cemetery into a tight corner. The design of it pleased her as did the effect, the loveliness of your bodyweight tipping because you just can’t help it. Even now, in this circumstance, she couldn’t ignore the curve and how her shoulders pressed against the side of the carriage, how the standing passengers jostled to stay upright.

* * *

Only family. A regulation Cathy felt thankful for, a mercy not to face the man. No police, no journalists. A shiny corridor slick with light. A smell she could barely stomach. Cissie beside a noticeboard, hands squeezing out grief.

Cissie couldn’t look her in the eye as she explained that Matt was essentially stapled to a board to hold his spine in position. We’re through the worst, she said, the two halves of her face in disagreement: pure haggard shock in her eyes and a fleetingly sociable smile she could just about keep steady. ‘It’s very kind of you.’

Cathy wanted to ask why, but couldn’t find the heart.

Cissie pecked randomly at facts, and it was clear that she didn’t understand the full picture either. She asked after Rem, asked if they had spoken, and Cathy answered no, not yet. Hadn’t Rem told Matt he didn’t want to see him again? I don’t care if you’re on fire, you don’t call me. You stay away.

Cathy asked if anyone else had come and immediately regretted the question. Cissie froze, clenched, terrified at the idea. Then, steadily, the tension dropped, her hands and shoulders relaxed, because, what else could happen, really — what else could now go wrong? She didn’t know what to hope for, she said. She didn’t know what to think, and Cathy replied that no one blamed Matt. Not now. What had happened was all in the past, and they needed to think about the future.

Cissie’s expression laid open her heart. Everything rested on the word blame. She didn’t understand.

‘What he did,’ and now Cathy had to spell it out.

It seemed, at least to Cathy, that this blunder — at the very least — illuminated with a terrible clarity what must otherwise have been an intolerable situation. Cissie had no idea.

* * *

Cathy came out of the hospital in a hurried half-run, as if heading for a train or a ride. She slowed at the kerb and walked toward Michigan Avenue, relieved to be outside, the image of Cissie’s slow realization stuck with her. She stopped by a group of smokers close by the stock doors to Neiman Marcus, checked her pockets for keys as an excuse to pause. One of the smokers asked if she’d come from the hospital and Cathy nodded.

‘That bad?’

She couldn’t think how it could be any worse, couldn’t bear to see her reflection in the store windows, thought that she was inhuman.

* * *

When she did speak with Rem she managed to keep her patience while he told her what to do. His voice in any case was filtered, unreal, so she might be talking via a third party, or a stranger, some abstracted Rem-like idea. She didn’t like telling him news that she had already processed, and found he didn’t absorb the basic facts quickly enough.

‘It didn’t have to go this far.’ She didn’t mean to say this, especially now when anything she could say would sing with too much purpose.

He wasn’t responsible, he said. It wasn’t his fault.

Rem wasn’t prepared. He took it in for a moment, she could hear this in his pause. He never could keep up in any kind of confrontation. Coming back from the movies that last time they’d argued, and Rem, unwilling to stick with it, had changed seats, moved along the carriage, and left her to feel the solidity of the houses speeding away from them, the flat roads, the weight and volume of the city.

She understood that the discussion wasn’t going to go further. A second piece of news, she decided, she’d save for another call. This was about Nut, and Rem would need a little more time to process this.

According to Cissie, Matt had come to see Rem the day that Rem came over to see him — if that made any sense. Rem had made some plan, but Matt wasn’t sure if they were supposed to meet at Clark Street, or if Rem was going to come over to theirs. Around ten o’clock Matt had walked up Lunt to Clark, and found the doors unlocked. At first he thought Rem had just slipped out, was probably in the store downstairs or something. Anyway, Rem hadn’t come back, so he must have left in a hurry without locking the doors. He must have been preoccupied. What happened — somehow, Cissie didn’t know how — but Matt had let the dog out. It was his fault. It wasn’t deliberate.

‘He didn’t tell me at first. Waited a couple of days. I think he thought you’d find him. But he felt bad about it. I’m really, really sorry.’

* * *

On the day Rem heard the news about Matt Cavanaugh, Fatboy’s replacement, Stefan Kiprowski, arrived at the section base. Seconded from Food Services at Southern-CIPA, the regional government agency, the post was intended to be temporary. Geezler hadn’t lied: HOSCO ran everything, food, water, sleep, employment. Kiprowski reminded him of someone. Not because of his height, and not because he was thin. He couldn’t place the reference.

Rem loved the complexities. Each morning when they returned to ACSB he sat with Santo in the commissary. They drank coffee while they watched the TCNs gather and prepare for their drives.

‘You can always tell where they’re going.’ Santo nodded at the drivers. ‘The smilers are southbound, Kuwait. The shitters are heading north,’ he deepened his voice, ‘to a land of desolation,’ then more sweetly, ‘bye, boys. Say bye-bye.’

Santo offered to refill the coffees so he could hum ‘One Headlight’ as he passed by the drivers. When he returned he told Rem he looked happy. ‘Happi er, I should say. Don’t get me wrong.’

‘I might stay here.’

‘Here? Iraq?’

‘Safer. I just heard news.’

‘Home?’

Rem nodded.

‘Thing is. You aren’t there. You’re here. Can’t do one thing about it. It’s win — win.’

Rem began to explain about Matt’s walk across Lake Shore Drive: how cars hadn’t hit him and how he’d survived a tumble over a parapet, and something like a fifteen-foot drop. ‘Didn’t even hold out his hands to save himself.’

‘I saw that,’ Santo cooed. ‘The jumper. You know him?’ He sat back, hands on his thighs, impressed.

Rem gave a slow nod.

‘I heard they opened him up and found everything pushed up.’ Santo heaved his hand from his chest to his throat. ‘They had to take it all out and put it back in the right place. He had shit coming out of his ears you wouldn’t want coming out of your ass. Can you believe that? Some people die falling off a chair. Man, you know him?’ Santo shook his head in disbelief. ‘Why would a person do that?’