Cohen parked his bike in the alley that ran along the funeral home and stopped for a minute, holding his breath to see if he could hear his father moving around inside. Nothing. The sun had sifted its way down through the buildings, down through the trees, and the streetlights came on randomly in the near dark, some of them emitting a low buzz before flickering to life.
During his ride home, thoughts had circled around in Cohen’s mind, but one more than the others: whether he would ever see Hippie and Than again. He wondered where they lived, who they were. He left his bike and walked around to the back door, crept inside, let the door latch quietly behind him, and listened again.
All was silent. He went up to the second-floor apartment. The kitchen light was on, but no one was there. He found his father on the living room sofa, staring at the floor, a finger’s width of amber-colored liquid at the bottom of a tall drinking glass.
“Son,” he said in a dim voice.
“Hey, Dad,” Cohen said hesitantly, waiting.
“Where’ve you been?” When his father spoke, he didn’t look up from the floor. His words all came out together, without spaces.
“Out with friends.”
His father nodded knowingly, as if Cohen had said something so true it hurt. He raised the glass, had second thoughts, lowered it, and held it with two hands between his legs. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“For what?”
His father chuckled suddenly, and then the humor vanished and he was staring vacantly again. “For what. For what? For everything.”
Cohen went over and sat on the floor, leaning his back against the wall directly across from his father. Something about the situation opened fourteen-year-old Cohen’s eyes, and he saw his father in a way he never had before. He saw him not as some far-removed god but as a person, a real live flesh-and-blood person. This glimpse of his father intrigued him and frightened him all at once. He wanted to run to his room and lock his door, but he was paralyzed by curiosity.
“I’m sorry you had to see those children today in the basement,” his father whispered.
“No,” Cohen said. His father’s words were like a splash of icy water on his head, running down his neck, down his back. “No.”
“No, no, it’s okay,” his father said, his voice going on in a droning hush. “It’s okay. It’s okay. They’re better off now. They’re in a better place.”
Cohen felt frozen in place. Now he definitely wanted to run. He needed to leave. He felt the threatening thickening of his throat and knew he might be sick. But he couldn’t move his legs. He kept shaking his head.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” his father said. “This world. It’s a bad situation. There’s not much in it that doesn’t lead to some kind of disappointment, some kind of sadness. But those kids, they’re okay now.”
There was a rushing sound in Cohen’s ears. “No,” he mumbled. “No.”
“Cohen,” his father said. He sounded so far away. He sounded like a lost boy whispering into the woods. “It’s okay. Son. It’s okay. They’re in a better place.”
Cohen kept shaking his head, but his father wasn’t looking at him. He was only gaining steam, and he picked up his glass, threw the drink down his throat, and pounded the glass back on the coffee table. “But I will tell you this right now. The father who did this is not getting away with it.”
Cohen looked up, startled at the change in his father. There was a simmering rage there, poorly caged beneath the alcohol. It could slip out if it wanted to—something had opened the lock, knocked the door ajar.
His father squeezed his eyes closed and shook his head. “They’re looking for him now. He killed them in that fire—it looks intentional—and they’re hunting him down. But my eyes are open too. And if I see him first . . . If I find him . . .” His voice trailed off but found itself again. “I might get him too. I might get him first,” he whispered. “I might. He came around here the other night, looking for his kids, I guess, looking for the bodies. It’s an awful thing. They say he’s mad at me for something, mad that I couldn’t make ’em look better. Couldn’t do an open casket for the family.”
Cohen’s father choked on something, maybe his drink, maybe his own saliva, maybe regret, and he coughed hard for a long time. When he spoke again, it was in a hoarse mutter. “There was nothing I could do. That was his fault.” Tears came up into his eyes. He looked at Cohen, his eyes pleading for his son to believe him. “Nothing. There was nothing I could do. But if he comes around again, he’ll know.”
The doorbell to the funeral home rang. Cohen’s father looked up, confused, as if it was the first time he had ever heard such a sound, as if he wasn’t sure what he should do.
But Cohen didn’t hesitate. “I’ll get it,” he said. His father grunted his assent.
Cohen jumped up, walked quickly through the apartment door, took the stairs down to the display room, and walked through the loosely arranged coffins without turning on a light. The streetlights cast a yellow glow through the double glass doors at the front, the ones that led directly out onto Duke Street, and in the glow Cohen had a hopeful thought—maybe it was Than and Hippie. Maybe they had found him.
Through the glass, Cohen saw a single shadow. He paused, took a few more steps, and opened the door.
“Ava?” he said.
“Hi, Cohen,” she said, vapor escaping from her mouth with each word.