though hell should bar the way
Clete got to Immaculate Heart Hospital in Jacksonville just after sundown, shut the car down, shoved his way through a phalanx of well-meaning friends who tried to make the meeting easier. This wasn’t possible, but he appreciated them for trying.
He found the Forrests, Frank and Helen, in a little chapel off the lobby. Declan was with them, a tousle-haired blond kid with large brown eyes that were much too old for him.
Declan got up and ran to him, and he picked him up and held him tight, feeling the kid’s breath on his neck, smelling the grassy scent of a child. Declan was crying, but silently, and it tore his heart apart to feel it.
Only blood can fix this, he was thinking.
Only blood.
They sat together in the chapel for a long time, Frank and Helen and Declan and Clete. Frank and Helen told him about the sheriff’s car and the way it had gone off with lights and siren after the big black Caddy, how Frank and Helen and Mary Alice had come out onto the porch to watch the chase, how Mary Alice had stayed behind, and that was the last time they saw her.
Declan sat silently through this, staring at his hands, and then he looked at Clete, his face tight.
“She’s dead, Dad. Mom is dead.”
“I know, son. I know.”
“And you killed her.”
That rocked him. Helen moved in to say something, but Clete stopped her.
“How did I kill her, Declan?”
“With your stupid job, your stupid cop job. Those Italian people you’re friends with, the ones who give you money, who paid for our house on the beach, and for Mom’s new car, the one she died in—now they don’t like you anymore, and that’s why you sent us down to be with Uncle Frank and Aunt Helen. And now Mom’s dead, and you’re not.”
“Do you wish I was dead?”
Declan flared up at him.
“Yes. I do. I wish you had died and not Mom. You’re the one with all the bad people who give you money. They should have killed you. Not Mom.”
“Declan,” said Helen, her voice sharp and shocked, but Clete held up a hand.
“Declan...I am so sorry about this.”
“So what? Mom’s still dead.”
“And I’m not?”
“Not yet. But that’s okay. You will be soon.”
Clete tried to hold him, but Declan pushed him away, hate in his eyes, and he turned to Helen, and she took him in her arms. She looked at Clete, shock and sorrow and just a touch of blame.
“Clete, he’s just upset. He didn’t mean it.”
“No? I think he did. Maybe he’s right.”
“No, Clete, he’s not. He’s young... Give him time.”
A long silence.
“Helen, I have something to do.”
“I know. You go do it. We’ll keep Declan with us until you can...take care of things.”
He looked at her, saw that she knew what he was going to do. He touched Declan’s shoulder, but the boy just burrowed deeper into Helen’s arms.
He stood up then, looked at them, in the pew, in the soft amber light of the little chapel, with the scent of sandalwood and candle wax and dead flowers, and then he turned and walked away.
He didn’t look back.
* * *
He found the morgue attendant, got the tray number out of him and walked him down the rows of stainless-steel lockers until they got to Row Five Tray Two.
He stood before Row Five Tray Two for a good five minutes, thinking, This is what it comes down to, all of our married life, all of those moments, at the beach, in bed, being apart, being together, and now we are here, in this final moment, and I will never have another moment where we are together, other than this, our last moment together, the one where I am alive and you are dead.
The attendant waited until he said yes, and then pulled out the tray. There was a sheet, and a figure beneath, mounded in the shroud.
The attendant waited until Clete was ready, and then he lifted it and pulled it back, stepped away, and Clete looked at Mary Alice, his golden girl, for the last time in this living world.
He stood there for a timeless time, the cold light of the morgue pouring down over him as he froze solid inside.
After a while, he let out a long deep shuddering sigh, kissed her on the lips, folded the sheet back over her body, turned and walked away. The attendant, a biblical man, watched him go, and thought, Comes a pale horse...