You can do very little with faith but you can do nothing without it.
—Samuel Butler, Rebelliousness, in Notebooks
Rain was falling when Cat got there four hours later. It was a cold, irritating rain that dampened her spirits. Sky the color of slate, a kind of sky that conjured visions of Armageddon, as if Satan himself would descend from the clouds. Three months later, and these clouds would have brought a blizzard. Nature had a way of choosing her own course.
Cat got out of the cab and stood silhouetted against police cruiser headlights, hands stuck deep in her raincoat pockets, looking through a sea of heads for McGregor’s.
Like her, he’d taken the first flight out.
Yellow crime scene tape fluttered, slicked shiny by rain. She bowed under it, willing her legs to keep moving. In front of her, Mark’s house, a place she once called home. Gray siding reflected blue, yellow, the red of the crime scene van’s lights. Everything and everyone was dripping wet. A kidney-shaped bed of dark petunias she’d never noticed seemed beaten down by rain.
Guys with FBI jackets everywhere, block letters emblazoned in bright yellow across their backs. She caught one of them by the arm, his face reflected in an ugly blue flicker from one of the squad cars. “McGregor?” She couldn’t bring herself to get the word out with much force, but the stone-faced man understood.
Turning, he pointed in the Chevy Yukon’s direction, its passenger door gaping open.
At this point, she did not know what had happened. Only that something had happened to Mark and Joey. With Mark’s truck sitting there, both front doors splayed open, Cat couldn’t bring herself to comprehend the worst.
Like a shrill cry from inside, suddenly she knew what it all meant. A singular note of confusion catapulted through her. Like a crescendo, it brought her down. McGregor was moving toward her, his face motionless, evasive.
“Dear God, no.” She couldn’t find any air, couldn’t see what was ahead.
She wanted to hold back this despair, make it go away. But it flooded her, taking all her sanity with it. She focused on McGregor’s face; he was in a full run now, moving faster through the crowd, wearing a worried expression.
Cat heard a hopeless cry that seemed to come from afar. She realized her mouth was hanging open. It was her cry.
In that instant, she wondered if she would ever be all right again.
Was it possible that God had taken both of them? It could not be so. It could not. She simply would not allow herself to believe it.
She crouched down, shivering hands in the rainwater, touching the blacktop, though it seemed so far away. With effort, she wiped water off her face. Crickets, the screeching of bugs louder. The air suddenly thicker, icier.
It felt like everything was falling down. A clap of thunder in the distance; twenty seconds later, a sudden brilliant flash of light.
Find the strength. One foot in front of the other. You have done it before, she told herself. But her legs would not respond. McGregor was there now, his arms around her. Simply holding her. Cat could feel his heartbeat.
“Let it go, Cat, it’s all right,” he whispered. “Let it go…”
She shuddered.
“Mark’s gone, Cat.”
She watched the coroner remove Mark’s body. Mark, this man she’d known well, with whom she’d shared hardships and rewards, a man she’d grown distant from. There were so many opportunities left unfulfilled, things she’d never be able to say, words of forgiveness still to convey. They’d come so far, but there was still a long way to go with Joey.
Pushing back from McGregor, her eyes searched his for hope. Cat identified little there but pity. She needed to know, even though she could not bear the thought. What about Joey? Inquisitiveness overcomes any need for self-preservation. Where was her child? Watching the zippered body bag, she blocked any thoughts of her butchered child.
She closed her eyes, fought a terrible yearning to know. Finding strength, she performed the simplest of miracles and opened them. Repugnance at bay, she scanned the Yukon’s inside, ghastly blood soaking the driver’s seat.
McGregor was cradling her. Her legs failed and he slowly brought her up. Resting her full body weight on him, Cat inched forward. Blood splatters covered the inside windshield, the driver’s-side window displaying a circular crack. Red soaked a six-inch puddle in beige, matted carpeting. Even with this carnage, she could see her little boy was not there.
Euphoria.
But not yet. Cat would not allow herself to feel it yet.
Her eyes scrutinized the interior once more, eagerly this time. For verification. No other blood, no other signs of a struggle.
Sudden elation sprang in her, like a sweetness she’d never known. Sheer jubilation.
Joey’s gotten away, she thinks. He couldn’t save Mark, but he has gotten away. He is safe. He’ll come back when he realizes it is safe here. When he sees me. Her mind was reeling.
Cat turned away, leaning against McGregor less now, starting to find her legs. Magic was etched in each pore of her face, a look McGregor had never seen before. As abruptly as it came, the look was gone.
Cat’s eyes gazed past clusters of officers to a few men standing down the street, about three hundred feet away. They were stooping over something, picking it up gingerly off the wet pavement. Others stood looking on. It appeared they were talking, consulting. One scratched his head.
She froze, feeling her knees start to buckle. “Please, please, please, oh God, no…” The words came in silent prayers, like her screams, as she got closer to the men huddled. They gestured to her to stay back, McGregor’s hands on her, but she thrust forward. One of the men, wearing a tweed sports coat, stepped to the side, dark bags like painted circles under his eyes. His face was solemn. He walked toward her, charity in his eyes.
She could see inside the streetlight’s circle of light.
Cat exhaled quickly, furiously, as if she had been punched in the gut. She froze, features carved in thick stone, holding her breath. There was a pounding in her head. Unexpectedly, street odors—rain, pavement, oil, smoke—took on a life on their own, overwhelming her. There was another smell. Musty, savage. At first she could not identify it. It was her own sweat. Although the air was cool, she felt heat in her chest.
A permeating heaviness pierced her breast. Cat was uncertain when it first came, the numbing sense of loss.
It was the last thing she saw before collapsing, an image stuck indelibly in her mind.
Joey’s ragged, scuffed sneakers.