| |
After the service, Kate stood at the back of the church, her parents and Marco’s mother standing with her, as they greeted well-wishers.
As she hugged a co-worker, she heard a familiar and inappropriately loud voice. She glanced to her right and saw him. Down the aisle, mingling near the pews, stood Eddie. He wore a stunning black suit with a white dress shirt, and a splashy pink and yellow paisley tie. A line of people stood waiting to speak to him. His thick, black hair was set in its usual polished manner, his laughter and hand-shaking—like a celebrity—contrasting almost comically against Kate’s grieving.
Look at him. Acting as if this was about him.
Kate watched him survey his crowd of fans, obviously wallowing in his popularity. He looked up to see her watching him. His face quickly fell into an appropriately somber expression. The insincerity of this subtle move struck a nerve. It was telling. She watched as he gave her a slight wave and a smile. He fought his way through the crowd toward her, his squad following behind him like poorly dressed robots.
Eddie reached out his hand. Kate paused before taking it. His side-glance at her hesitation pleased her. His hand felt cool and strong. Smooth. Manicured, of course. But still, in her mind, his grip felt like acid. She wanted to yank her hand away. To wipe the filth onto her skirt. But instead, she let it slide slowly down to her side, so as not to cause a scene.
For the first time in a while, Kate felt alert, her mind clear, as she looked into Eddie’s eyes. Then, tilting her head, she looked past him and into the eyes of his goons.
“Oh. S’cuse my manners,” Eddie said, stepping aside so the three men could also pay their respects.
“You remember my cousin, Sal.”
Sal.
Sal, with a swollen black and blue cheek and a bandage near his brow, stuck out his meaty paw and gently took Kate’s hand.
“Condolences.” He wouldn’t look her in the eye and stepped back quickly.
“And I think you’ve met these two: Dario and Tau.”
Dario bowed as though greeting a queen. Eddie gave him a quick smack on the arm.
“Sorry for your loss, ma’am,” he said, stepping back behind Sal.
Tau shook her hand. “Sorry,” was all he said. He nodded and stepped back.
Kate took a good look at all of them. Burning their faces into her memory.
Dario. Young. Tall. Skinny. Black. Out of control—if she recalled Marco’s description of him.
Tau. Young. Tall. Asian. Reserved.
Sal. Old. Beefy. Italian. Dangerous.
Eddie put his hand to his chest. “Kate, I’m gonna’ find out who did this. This ain’t right. And if you need anything, you come see me, ya’ hear?” He shook his head and flipped his fingers. “I mean it. Anything.”
“Thank you, Eddie. I’ll try to remember that.”
She felt something sour build in the pit of her stomach. She wanted to run. Thankfully, her mother interjected. “Kate. Time to go.”
Eddie dropped his hand and nodded. “Take care, Kate.”
She stared at him for a second before turning to walk away with her parents.
She stopped. “I’ll be right back.”
“You alright, sweetheart?”
“I’ll be fine, Dad. Go wait in the car. I won’t be long.”
Kate walked as quickly as her high-heels would allow to the wooden door at the end of the narthex. She shut the door behind her and turned herself around inside the tiny bathroom. She fell to her knees, vomiting into the toilet. She tried to quiet the sound of her heaving so as not to disturb the churchgoers, or God. Lifting herself from the floor, she took a step to the sink, turning on the water, as she looked at her reflection in the tarnished, cracked mirror. She lifted her chin to see beyond her veil.
God. I look like hell.
Kate bent down and splashed her face with cool water, and used her hand to rinse the sour taste from her mouth. She then dampened a paper towel and held it to her face as she stared into the mirror. She no longer recognized the person staring back at her. Her gaze looked empty. Lifeless.
Still, there was something stirring inside of her. Though her body felt numb, her mind had begun to race. There was something cold tugging at the depths of her belly. Eddie had triggered it. She’d felt it with his handshake. She’d seen it in his eyes and in the eyes of the other three standing with him.
He’d always been the perfect gentleman to her, to Mrs. Fortunato. Yet, Marco’s words had suddenly come to the forefront of her mind. Some of the things Eddie had done were far from legitimate. Dangerous.
A quiet knock on the door brought her back to her reflection in the mirror.
“Kate? Everyone’s waiting to go to the cemetery.”
“Coming, Dad.”
She dried her hands, ran them through her hair, and pinched her cheeks before adjusting her hat.
“Sorry,” she said to her dad, who met her with a worried look.
“You okay?”
“I’ll be fine. Let’s just ... get this day over with.”
He held open one of the tall, heavy doors, and they walked out to where her mother stood waiting for them. Though the gray clouds still lingered, the day’s brightness burned Kate’s eyes, causing tears to form. She sucked in a deep breath and let the frigid air clear her foggy mind, as they made their way to the car to begin the procession to Sunshine Memorial Park Cemetery.
The service at the cemetery was a blur for Kate. She sat on a cold folding-chair, just far enough from the two silver caskets, that she couldn’t reach out to touch them. Her frozen, numb toes throbbed from the vicious cold. A biting wind raged against her face and sent shivers to her bones.
A small group had braved the arctic weather and settled into chairs all around her. Others stood. All were ready to hear the priest’s final words about her husband and son, yet anxious to leave the frozen grounds and get somewhere warm.
Through the wind, Kate heard Eddie’s voice.
“No. Get the car ready.”
Kate stiffened when, out of nowhere, she remembered Marco mentioning the stolen money. Her grief had been so consuming, and she’d been so numb to everything, she hadn’t had space in her mind to recall the details of their hurried departure, until now.
“We gotta’ leave. Things are really heatin’ up ...” and ... “He’s burning mad right now, Kate. I think he might come after me.”
She sucked in a deep breath of frosty air and held it tight in her lungs, as she tried to clear the image of her dead family, with Eddie standing over them.
The priest’s muffled voice barely registered. Kate heard none of his words, nor did she comprehend the words of her mother, who sat next to her and whispered endlessly into her ear.
Instead, her thoughts drifted to Marco and Renzo. If only she’d held Marco’s hand tighter, kissed him longer; if only she’d looked at Renzo’s face closer and listened to his words more carefully. Maybe then, her memories would be sharper, clearer.
A loud cough startled Kate back to her new bitter reality. The dark green tarp, serving as a temporary cover, flapped noisily above the caskets. She was certain the cough had come from Eddie and that made her want to scream. Instead, she sat quietly, unable to feel her numb limbs, as Father Byrne recited more holy words.
When he’d finally finished, those in attendance walked single-file to the caskets to deliver flowers, or place their hands on them for a moment of prayer before hurriedly leaving for their warm cars.
Kate found herself once again staring at the shiny silver boxes. Draped in floral sprays of pink and red, they loomed before her. For the first time, she noticed the caskets were sitting on long rods, hovering over deep holes dug into the dirt. Their permanent resting place.
She thought of her nightmare from the funeral home. Her heart burned at the thought of them lying inside, sealed tight, forever. She blinked away her thoughts and stared ahead. She knew she was looking for the last time, at the vessels that would take away her precious Marco and Renzo’s bodies from her forever.
She let her body and mind drift. It was a relief, a numbness, that she embraced. She felt nothing and the reprieve was comforting. It was her newfound inner hiding place.
Voices nudged her to the present, but she didn’t stay there long. She drifted again, falling back into her head, her thoughts.
Back at home eating dinner together.
For now, pretending was all she needed.
