I uncapped my water bottle and wet my handkerchief, then wiped dust from the second engraving on the stone:Kerry Aibhlinn Walsh.A single date was attached to her name, a beginning and an end within itself, and for as many times as I visited this cemetery, I couldn’t help but relive the day they died.
I was lucky today. The memory didn’t have me choking back vomit or steal the breath from my lungs; it only left me with the sense that my skin was two sizes too small.
Sometimes I wondered whether the memories were real. I was five years old when I held my mother’s hand as she died, and though it all seemed blindingly vivid, it only came back to me in jagged clips of high-speed film. I remembered the screaming and the blood and the icy cold of her hand in mine, and I remembered nodding when she said, “You’re going to be all right, Samuel. You’re going to be all right without me.”
There was more, I was sure of it. I knew Patrick or Matthew would be able to fill in the holes, but even after twenty-three years, I could barely manage these memories.
“I met someone. A girl—Tiel.” I looked to the ground, the trees, the tombstones, the sky, hoping to locate the words I needed because I couldn’t find them within myself. “I think I’m a little lost, Mom. I knew it before I met Tiel, but it really hit me this weekend. Tiel loves everything.Everything.She loves music and food and people, and I’m not sure I love anything. I don’t think I know how to.”
Packing up my supplies, I glanced at the tombstone again. “I’ve neverwantedto love anything. I’m not sure that I can. But I was with her, touching her and feeling happy—or something that felt close enough to happy—and I wanted to feel that way all the time.”
I readjusted the chrysanthemums and stood. “Same time next week, Mom.” I ran my hand over the curved top of the stone, not yet prepared to say goodbye. “You’d like her,” I said. “There’s something about her that feels . . . I don’t know. It’s ridiculous, but it’s like I’m okay—for once in my life—when I’m around her. I don’t know how, and maybe I’m hallucinating, but she does something to me.”
“It is bizarre to be doing this on a Tuesday,” Shannon said as she settled into her seat at the conference room table, cell phone, latte, and laptop in hand.
“It would be less bizarre if you were on time,” Patrick muttered.
“I’m five minutes late. Does that warrant a debate?” Shannon asked. “Or are we going to start the meeting?”
He rolled his eyes and exchanged an impatient expression with Matt. “All right, people. Shannon’s here, so we can start.”
“Thank you, Patrick,” she said. “How was everyone’s long weekends?”
And this was how it went every Monday. The six of us—Shannon, Patrick, Matt, Riley, me, and our newest addition, Andy Asani—hiked up to the attic conference room, shared updates on our work, and argued about everything. It was the loudest portion of my week. We were genetically incapable of having a discussion without yelling; every conversation existed on the same level as a barroom brawl.
“We went to a seafood festival in New Hampshire,” Andy said, nodding toward Patrick.
It had been over three months since we realized they’d been seeing each other all winter, and I still didn’t understand their relationship. I couldn’t date a woman and work with her all day.
Then again, I didn’t know the first thing aboutdatingwomen.
“You went to aseafoodfestival?” Riley asked.
“He ate the fish,” she said, jerking her thumb at Patrick. “I drank the beer.”
They exchanged a quick high-five before he said, “I was bartending down in Rhody. Newport kicks ass on long weekends.”
Patrick glanced at me, frowning, then turned to Riley. “Are we not paying you enough?”
“I was filling in for a buddy, and I just like it,” he shrugged. “But if you’re looking to unload some cash, I won’t stop you.”
“And what about you, Sammy?” Shannon asked.
I glared at her, waiting for her to realize she stood me up at Commonwealth, didn’t return my calls, and ignored every single one of my fucking texts this weekend. She went right on typing and sipping her coffee.
“My weekend was sensational, Shannon. I went to six different music festivals in four states, got drunk at the Feast of St. Anthony, passed out in Cambridge, and almost died in a goddamn elevator crash. Where the fuck were you on Friday and why the fuck weren’t you answering your phone?”
No one moved for a full minute, and then Riley said, “Did you get to the Thomas Point Beach Bluegrass show? I heard that was good this year.”
“Is that a metaphor for something? Or are you talking about an actual elevator?” Patrick asked.
“Yeah. What do you mean, you almost died?” Matt said.
“The power went out in the Back Bay, and I was trapped in an elevator at the Comm Ave. property for eight hours,” I said.
“The same elevator that slammed into the basement of that building?” Matt asked. “The one I read about, with the massive system failure compounded by the outage?”
“Same fucking one,” I said. “So I’d love to know, Shannon. How was your weekend?”
