They don’t tellyou how long it can take to release a body. Or how long a federal prosecutor will take to tell you things you already know. Like how there won’t be a trial because your brother’s killer confessed and they need to extradite him to another state to stand trial for a triple murder he won’t cop to. The bureaucracy doesn’t give a shit about your feelings.
I get Miles back though. What’s left of him. It makes more sense to bury him on the West coast. He went to college and med school in California. All his friends are there. Liz and Owen are now fast friends. Between the two of them, they inform all the people who need to be informed. Help me settle things with Miles’s apartment and his car. They find a time and a place for his memorial service. Liz does her best, but eventually I have to talk to some of the people who miss Miles, who counted on him being around. They need me to assist with their closure.
There are awful conversations with a woman named Preeti. I have no idea who the fuck she is, but she gets my number from Liz on Facebook and she takes it personally that my brother never mentioned her to me. I’m a dick for telling her that, even though I don’t say it in such harsh terms. Preeti is his girlfriend. She thinks they were going to get married. I don’t refute that ’cause I realize that I have no way of knowing if that was true or not.
When she meets Liz and I at the Paluma County morgue, I tell her I’m sure he misses her, whatever the fuck that even means. He’s dead. I apologize for being short on the phone. I tell her I'm sorry that Miles wasn't the one to properly introduce us. I tell her I'm sorry in general. I am. She cries all over me in the parking lot, until Liz suggest we go inside. I throw up when I finally view Miles’s body. I don’t even try to contain myself. You’re not prepared for something like a pep talk from the county’s sweetest coroner. “This is going to be difficult” does not cover it. They know it’s going to be so difficult that they have a wastebasket at the ready.
My brother is gone. After weeks and weeks of being told to be patient. I can’t even do the weird things I’ve been dreaming of like squeezing his hand one more time or kissing his forehead and telling him I’m comforted by the fact that he’s with our parents again. I’m not looking at my brother. I’m looking at a slashed and gutted husk sutured back together again, a grotesque monster movie version of what my brother used to be. The pain rises in my chest again. The crashing is back in my ears. I can hear his screams, mixing with the sounds of the brush crunching under my feet. The sounds of that man chasing me. I’ve tried to cope without my brother these last few months, but when I see him, we are back in those woods again.
Shep pops into my mind. I fight the image of him back.
Preeti loses it, crumples on the floor in a sobbing heap. I find strange comfort in comforting her. Her shaking gives me something to focus on. Liz asks again what the cost of cremation will be. I don’t argue when Preeti tells me there’s this place in Santa Cruz where she’d like to spread Miles’s ashes. I want to keep part of him with me, but letting him go all together feels like the right thing to do.
We leave Preeti at the hotel. All of us are too raw to even to talk about what we’ve just seen. I can’t even form real sentences. I just keep thinking,my poor, sweet brother. He didn’t deserve this.Those words, over and over, he didn’t deserve this. And another simple phrase. I want Shep.
Liz continues to be a rockstar. She makes sure I’m hydrated and fed. We both know it’s a forgone conclusion that I won’t sleep well, but she climbs into the double bed on my side of the hotel room with me and she’s still there at two in the morning when my body forces me to stop crying and sleep.
In the morning, I almost tell her about Shep. She knows he saved me, but she doesn’t know the rest. That my brain is hopelessly grasping at the moments I spent with him in my hospital bed. Those were the last moments of normalcy I remember. The last time I remember laughing without feeling guilty. Those stupid clowns. Quinten isn’t too far from Stanford, not that far. Less than a half day's drive. I could see him. I’m contemplating how to plausibly show up in Shep’s town with no explanation when Jason texts me and tells me he’s boarding his flight.
That night Preeti cancels our dinner plans. She’s saving up her energy for the service. Liz begs off for dinner too. I don’t even ask if she’s sure. She’s exhausted and even though she didn’t know Miles well, I know she cares about me enough that this whole awful situation is weighing heavily on her. It's been clear the last few months that she can take care of me or pretend to tolerate Jason, but not both. I feel awful and thank her for the millionth time for being the amazing way she is.
After he checks in and moves my stuff to his room, I listen to Jason talk about his clients as he finishes off his third beer in the hotel restaurant. I want to choke him, but it helps distract me. I need to put my own feelings aside. If Jason can forget that he's in town for a funeral, surely I can too. The distraction works until we climb into bed and he tries to slide his hand between my legs. I tell him I’m not in the mood. He comments that I haven’t been in the mood for months.
He apologizes when he realizes that I am not against stabbing him with the blue hotel pen on the night stand. It just hasn't been months. That's a full blown lie. I fucked his brains out two days before I left the city. He apologizes again. He's just worried, he says. I haven't been myself. He hopes the funeral will give me what I need. I scream at him, tell him how he has no idea what this feels like. I tell him he's being selfish. When I calm down I'm so pissed at him that I don't have any nightmares.
The next morning, when we get to the church, I take on the role of silent mourner, and people seem to be completely okay with that. The service is for Miles and his friends. I’m still here. I survived. I’ll see my friends again, hold Jason, fuck him again. Preeti cries enough for the both of us.
As we walk to the reception, Jason slides his hand around my waist. I try to forget the fight we had the night before. I think of Shep’s fingers brushing mine.
* * *
Month Six
“I’m thinkingabout quitting my job,” I say to my therapist. It’s been suggested to me a few times that I see someone. My boss Lara insists upon it after I tell overrated modeling phenom Kaitey Taylor to shut the fuck up as we both head to the lobby of the Kleinman’s building. I’m not “handling” my grief and my temper seems to be “spiraling.”
“You seem to need a cleansing of sorts. You said that you separated from your boyfriend last week and now you want to leave your job,” my therapist says.
“I just don’t trust myself to keep my job right now.”
“And why do you think that is?”
I like Dr. Mao, but I hate talking to her. I have no idea how you’re expected to tell your therapist the truth. I barely tell myself the truth.
“I'm not happy.”
“Are you not happy with the job or are you not happy with your employer?”
“I'm not sure.” Another lie.
“How have you been sleeping?”
“About the same.”
“Not very much then.”
“Not consistently,” I say.
“Have you been keeping up with your sleep journal?”
