He looks a little sad at that and I want to wrap him in a hug. But since I can’t do that, I just prod Arnie to leap up into Chris’s arms. Arnie takes my hint, pounces on Chris in that hey-Dad-I-love-you way until Chris takes him in his arms and holds him like a baby.
“Do you still hang out with him?” I ask Chris. “Luke, I mean.”
Chris looks at me like I’m not understanding the whole premise about Luke being dead. So I explain my theory of the afterlife, which I invent as I’m speaking. Working under pressure suits me, accelerates my efficiency. “Humans are just individual globs of energy,” I say. “And when we die, we lose our bodies but our energy survives. It transfers form or just does some solo victory lapsaround the universe now that it’s free of the confines of a human container.”
I don’t believe what I’m saying, but it’s a nice image to paint and I think it might help comfort Chris. Besides, who really knows what happens when we die anyway? No one can disprove my theory. It’s incontrovertible by definition.
The poetic explanation doesn’t seem to suit him much. No surprise given he’s all prose.
Chris says he grew up believing in heaven but now he’s not sure he believes in anything. “I haven’t seen any signs or anything that might be from Luke,” he says, and I get the feeling he hasn’t talked about this with many people at all. “And I just think if there were a heaven, he would’ve found a way to say he was okay or play some kind of practical joke on me or something. He had the best sense of humor. Kind of like yours,” he adds.
The comparison surprises me, flatters me. “Well, maybe Luke is trying to communicate in other ways,” I suggest.
“What kind of ways?” He seems skeptical but a little hopeful too, which makes me feel bad. I don’t want to lead him on, take advantage of his grief, when I’ve got no clue where I’m going with this.
“Maybe you need some mushrooms,” I say, because it’s the most helpful thing I can think of. It would loosen him up and let him get close enough to his pain to touch it without jerking back in fear. He’d be able to crawl curiously into the caves with a psychedelic flashlight.
Chris says he doesn’t think mushrooms are the answer.
“Well, you at least need a good cry,” I say. “If you keep it all in, it’s really going to come back and bite you in the balls.”
Chris deflects the comment. “When was the last time you cried?” he asks.
I’m not prepared for that laser beam. The truth is that I haven’t really cried in years, but it’s not because I repress things. It’s becauseI process them so well that I don’t bottle them up, so there’s no need to unleash them through my eyes.
“I cried yesterday,” I say, though we both know I’m lying. I wish I didn’t have to lie to Chris, but that’s just who I am. I keep the Redstockings close and that’s it. No need to lower my shield around anyone else.
“Okay,” Chris says. It’s clear the conversation is over. If I’m not going to open up with him, he’s not going to with me. It’s fair but feels unjust. “Your money’s in the envelope on the counter,” he says.
It doesn’t feel right taking anything from him, not when he’s already lost so much. I know that he has a lot of money and that’s not his limiting resource, but it still feels like I’d be exploiting him somehow. Or maybe indebting myself to him, which would be even worse.
“Keep it and take Arnie on an adventure,” I say, leaving the envelope untouched. After kissing Arnie goodbye, I pat Chris on the shoulder. There’s a moment where I think about going in for the hug but it’s too much, so I dash out the door and down the hall.
The elevator ride down is excruciating. My ears pop and my chest pops too, swelling with scruples that make me want to go back up and find a way to make Chris feel better. But I know myself well enough to admit that I’m not good at fixing situations. I just make them worse.
I’m beginning to think that if I’m remembered for anything, it’ll be that.
Chapter 18
In the days that follow, I can’t stop thinking about how Chris reacted when I brought up Luke. It makes me wonder how things used to be, before the car accident.
I look Luke up on the internet and find his college sports profile. He played varsity baseball at Vanderbilt and was captain his senior year. Another few clicks lead me to an old bio at a New York accounting firm. It looks like Luke earned his CPA and moved to Manhattan after college. My sleuthing also uncovers an engagement announcement inThe New York Timesfor Luke and his fiancée, a Miss Tiffany Eloise Rockwell. Tiffany has the same blonde, bony look as Olivia. It seems the accident came before the wedding. I try to find Tiffany on social media but can’t. She might have a new last name by now. It doesn’t feel right that she could just move on and marry someone new when Luke’s whole life was snatched.
Luke’s obituary is one of those short generic ones that feels like it was written from a template where you fill in the name and dates and—presto—death certificate, please. I can’t think of anything more offensive than having such a measly obituary. It gives off the impression that his whole life was only two puny little paragraphs, written in size 8 Times New Roman, the least expressive of all fonts.
“Maybe I should be an obituary writer,” I fume to Tara and Hal one night when we’re eating pizza and garlic knots in the back garden. Astrid’s there too, attached to Hal’s hip like she always is these days.
Summer has stuffed its way back into the city. There’s not much of a breeze in the courtyard, so Hal has ripped off the top of the pizza box and repurposed it into a fan. It’s not her worst invention to date.
“That sounds like the most dismal of all professions,” Hal says. “Making your living from other people’s deaths.”
“I don’t know,” Tara says, head tilted as if she’s assessing the angle of it, the art of it. “It’s a beautiful way to honor the dead.”
“Exactly,” I say. “It’s a way to share their legacy, carry it on.”
“What’s got you on this death obsession, EJ?” Hal wants to know. “Did someone kick the can?”
“Yes,” I say. “Luke did.”
