Sudden Death (excerpt)
Melanie taped up the last of the boxes and made a quick call on her cell phone. “Bring the truck around back,” she said. “And hurry the fuck up. We’ll load from the cellar.”
She checked her watch. An hour to go until the funeral. She pocketed the phone, deciding to heave it in the river once they unloaded in Bangor.
***
The church had reached capacity. Caroline was sandwiched between James’ ex, Linda, and an older man whom she recognized but couldn’t place. “Whole town’s here,” the man said, giving Caroline’s hand a light squeeze. “We lost a true hero.”
To her left, Linda alternated sniffling with an occasional dab at a tear. A packet of Kleenex rested precariously on her knees. Caroline brushed away a wayward strand of hair, annoyed. Her brother had been captain of the Academy’s hockey team, student body president, but a hero? He’d given up a scholarship to MIT to get married, to stay in this shithole fishing village and become a drunk. Hero was not how she’d describe James.
The music stopped abruptly as Reverend Desjardins plodded down the aisle. He had officiated at her mother’s funeral twenty years ago, the last time Caroline had been home. She had made it back in time to visit her mother at the tiny hospital the day before cancer stole her mother’s last breath. The hospital had shut down five years ago. Sunrise, aptly known as the town where the sun first rose in the U.S., now lay on the brink of being sundowned.
As the reverend droned on in his New Brunswick monotone, Caroline surveyed the crowd. She was overdressed, her heels and makeup as out of place as she felt just being back in town. James’ first girlfriend, Betsy, stood against the back wall in black jeans and turtleneck, long black hair shrouding her like a veil. Mike Halloran, who owned the only remaining grocery store in town, had his arm around her. The room was filled with the staccato of sobbing. And still, Caroline could not cry.
***
Betsy’s brother, Sam, was my best friend. We’d all grown up together, went to Miss Cloutier’s preschool, attended the same Sunday school classes at the All Saints By the Sea every week. We all played hockey, too, but in Betsy’s case it was field hockey at the Academy. Sam and I played for the Academy, and later, for fun after school, usually against some of the scrappier townie dropouts who’d realized lobstering was a more lucrative career path than a diploma.
Sam and Betsy were twins, Sam and I were buddies, and inevitably, I fell in love with Betsy. But at fifteen, do you really know what love is? All I know is this: I never felt that intensity again. Not even when I was married to Linda.
Betsy and I started dating our junior year. She wore my ring around her neck; it was way too big for her birdlike fingers. I was head over heels for her. But love is fleeting, at least for Betsy, anyway. After a few months, she dumped me for Mike Halloran, Mr. Hockey himself, All Star Goalie award winner twice in a row. Mike had money. Mike had a new truck. And Mike had my girl.
***
Betsy met Caroline at camp, the funeral and reception long over. Fog hovered above the Cove, gloomy and gray. Camp. It had been in the family for generations, the cottage where James and she spent every childhood and teenage summer. James had moved in with Linda shortly after their wedding and installed a woodstove and storm windows to survive the brutal Downeast winters. And he’d never left.
Caroline stepped over the mound of trash bags lining the deck. Seagulls had scavenged through most of the garbage, whiskey bottles and macaroni boxes strewn everywhere. The screen door hung precariously on one hinge.
“Guess Jimmy lost interest in dump runs,” Betsy said. “Along with everything else.”
Caroline walked inside. “What happened to the couch?” She went into the kitchen. The sink overflowed with dirty dishes and mugs. “And the refrigerator? And Grampa’s dining room set?”
Betsy headed upstairs. “There’s nothing up here at all,” she hollered. “No beds, no lamps, no bureaus. What’d he and Melanie do, sell them for drugs?”
Caroline stumbled halfway up the stairs. She’d forgotten how steep they were. “What the hell are you talking about? Melanie? Drugs?”
Betsy pointed to the empty syringes and burnt foil scraps on the floor. “Well, Caroline, if you’d ever bothered to get your stupid head out of your ‘life coaching’ ass and actually listened to your brother, I guess you’d know, wouldn’t you?”
***
She sat in the passenger’s side of the U-Haul, leaving the driving to Alvin. “Can this thing go any faster? We gotta get this load to Bangor before Jack leaves.”
“Christ, Mel, I got it floored,” Alvin said. “Truck’s a piece of shit.”
A logging truck passed them. Chunks of bark and splinters ricocheted off the windshield.
“Fucking Airline.” Melanie lit a Kool. “If it’s not loggers, it’s the fog that gets you.”
In the end, it was neither.
***
I left the hiding place by the All Saints right after my funeral service began. The morning was now filled with an abrupt silence after everyone had shuffled into church and the doors slowly closed. When we were kids, Sam and I had found this spot behind the rhododendron hedges where we’d sometimes hide out, swapping baseball cards instead of going to Sunday school.
I drove back to camp. It felt weird here, too, like the part of the buzz when you’re painfully aware of everything. The smell of the mud flats. The fog soaking into your skin. The sound of silence, which is never really silent at all. I walked inside.
The place had been completely cleaned out, I mean, literally everything but the kitchen sink was gone. This had Melanie all over it. Her final score. No doubt in my mind.
Appliances and TVs can be replaced. But the portraits on the wall? Family photo albums and mom’s pottery? Even our Hardy Boys and Nancy Drews, for fuck’s sake, and my entire baseball card collection. That bitch didn’t just steal memories. She stole pieces of my life.
I shook out a handful of oxys from the bottle in my sweatshirt, figured what the hell. I had nothing left to lose. My soul was dead long before the funeral.