American Wife (22 page)

“They wouldn't have me tell you if there was any doubt,” said Mark.

“Okay,” I whispered, leaning against the wall. “Okay. Okay.”

Much later, Kim, my good friend who was with me, described the scene as the police told me what they knew. “It was like you went into business mode,” she said.

Outwardly I was calm, in charge—I would let no one see the utter emptiness inside me. I would not share my despair, but rather take charge and get things done. I was strong.

Inside, I was desperate and weak and screaming.

I walked back to my kitchen.

“All right,” I said. “Let's say a prayer.”

We all held hands in the kitchen. Tears fell down my face.

“Pray for Chris,” I said, struggling to push the words out. “I know exactly where he is, but I want you to pray that his transition is going okay.”

One of the pastors said a general prayer about the passage of the soul to the afterlife.

“Okay,” I said when the prayer was over. “But I want to pray for Chris, the man. I want to hear his name.”

Another pastor started another prayer, this one a little more personal. I looked down at the floor as we finished.

“Thank you,” I told them. Then I asked Kim to have them leave. Priests and death were in my worst nightmares while Chris was deployed, and I just couldn't deal with them there.

I called my mother and told her Chris was dead.

“Oh my God,” she said. “I'm so sorry.”

“I know, I know,” I said. “I have to go, though—”

“I'm on my way.”

I hung up. I called Chris's dad.

“Wayne, I have to tell you something. Are you somewhere sitting down? Where you can talk?”

“I'm at the police station,” he told me.

“Oh.” He knew.

“We'll be heading up there soon,” he told me.

“Thank you.”

I called Karen, a good friend in San Diego who's a doctor. Anything big that happens in my life, she knows, usually ahead of time.

She was having dinner. She stepped away and answered.

“I have to tell you something and then I have to go,” I said. “I can't talk. You remember I told you Chris was taking a veteran shooting this weekend? Okay, okay, okay—he shot and killed Chris.”

“Oh!” Karen said.

“I have to go.”

After I hung up, I realized that she would try and come out to be with me. She'd just had back surgery, and I was sure the flight would be extremely painful—at that point, she couldn't even sit in a car for twenty minutes without excruciating pain.

I called back.

“I'm coming,” she told me, even before I could object.

“But—”

“I'm coming,” she insisted. “I already have my flight.”

“You can't fly! Your back.”

“Taya, I'll be there soon.”

I found out later that she stood up for nearly the entire flight.

My sister called. Friends called.

Leanne again. “Taya, what's happening?”

“Where are you?”

“Up by the soccer fields,” she said. It was five minutes from my house.

“Leanne, just get here, okay? Get here safely.”

“Taya, tell me what's happening? Is Chris okay? Is Chad okay?”

“Leanne, pull over.”

“Okay.”

“Chris is dead,” I told her. “I don't know about Chad. Please, get here safely.”

She pulled into the driveway a few minutes later. Inside, she sat on the couch. I went over and sat on the coffee table, grabbing her hand. By now, we knew that two bodies had been found, though Chad had not yet been identified as a victim.

“We don't know what happened,” I told her.

She started to break down.

“Don't do this,” I said. “We don't know what's happened.”

“They found two bodies—it has to be Chad.”

“We don't know,” I insisted.

“Why do they know it's Chris and not Chad?!”

“I don't know. But it could be anybody. Hang in there until we know.”

“He's got tattoos! I can tell them about the tattoos!” Suddenly she looked at me. “Oh, my God. You've just lost your husband. How are you comforting me?”

“It's okay,” I insisted. “We're going to get through this together.”

I called the friend who was watching the kids and talked to her husband, telling him what had happened. “Chris was killed. Tell your wife when the time is right. Please keep the kids until the morning, but don't tell them. I'll tell them when I get them.”

“Oh my God. Of course.”

“Make sure that they have a good meal in the morning, because it's going to be hard for a while.”

“Yes.”

“Call me when they wake up in the morning.”

Leanne's friends and family came in. By now the house was filled with people. I stood up.

“Guys,” I said to a few of our friends. “I'm going for a walk. You want to come?”

“Are you sure you want to do that?” asked someone.

“I'm just doing it. You don't have to come.”

I got up and went to the door. Five or six men followed. Outside, I walked to the end of the driveway, and then I just started to run. I ran and ran until my lungs started to hurt.

It was dark. The neighborhood was calm and quiet, as if nothing had happened, as if the world had not turned itself upside down.

We walked around to the street behind my house. I saw Wayne's truck pull up on the street behind the house. I managed to meet him outside and collapsed into his arms.

We were still hugging when someone said they'd just positively identified Chad.

God,
I thought, horrified that I wasn't there when Leanne found out. I turned and ran up the driveway toward the house.

Leanne came out and saw me. We collapsed together, both bawling.

“I'm going to go to my house,” she said. “But I'm here for you.”

“I'm here for you,” I answered.

“I was mad at him for being late.”

“Of course you were. Don't do this to yourself.”

“I love you.”

“I love you.”

Inside the house, people crowded in. They kept coming, friends, people I didn't know. Time stood still, yet sped on. People came; eventually they had to go home, exhausted. Wayne and Deby went into the guest room to rest. My friend Kim drifted off on the couch. Another friend, Clint, laid his head on the kitchen counter and promptly fell asleep.

I found myself on the couch, the last one awake.

“What happened to you, Chris?” I asked. Maybe aloud, maybe not. “What happened?”

I got the sense that he was there with me, trying to comfort me.

Did this really happen? Is this really it?

How am I going to tell the kids?

If he was there, he couldn't tell me.

TELLING THE KIDS

Somehow, it became the next morning.

I don't remember sleeping. I just remember walking to the kitchen and finding Wayne already up. He asked how I was going to tell the kids and offered to do it with me. I thanked him, but told him it was something I had to do alone.

“I'm going to tell them outside,” I said. “I don't want that horrible memory to be inside the house.”

I was improvising, still forming a plan as I spoke. I thought maybe I would go to a park and meet them there. But when they came over to the house with our friends, I realized I didn't have the energy or the heart to leave our home. I met them outside on the lawn, trying to act as if nothing was wrong.

“Hey, Mom,” said Bubba.

“Did you have a good time?” I asked.

“Yes . . . yes.”

“I need to talk to you, actually.” I sat down on the lawn. They sat with me. “Sit on my lap, okay? Both of you?”

Bubba sat on my right knee and Angel on my left. I took a deep breath.

“Um.” I was already crying. “Daddy's hurt,” I told them.

They looked at me. I closed my eyes.

“Is he dead?” blurted Angel.

I opened my eyes and nodded yes. She let out a cry that came from her gut. Bubba's eyes glassed over and tears poured out. I held them both close. “I'm so sorry, guys. I'm so sorry.”

We stayed there for minutes or hours. Finally, Bubba asked if we could go inside.

“Yes,” I told him.

Inside, everyone had given us space; the living room was empty. We sat on the couch and I told them what had happened.

“Daddy was helping someone,” I said. “There was something really, really wrong with that person and his brain. He shot and killed Daddy and Mr. Chad.”

“Why would he do that?” asked Bubba.

“I don't know,” I answered.

“Daddy's heart didn't work?” asked Angel.

“No.”

“Why can't they give him another heart?”

“I . . . they can't.”

We cried in silence. Finally, Bubba got up. “Can I go?” he asked.

“Yes. Do whatever you want.”

Bubba started running and playing. He played nonstop for the next several days, going and going, doing his best to keep the deep sadness at a distance.

SEEING CHRIS

From the moment I heard Chris had been shot, I wanted to go to him. The police insisted that I not go to the murder scene, and they kept me from the autopsy as well. They kept saying it was better that I not see him; I kept insisting that I had to.

Had to.

“You can't go,” two or three police officers told me. All were good friends.

“I'm trying to be a good sport and respect the process,” I told them calmly. “But I have to go.”

“No.”

“Yes!”

“You don't want to see,” said one of the officers.

“Don't tell me what I want!”

Their faces were stern and adamant, but I'm sure mine was, too. Finally I exploded, talking to my good friend Rich, who's with the Dallas PD and had seen Chris when he was brought in for the autopsy.

“Goddamn, Rich!” I yelled over the phone when he called. “Why do you think it's okay for you to see him and not me? I've been patient! Enough is enough! I'm driving to Dallas and I'm not waiting.”

“He looks—”

“I don't care what he looks like!”

I went on. I'm sure I used other profanities. Finally, they gave in and agreed to take me to the funeral home where Chris was to be brought at the end of the autopsy.

Was I wrong to insist that I needed to be with my husband? I'd always loved him no matter what, and was willing to see him at his worst as well as his best. Maybe I was being irrational, but I had a deep emotional need—and if you'd asked me, I would have insisted that he needed me there as well.

I knew it wasn't pretty. I knew they cut him open with a saw. I got that he was murdered.

I still needed to be there.

Our close friend Vincent—“V” for short—went with me. V had been with us on the book tour at different points and was a Dallas policeman; he was a calm, reassuring presence. Silent and watchful as he drove me to the funeral home, he waited with me outside as the white van pulled up. Someone had found a pair of blankets that had American flag motifs and covered both Chris and Chad with them. It was a thoughtful gesture, but it also meant I couldn't see my husband's face, or more than the bare outlines of his body as he was carried past.

“Give us five minutes,” said someone as I started to follow the gurneys inside. “Five minutes.”

“I don't want him prepared,” I said. “I don't want him cleaned up.”

“Five minutes.”

I stepped back.

We waited—I don't know, probably less than five minutes, but it was all I could stand. I went inside, determined, unstoppable.

The funeral director met me. “I didn't do as much as I wanted. His hands are dirty from the fingerprinting.”

“His hands were always dirty,” I said.

Inside the room, Chris lay on the gurney, chest covered with the blanket. I bent to his face, tears pouring from my eyes, and kissed him.

How many times? A thousand. Not enough.

Never enough again.

I don't remember all of the details, or everyone who was with me as that day turned into night. I don't mean to slight anyone; it's just that my memory has twisted itself so deeply with grief and pain that teasing out the details is a herculean trial, something more than I can manage.

Wayne was there, and Deby. V. At some point, I'd told Wayne that I wouldn't have trouble seeing Chris; my difficulty would be leaving. And so it was: after hours had passed, Wayne came and told me that I had to go.

“Five more minutes,” I pleaded.

He nodded and faded back. I stood by Chris's body, knowing he was no longer here, yet feeling his presence as strongly as I'd felt anything ever.

“It's time to go,” Wayne said gently a half hour later.

“Five more minutes.”

Once again Wayne stood back. How much time passed, I don't know. It felt like only a few seconds.

“You do have to go,” Wayne said again. This time, he put his hand under my elbow. V did the same on the other side.

“I can't leave him.”

“Your kids need you. It's night.”

“I can't,” I said. I thought about wives in other countries who lay down next to the casket all night. Why couldn't I do that?

“The kids,” he said.

“The kids.”

We left. My legs buckled but with their help and against all reason I kept moving. My heart kept beating and my lungs kept breathing, all against my will.

By the time I got home it was dark. The house was filled with people but I was alone, numb; the world now was a silent, distant thing, far from my body and far from my thoughts. I went into my office and sat in my favorite chair—a big, soft recliner far from the door. It was my refuge.

Four or five of my friends came in, sifting through the distance that separated me from the world, entering my pain. They knelt next to my knees, and one by one put their hands on my legs and my arms. Tears began rolling down my face.