Funeral with a View (21 page)

Our house was dead silent.
No sounds of the TV from the bedroom, no clacking of a keyboard from the home
office, no sounds of running water from the shower or bathtub. It was still as
a tomb.

Maintenance issues
grounded my flight home by a few hours on Sunday, and I didn’t set foot into my
house until ten at night. I’d texted Catherine, letting her know that I’d be
late. Her reply was a single letter:
K
. At least I knew she was still
alive. The hours spent sitting in the terminal gave me time to think. My mind
was made up; I was going to do anything I could to smooth things over with my
wife. Living like we’d been was no longer an option.

Having left my shoes in
the foyer, I crept up the stairs, careful not to make a sound, and opened the
bedroom door. Her blanketed form was a darker shadow against the black room. I
heard her gentle breathing. She stirred, rolled over. Gentle breathing
continued. Closing the door, I tip toed to the guest bathroom and turned on the
shower, running the water hot as I could take it.

Scalding water beat
against me as I leaned my forehead against the warming tile. It hurt, but I
didn’t move. The shower was both symbolic and practical. Not only did I want it
to erase the grime of travel from my body, I wanted it to burn away the
betrayal from my soul. I’d almost cheated on my wife. The thought repeated in
my head again, and again, and again in a loop that seemed as if it would never
end. Steam quickly built up around me, and I breathed it in, hoping to cleanse
myself from the inside out, wishing it would stop the moment I’d shared with
Sandy from flashing in my mind’s eye in a warm exhale. It didn’t. As the humid
air filled my lungs, all I could think of was how I’d inhaled Sandy’s scent, an
invigorating combination of marijuana, bath gel, vodka, and shampoo. The more I
breathed, the more I recalled what we’d almost done, the more I wondered what
would have happened if she hadn’t called me Ricky, like Catherine always did.

I’d almost cheated. No. I
had
cheated. Sandy and I didn’t have sex, but I went too far,
emotionally and physically. I’d cheated on my wife as soon as I gave up on her.
My betrayal started in that instant when I stopped fighting. It didn’t matter
that I’d stopped it before it developed into anything more. It mattered that it
had started in the first place. I’d cheated Catherine out of a husband who was
supposed to be there for her in sickness and in health, in good times and bad.

My skin stopped stinging
and became numb.

All the hot water in the
world would never erase what I’d done.

After a time, the warm
water turned tepid. Steam curled around me as I stepped out of the shower and
tied the towel around my waist, skin pink from the bombardment of heat.

The couch. I would sleep
on the couch, if my conscience allowed it. I told myself I didn’t deserve to
sleep next to Catherine.

I gathered a spare pillow
and blanket from the linen closet, almost forgetting to brush my teeth.

“Dammit,” I muttered,
walking back into the wall of superheated air.

My hand paused over the
faucet.

In the foggy mirror,
written in simple, no-frills lettering were the words “Come To Bed?”

Catherine had snuck in
during my shower, left me the message. That it was phrased as a question struck
me. She was uncertain. With how we left things before my trip, I understood the
sentiment. One hand gripping the edge of the vanity, I swiped away the question
mark with the other, leaving a clear patch of mirror. I stared into my own
eyes. What I saw was a man determined.

Never again.
Never
again would I be anything less than what my wife deserved. Never again would I
emotionally check out. From that point on, no matter what life threw at us, I’d
be there, better, worse, and everything in between.

I set my jaw, choked down
the current version of myself, the ‘Anti-Ricky’, and walked with a purpose to
our room, the pillow and towel left forgotten on the floor.

Everything was still, and
the need to be close to Catherine was overwhelming. I lay next to her, draping
my arm over her hip.

“Hey,” she said, her
voice shedding the thickness of sleep.

“Hey.”

“I’m glad you’re home
safe, Ricky.” She turned over to face me, ambient light glimmering in her eyes.

“Me, too.” Several
moments of complete silence passed. “Cat—”

“Shhh.” I felt a finger
press to my lips in the dark, and I closed my eyes. “I’ve missed you.”

Three words that said so
much more. The subtext was clear. She didn’t only mean my absence during the
conference, but the awful times leading up to it. I knew her well enough to
read between the lines and absorb the full weight of each syllable.

“I’ve missed you, too,” I
replied after a brief pause. “But I’m back now.”

She nodded against my
shoulder. I felt tears drip onto my skin. Each one erased the numbness left by
my purging shower, and I felt the beginnings of life creep back into me.

“I’m so, so sorry,
Ricky,” she sniffled. “For everything.”

“I know, baby,” I said
soothingly, running my thumbs over her wet cheeks. “So am I.”

Catherine pushed the
blanket aside and straddled me with her naked body. The ceiling fan teased at
the curtains. A patch of moonlight found its way in and hugged her form, making
a luminous outline of her smooth, supple skin. She placed me deep inside,
shuddering as her warmth enveloped me. No protection. If she was fine with it,
I was fine with it. Consequences be damned. We’d deal with whatever came our
way. I believed it from balls to bones.

Making love that night
was like hearing an old favorite song. It doesn’t take long before words you’d
thought you’d never remember come to you with startling clarity and
familiarity. Once that first note makes itself known, it’s as if you’d never
gone without listening to it.

We stayed silent, letting
our bodies sing the familiar tune. Not a word needed to be said.

Her hips brought us to
simultaneous climax, and I lost myself inside her. She kissed me, her
tear-streaked face to mine, our sweaty bodies pressed together. She lay beside
me, crushing her skin to mine as if she couldn’t get close enough, trembling.

She’d cried the entire
time, her tears raining down on my chest.

“I’m so, so sorry, Ricky,”
she whispered, and I held her tighter. “It’ll never happen again, I promise.”

My heart jumped into my
throat, the events of the conference picking their way through my brain with
ragged, gnarly claws.

“Never again,” I said,
caressing her bare back and shoulders as she drifted off to sleep, our limbs
intertwined. “Really really.”

The rock skipped twice
before the water consumed it. I picked up another from among the countless
thousands which dotted the shoreline of Mercer County Lake. It was warm in my
hand. I ran my thumb over its surface, smoothed from time and the elements, all
of its jagged imperfections erased by the constant attention of nature.

Dusk was closing down for
the day, ready to make way for the nightshift. Stars had already begun to poke
through the pastel sky. They twinkled faintly, as if stretching their legs
prior to a big performance.

It would be dark soon and
the park would close until the dayshift punched its timecard.

I’d texted Bill a few
days after getting back from the conference, too much of a coward to call or
show up at his house, asking he meet me at a certain place at a certain time. As
of yet, he was absent. I couldn’t blame him if he didn’t show up. With the way
I’d been acting, I’d have stood me up, too.

The stone whizzed through
the air, jumped off the water twice, and sunk into the blue.

“You never could get the
hang of that.”

Bill’s shadow grew large
in front of me, eclipsing my own. With a flick of the wrist, he sent a stone
sailing to the water on a flat trajectory. It hit the surface at a shallow
angle, once, twice, three, then four times.

“That’s how it’s done,
Rick. All in the wrist, man.”

“You always were better
than me,” I admitted.

He shrugged his massive
shoulders, stretching the fibers of his black T-shirt to their limit. “Just at
skipping rocks. And football. And pool. But not at anything that counted for
shit. Try another one.”

I used my wrist this
time. Three graceful skips.

“That’s more like it,” he
said. “You’ll be better than me in no time.”

“Doubt it.” I shoved my
hands in my pockets. My fingertips throbbed from the gnashing I’d give them as
I waited for Bill to show up.

“You didn’t drag me out
here to skip rocks, Rick.”

“No.”

He shifted his weight
nervously from foot to foot. Bill was cagey, about ready to pace or bolt.

“How are things with
Angela?” I said, drawing an amorphous pattern in the stones with the tip of my
sneaker.

“Angela?” He looked
surprised.

“Yeah, Angela. Cat told
me you talked about her a lot over the weekend.”

“Right. Yeah. They’re
okay I guess.” Another shrug. “We’re talking again, so that’s something at
least.”

“Good. That’s good.
Better than nothing, right?”

“Could be worse. What
else did Cat have to say?”

“Nothing, really. Just
that you got together and talked. Why?”

“Just curious.”

I picked up another
stone, but let it fall to the ground.

“I’ve been a shit, Bill,”
I eventually said.

“You’re entitled.”

I allowed myself the
ghost of a smile. There was no way he’d deny it. I knew him too well to have
expected that.

“I didn’t mean what I
said.”

“Sure you did.”

“What makes you say
that?”

“How long have we been
friends, Rick? Don’t answer. I’ll tell you. We’ve been friends long enough for
me to know that you’re a shitty liar.”

“Shittier than I am at
skipping rocks?”

“And football, and pool.
Yes. But,” he said, looking out over the water, “you were right. I don’t like
to admit it, but it’s true. You know me.” Stepping into it, he wound up and
flung a golf ball-sized rock out over the lake, where it landed with a large
plop
fifty feet out. “Good with numbers, bad with people.”

“Things have been so
screwed up lately. I haven’t been myself.”

“I know.” Of course he
did. I was sure he and my wife had discussed me plenty while I was away. Why
wouldn’t they? I’d treated them both like crap. Cat didn’t give me the blow by
blow of their get together, but those were blanks easily filled in. I refused
to be angry about it, because I understood the need to vent. With all my puking
over the years, there was no way I’d point a finger at either of them for
having a Ricky Is a Douchebag bitch session. “You and me both,” he added.

“I shouldn’t have taken
all this shit with Cat out on you.”

“Everybody’s got their
limits. Like I said, you’re entitled to be a dick once in a while.”

“Still, I feel bad for
not being there for you guys when you needed me.”

Bill heaved a monstrous
sigh. “Take off your martyr dress, Nancy. None of us were. People fuck up. It’s
what we do, some worse than others.” A pause. “You have to stop acting like
everything’s your fault all the time, Rick. No offense, but it’s pretty
annoying.”

“I know. You’re right.”

“It happens. Even broken
clocks are right twice a day.”

“This is a serious
conversation,” I said, hoping to ease some of the tension.

“It is.”

“It’s like, all mature
and shit.”

“We should knock it off,”
Bill suggested.

“We really should,” I
agreed.

“People will come to
expect it from us.”

“All the time.”

“We can’t have that.”

“No way, no how,” I said,
hefting another rock, smooth as glass from the wind and elements, and thought
about the fight it must have put up over the years to maintain its jagged form
only to be worn down to something better, something closer to perfect. It
brought to mind all the trials I, we, had been through. Maybe all the pain we experience
as people is meant to do the same thing to us as the wind and rain did to the
rock I held in my hand. To make us better people than we thought ourselves
capable of.

I told Bill as much.

He looked at me
seriously.

Then burst out laughing.

“Are you shitting me?” he
said once he’d gotten his wind back. “Have you been watching Tony Robbins
again?”

“I’m being serious,
asshole,” I said, laughing.

“Well stop it. Enough’s
enough for one day.”

Our conversation trailed
into silence. Before it dragged on too long, I said, “We okay now, Bill?”

He gave me a fist bump.
“Yeah, we’re okay.”

The rumble of a quad
driving over the hill behind us interrupted our bro moment. A park ranger
yelled down at us.

“Is that Bill Henly? What
in the ever-loving Hell are you doing in my park?”

Bill smiled. “Be back in
a second, Ricky. I know this guy.”

After a few minutes of
conversation, the two shook hands and the ranger took off.

“Come on, Rick,” Bill
hollered, waving me up. “I bought us some extra time in the parking lot before
they kick us out.”

By the time we made it to
his Nissan 300 Z, night had fallen. The stars were brilliant, shimmering pin
pricks in the sky.

“Can’t believe how bright
they are tonight,” I said, leaning against his car.

“Ambient light usually
kills them. It’s not so bad out here in the sticks.”

“You learned that on
Nat-Geo, didn’t you.”

“Yep. Careful. Don’t
scratch the paint.”

I turned around and
leaned my elbows on the hood. “Better?”

“Much.”

“I did something stupid
this weekend, Bill.”

“Must’ve been going
around,” he mumbled.

“What?”

“Nothing. So, this stupid
thing you did. Let me guess. You got hammered at the conference and dove into
the hotel pool naked?”

“That would’ve been
better, but no. I hooked up with my boss.”

Bill went dead silent.
With the parking lot light situated directly behind us, his face was in total
shadow.

“You fucked her?” he
finally said.

“No.” I gave him the
Cliff’s notes of everything that had happened between me and Sandy. “I could
have had sex with her, but I pulled back.”

“You’re a better man than
I am, Rick. That’s a fact.”

“I’m a scumbag is what I
am. I have to tell Cat.”

Like a faceless specter,
Bill grabbed my shoulders. “You’re not telling her anything.” His voice was
harsh and unyielding.

“If you know me half as
well as you say you do, you’ll realize I can’t
not
tell her.” His grip
tightened. “Bill ...”

He let go, but
reluctantly.

“Look, Rick,” he said. “I
know you have this weird compelling need to get shit off your chest, but trust
me, telling Cat about you and Sandy is going to put you in a world of hurt. You
don’t want to go down that road, not with you two just getting back on your
feet again.”

“She deserves to know the
truth.”

“The truth is overrated.”

“That’s cold.”

I heard him sigh. “You
know what I mean. What does Sandy mean to you?”

“Mean to me?”

“You like her? Have a
crush on her? What?”

“It’s none of that. Yeah,
I like her. She’s become a friend.”

“But …?”

“But that’s it.”

“You sure?”

I took a deep breath and
told him the truth. “Yeah, I’m sure. Just friends. I was hurting, alone … it
got out of control.”

“It was only a kiss,
Rick.”

“That’s not the point.”

Bill shook his head
emphatically. “That’s where you’re wrong. It
is
the point. It’s the
whole goddamn point. It meant nothing. A kiss isn’t the end of the world.”

“Still—”

“There are worse things.”

“Maybe.”

“No. Not maybe. Let me
ask you this. Would you want to know if Cat had kissed someone else?”

It only took a moment to
contemplate the question. “Probably not.”

“Exactly my point,” he
said, holding up a finger. “You swallow this, Rick. You find a way to live with
it and forget about it. It never happened. Understand?”

“I’m not sure I can do
that.”

“You
find a way
.
Dig down deep and stow that shit in a locker somewhere in a dark corner. We
screw up all the time, but that doesn’t make us scumbags. What happened doesn’t
mean you’re a bad person, man. It only means you’re human.”

I’d never seen Bill so
adamant about anything before.

“Don’t go and screw up a
good thing, Rick,” he continued. “It meant nothing. You made a mistake, plain
and simple. Let it go.”

Sighing, I shook my head
and looked up at the sky. I felt the weight of the infinite blackness. The
stars seemed brighter and more active against the dark backdrop.

“It looks like they’re
talking.” I nodded to the sky when Bill gave me a questioning glance. “The
stars.”

“Which is something you
shouldn’t do,” he said. “Not about this. I’m not kidding, Ricky. Don’t do it.”

I nodded. “Yeah. You’re
probably right.”