The Girl From Home: A Thriller (26 page)

Jonathan would just as soon get this part over with, so he doesn't counter the undertaker's romantic notion of death. This allows Mr. Stasiak to ask what William Caine did for a living.

“He owned a furniture store,” Amy says.

“I see,” Mr. Stasiak answers. “So, he devoted himself to the comfort of others, then?”

“Exactly,” Jonathan says, “and at twenty percent less than the competition.”

“Jonathan,” Amy says.

Neither Jonathan's quip nor Amy's rebuke gives rise to any reaction from Mr. Stasiak. He goes through a few more questions and gets short answers from Amy. When he finally puts down his pen, he asks whether either of them would like to see their father before the service begins.

Amy looks to Jonathan and then says, “No. I don't think I need to see Dad that way.”

“I would, please,” Jonathan says. “Just for a moment.”

“Very well,” Mr. Stasiak says. “Follow me, please.”

He leads Jonathan through a corridor that ends at a door with a sign that says
No Entry
. Without hesitation, Mr. Stasiak opens the door, and then motions for Jonathan to enter first.

The room is small, with stark white walls and no windows. It's empty, other than a plain pine box on a gurney in the center.

The coffin seems small, too small to hold William Caine. Jonathan's stomach turns at the thought of his father trapped inside that box. Perhaps he's made a mistake, and seeing his father crammed inside is not such a good idea after all.

A large man in dirty jeans and a faded blue work shirt is standing beside the casket. A gravedigger, Jonathan assumes, although he wonders whether that's what they call themselves these days. Mr. Stasiak asks the man to slide down the lid.

“We'll give you a moment,” Mr. Stasiak says after the coffin is open.

When he's alone, Jonathan peers into the box. Other than a flimsy, white burial sheet, William Caine wears a quizzical expression, as if he's not sure what to make of being dead. It's the face his father sometimes made after taking the first bite of his entrée in a restaurant, when he was considering whether he'd chosen well.

“Hiya, Dad,” Jonathan says. It reminds him a bit of his hospital visits, including the fact that he doesn't expect a response. “I wanted to take one last time to say . . . I'm sorry. Sorry that I wasn't a better son. But I'm very grateful for the last few weeks we had together. I'm trying to follow your advice. To be a better man.”

Jonathan leans over and kisses his father's forehead. The moment he touches his lips to his father's flesh, he wishes he hadn't. His father's skin is waxy, and cold to the touch, highlighting that his father is not actually there at all.

*  *  *

The sanctuary could hold fifty or so people, but there is no one present besides Amy and her family when Jonathan takes his seat beside his sister. Apparently Jackie thought better of coming after all. Jonathan can't deny that he's disappointed, even as he tells himself that she's safer staying away.

“How'd he look?” Amy whispers.

“Peaceful,” Jonathan says, because he assumes that's what Amy wants to hear.

A rabbi who doesn't introduce himself, and as best as Jonathan recalls did not officiate at his mother's funeral, begins to chant some prayers in Hebrew. He transitions to English to say something about God's will, and then segues to summarize in thirty seconds William Caine's seventy-four years. He spends the same amount of time confirming that Mr. Caine died of a broken heart, longing to be reunited with his wife.

“Would anyone here like to say a few words?” the rabbi asks, looking at Jonathan and Amy.

Amy turns to Jonathan. “You should say something,” she whispers.

Jonathan had not thought about delivering any type of eulogy, especially because he'd essentially be talking solely to Amy and her family. But with his sister prodding him that it was part of the responsibility of being the firstborn, and the rabbi now expecting a family member to deliver some remarks, he feels as if he has no choice in the matter and heads to the stage.

Standing behind the podium, Jonathan sees Jackie in the back of the room. She must have entered after the service began, perhaps because she wanted to minimize the risk that someone would spot her here.

He can feel his heart expand. Just seeing Jackie has that effect on him.

There are three rows of seats vacant before her, but she has apparently decided not to occupy any of them. Instead, she leans against the wall as if she were just walking by and decided to watch a little.

She's wearing a black dress, but even in mourner's garb, Jackie looks spectacularly beautiful. Jonathan pushes away the impure thoughts that Jackie stirs in him and focuses on his father. Not the weak man he always saw him as, or the dementia patient Jonathan's spent the last few weeks with, or the one who didn't know about good scotch, or the cuckold from the family barbecue, but the man he remembers once idolizing.

“I want to tell a story about my father. It's one I've never really told before, and so it should be new even to you, Amy. But it remains one of my earliest memories of him. And Jack and Molly, I think you might like it, too, because it happened when I was four or five, on a day my father took me to the park. Nothing eventful occurred while we were there, but as we're leaving, a man flagged us down, waving his arms over his head.” Jonathan acts this part out, his arms swinging as if he's calling for a rescue party. “The man told Dad that there was something wrong with his car, and I could see that it was stuck in the middle of the road. Not in a space or anything, but blocking traffic. As if the car was riding along and then just stopped dead. So Dad tells me to wait on the sidewalk, and that I shouldn't move. I even remember he said that I should hold this tree branch like it was his hand, so I didn't wander off. And he tells the other guy that he'll push the car into a parking space.”

Jonathan pauses and smiles. He's brought back to that day in the park so thoroughly that he can actually feel the branch in his hand, the wind in his hair.

“And all I can think is . . .
What?
How on earth is he going to push a car? Does he think he's Superman? So, the other man gets in his car and after rolling down his window, he calls back to Dad, ‘Okay, ready.' And my father rubs his hands together and then places them down on the car's trunk and starts to push.”

Jonathan allows himself a light chuckle and shakes his head in disbelief. “When that car started to move, it really was like . . . I don't know, but it was no different in my mind than if my father had just lifted off the ground and begun to fly. My father
was
a superhero. End of story. And it didn't take me long to think to myself, This is great, because I'd inherit his superstrength, and maybe other stuff, too. X-ray vision, superspeed, who knows what else? You know . . . I don't recall talking to him about it. Not on the car ride home or after, even. Maybe we did and I just can't remember, but I don't think so, because this idea that my father was a superhero persisted for some time after. I just thought . . . I knew what I saw.”

Jonathan begins to choke up but wills himself to say more. “I don't remember when I realized it wasn't true. I remember believing it, and then at some point, I didn't anymore, but I don't recall when it changed from one to the other. Kind of like Santa Claus, I guess.”

Jonathan had been alternating his gaze between Amy in the front row and Jackie along the wall in the back, but now his eyes fall to the floor. Everyone is blocked out of the room. And it feels, for a moment, that he's alone with his father again.

“Anyway, for much of the time after I realized my father actually didn't have any special abilities . . . well, I didn't want to be like him at all. He seemed to me to be weak, unsuccessful, just . . . average.”

Jonathan clears his throat, to give himself a chance to regain some composure, but it doesn't work, and he begins to break down. The rabbi walks over to the podium and hands Jonathan a small plastic cup with water. Jonathan swallows it in one gulp.

“Thank you,” Jonathan says in a quiet voice. “I think I can finish. I'll just be another minute.”

The rabbi takes a step back but doesn't return to his seat. Apparently he thinks he'll soon be called on again to assist Jonathan.

“I'm so ashamed that I ever felt that way,” Jonathan says, his voice cracking. “But now I know, in a way I sadly did not for so many years, that William Caine
was
a superhero. Even though he couldn't run faster than a speeding bullet or leap tall buildings in a single bound, and even though he wasn't a millionaire or famous or some of the things that back when I was younger I thought mattered, he was a man who was married to the same woman for over forty-seven years. He built a business that kept his family sheltered, clothed, fed, and educated. And in his last breath of life on this earth, he was still teaching his son how to be a better man. What's more heroic than that?”

*  *  *

After Jonathan returns to his seat, the rabbi concludes the service with a few more prayers, before saying, “The family should follow the casket out of the chapel and toward the burial site, which is a short walk from here. Take an umbrella, because I think it's still raining. There is an awning beside the grave site and so we'll be covered during the short interment ceremony.”

Jonathan waits until Amy's family is out of the chapel before kissing Jackie hello. He'd overheard Amy telling her kids that their aunt Natasha was visiting her family back in Russia, which was why she couldn't come to say good-bye to their grandfather, and he'd just as soon not put his sister through the trouble of explaining why there was a new woman holding their uncle Jonathan's hand.

“Thank you for coming,” he says to Jackie.

The moment the words come out, he stops short. Her makeup hid the red mark on Jackie's face from a distance, but up close it's obvious. A rage flushes through him.

“Oh my God, Jackie!”

“Yeah, well, it looks worse than it feels.”

“That fucking animal!” he says.

“Don't,” Jackie says through clenched teeth. “Not here, and not now. I came here for you. Because . . . I don't know, I just wanted to see you and so you'd know that I'm here for you.”

“Let me be here for you, too. Don't go back home. Stay with me. We'll figure this out together.”

“Thank you, but you have your hands full right now with your sister and her family. And I've got my situation under control. I've made arrangements for the kids to stay with friends for the next few days. I told the mothers that I had a family emergency to attend to, which I guess isn't really a lie. So Robert and Emma are in a safe space while I figure out what to do next.”

“And where are you going to stay?”

“I spent last night at the Hilton off the turnpike. I was going to call you, but I knew your sister and her family were staying with you . . . and, I just didn't want you to worry about me.”

“I like worrying about you, Jackie. And whether you want me to or not, I'm doing it now. Are you staying at the hotel again tonight?”

“No, I'm going to go see my mother in Baltimore for a few days. I know this may be a lot to ask, but I was hoping I could see you one more time before I left. I kept the room for the night.”

The way she says it makes Jonathan think that he's never going to see her again after tonight. He's fearful that she's decided to do something drastic, but figures that this is not the time or the place to enter into such a heavy discussion. He's got to get to the grave site, and he can talk to Jackie tonight.

“I'd love to,” Jonathan says.

“Thank you,” she says. “I'm in Room 519.”

A
fter returning to the Hilton, Jackie watches some cheesy daytime television and waits for Jonathan's arrival. She's actually enjoying herself, momentarily forgetting about her troubles, when her phone rings.

Rick's picture comes up on the screen, which makes her too afraid even to touch the phone, for fear that she'll inadvertently answer it. When the ringing stops, she breathes a sigh of relief, but then the phone pings to indicate she has a voice mail.

It's the first message Rick has left since she walked out of their house nearly twenty-four hours ago. She's reluctant to listen to it, paralyzed with the ridiculous fear that Rick could somehow glean her location if she hears his voice. But then reason prevails, and she hits play.

“Jackie,” he says, “I'm just calling to tell you that I love you. I really meant what I said last night and I can't wait to see you.”

His syrupy voice only adds to the terror of his words. It's a threat and a defense. She now knows with utmost certainty that Rick has decided to kill her. That's the only reason he'd leave this type of message. So that after she's dead, when the police question him, he'll point to this voice mail as proof of how happy they were together.
Of course there was no problem with my wife before she suffered that horrible accident
, she can hear him telling the police.
In fact, we were very much in love. You heard my voice mail message to her, right?

She smiles with the thought that she's going to turn Rick's message around.
No, Officer, things were fine between Rick and me before his horrible accident. Didn't you hear the sweet message he left for me right before he died?

*  *  *

Jonathan arrives at Jackie's hotel room a little before four. He pulls Jackie in to him, but she winces when he touches her in the spot where Rick had used his boot.

“I figure you could use a drink,” she says, breaking their embrace. “What if I order us a nice bottle of wine?”