Bridget has remained in her catatonic state the entire time, happy in the world she is in, or perhaps sad; I wish I had a way of knowing. The window and the trees beyond hold for her the
same fascination as they have done every day for the last two years. I feel exhausted, as I always do when I purge myself of the day’s events. The silence in the room is peaceful, and in these quiet times I often think that I would be better off if I could be catatonic too, unknowing and unfeeling, and keeping Bridget company. I sit holding her hand for a few more minutes, then I stand, pulling her hand up slightly. She comes with me and steps towards the bed. Her actions are involuntary, her body just following the motions. She can move from the bed to the chair, and back again. Sometimes the staff will find her standing in the corridor, motionless, and twice she has made it down into the foyer. Guide a glass up to her lips and she can drink. Raise a fork to her mouth and she can eat. But she cannot fend for herself, cannot speak, cannot look at you with an expression that suggests she knows you are there. Everything is a thousand miles away, and her eyes are fixed on that point in the distance, continually searching, searching, but never finding.
She lies down. I kiss her on the side of her cool face — her hands are always warm, her cheeks always cool — then slowly make my way from her room. I don’t turn back. I never do, not these days. I will see her tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after.
Patricia Tyler isn’t the only person in this city playing the waiting game.
Outside, the cold air feels like silk against my face. I stand next to my car for nearly five full minutes. I stand doing nothing as the rain dampens my jacket. I’m not even really sure whether I’m thinking about my wife or dead girls or bad luck and bad omens, Until finally I find the strength to drive away.
chapter nine
I turn my cellphone on and wait for it to ring, but it doesn’t.
Could mean people are getting killed elsewhere in the city and the reporters flocking there have forgotten about me. Could be the police know who put the bodies in the water and don’t feel they need to let me know. Could be Tracey hasn’t noticed the missing ring on the dead girl’s finger and I’m sailing through trouble-free waters. Could be none of that. Might simply be a poor signal.
Or that taking it for a swim has finally caught up with the inner components.
I go through the motions of changing gears and avoiding
other cars before realising I’m not heading home, or even to my office, but back to the cemetery where my day suddenly became interesting. Where there is death there is life — at least at the moment. Police cars are scattered across the landscape but mostly localised by the lake. They are no longer guarding the entrance.
I ignore them and head to the opposite side of the cemetery where the dead are still at peace.
I make the walk through the dark without need of a torch. It’s a walk I could make with my eyes closed. The grass is wet and soon the bottoms of my pants and shoes are wet.
It’s been two months since I last stood over my daughter’s grave. After her funeral, I never wanted to come back. Seeing the smooth headstone with the brass plate carved with her name and the dates hurt too much. But it hurt even more staying away. The doctors tell me they don’t think Bridget knows that Emily is dead or even that Emily ever existed. I hope they’re right — though I’m not sure what kind of person that makes me. Emily didn’t have the good luck to become catatonic but the bad luck to be killed: she had twice as many bones in her body broken as my wife; she hit the pavement just as hard, just as awkwardly, and just like that she was gone. No luck there at all, unless you count bad luck.
The tears don’t come as much these days. The pain is part of who I am now. Getting rid of it would be like losing a limb.
The flowers in the grave have wilted and died. The coffin beneath the earth is child sized, and the mere fact there is a market for child-sized coffins in this world proves it’s a fucked up one — and for the briefest moment I think about the condition the coffin is in, whether it’s as dented and damaged as the one pulled out of the ground earlier today, or whether its smallness helped it withstand the weight of the earth above it. Then I wonder if she is even in there.