And me, crouched in the dark, still wanting to talk to him. Still wanting him to take me in his arms and listen to me tell him how awful it was. But I waited too long, and then he was snoring.
I peeked around the corner. He was sprawled on the couch, his boots still on, one arm covering his eyes. He didn’t care about Mrs. Patel dying. He didn’t care about me finding her. In that drunken, slumbering moment, he didn’t care about anything. He just slept, deep and easy, as if he’d earned it. But he hadn’t. He was just some drunk, insensitive asshole passed out on a couch.
Ruthie was with her dad when he had an aneurysm and dropped dead in the produce aisle at the Seaside Market, a head of lettuce in one hand and a bag of carrots in the other. We were eleven, and when I saw her at the funeral, she said her mother bought the vegetables he’d been holding, in case some of his spirit was in them now.
“Which is dumb. That’s not how death works,” Ruthie said. “You’re alive, and then you’re dead. Nothing happens after. Nothing at all. It’s science.”
But there was a window between when the organs stopped functioning and cells actually began to perish. Only minutes, maybe. But there was a time when the body was dead but the soul remained. When my dog, O’Ryan, died I could tell. Even after half an hour, O’Ryan looked alive, but just very, very still, and yet I didn’t believe that he was actually dead, except that his jaw was slack and his bowels had let go.
Just like Mrs. Patel.
With O’Ryan—old and arthritic and riddled with cancer—I didn’t truly believe he was dead until Dan came over with his stethoscope and showed me that there were no heart sounds. No lung sounds. He fit the stethoscope to my ears and placed the bell over O’Ryan’s heart, and it was true.
There was no guessing with Mrs. Patel. It was obvious that she was dead. And even though it was far-fetched, and even though I tried to tell myself that I was being ridiculous, I just kept thinking that it was my fault. I had wished a heart attack on Raymond, and it had landed on the wrong person. My fault. My fault. The heart attack was my fault. That looped in my head, so loud that I couldn’t make any other sense of it.
—
Dad looked rough the next morning. He sat at the table with a piece of dry toast and a mug of strong coffee in front of him and opened his arms to me. I sat awkwardly in his lap and he wrapped his arms around me and leaned his head on me. His hair reeked of alcohol and cigarettes. His face was greasy and bloated.
“I’m sorry that I wasn’t here for you, kiddo.”
I didn’t say anything. I glanced at Claire, but she looked away.
He was talking. He was saying the words, but they were flat and drifting. I wanted to be here. Cell phone in the truck. Out a bit too late. Had no idea. You two were close, I know that. So sorry. I wish I’d been here. No excuse. How awful for you. What do you need, kiddo? Have you called your mom? Can we do anything? Have you called your counselor?
Before I left, Nancy had said I could call or email anytime. But I didn’t want to talk to Nancy. I knew what she’d say. I am so, so sorry for the loss of your dear friend, Maeve. This is not your fault. This is just life. It was her time. Now, Maeve, I have names of counselors up there. There’s no need to try to do this alone. What about a grief group? Or she’d recommend Al-Anon again. Nancy, who refused to accept that I would never, ever join a group like that. A bunch of people whining and moaning about their drunk father or mother or sister or boss or kid. All of them in some basement somewhere, shoulders hunched miserably, commiserating, huddling around stale doughnuts after, crying into napkins. A place for you to build relationships. A place to make friends.
I wanted Ruthie. I wanted one of her pragmatic summaries. Heart-attack curse? Don’t be stupid. The heart dies because of a medical emergency that cannot be fixed in time. That’s what she’d say. Science. It comes down to biology.
“Have you called your mom yet?” Dad asked again as he got ready to leave for work.
I shook my head.
“Why not?”
I shrugged.
“Call her,” he said. “She’ll want to know.”
So I texted her. Mrs. Patel died.
That was it. So much had happened. Too much. When she left, she’d said that she wanted to know about everything. She wanted to know the details. She wanted to know how I was feeling. If we keep in touch, nothing will change between us, she’d said. But so much had already changed. There was too much to tell her. There was nowhere to start, because there was nowhere to end.
When she called, I told her that I didn’t know when Mrs. Patel had died. Or how she’d died. Claire told me, I said. Bandhu had called her. Oh, and Dad came home drunk.
She said all the right things. And she didn’t ask any of the right questions.
“Mrs. Patel is in a better place.”
“I guess so.”
“Your father has slipped before, and recovered from that. Don’t worry.”
“I suppose.”
“What about your date?”
“My date?”
“With Salix.” I could tell that she was pleased that she remembered her name.
“Oh. That.”
“Yes, that!” She was being excited for me. She was missing the point. “When is it?”
“Friday.”
“Well, I want to hear all about it. Let me know how it goes.”
When we hung up, Haiti seemed even farther away. It was at the edge of the planet. Or I was at the edge of the planet. Either way, someone was going to fall off.
Of course I was going to cancel the date. I didn’t deserve to go on a date. I didn’t deserve to feel the excited butterflies. I didn’t deserve to think about what to wear, or what to say, or to imagine a first kiss with her.
I’d killed Mrs. Patel.
I turned the phone over and over in my hand until I finally sent a text.
I’m really sorry, but I can’t make it on Friday. Something came up.
My skin prickled with disappointment, and I almost started to cry. But then I reminded myself that I was the one to blame. I thought of Mrs. Patel on a cold metal gurney in the morgue. Her life had ended because of me. I had no right to be happy.
“Hindus do death really fast,” Corbin said as he and Owen and I walked up the street to get ice cream a couple of days later. Mrs. Patel’s service was the next day, as soon after the death as possible, according to tradition.
“When Bobs died, we had a funeral the same day,” Owen said. “Remember? And Dad pretended to be the priest.”
“It’s stupid to have a funeral for a cat,” Corbin said. “Nana Jenkins says animals don’t have souls.”
Claire’s mom. Also dead. Fundamentalist Christian who was certain beyond a doubt that she was going to heaven. Died of lung cancer. Smoked for fifty-two years out of sixty-four.
“To each their own,” I said. The boys looked up, puzzled. “Thoughts. Everyone is entitled to their own ideas about death and what happens after.”
“Louie in gymnastics died,” Owen said.
“He wasn’t a kid,” Corbin said. “He was the janitor. He was really old.”
“Mia Wong died.”
“Car accident.” Corbin picked up a long, thin stick and stuck it down his cast.