Daniela would come from Mumpf and Mary would join them as well. Tim had a game and Max and Alexis would stay with the wife of a teammate. Max hadn’t returned to Dietlikon since the accident. It was best. He didn’t understand that dead meant forever.
Ursula made split-pea soup. Anna managed a few bites. This earned approving nods from Bruno and Mary, which Anna pretended not to notice. Ursula had also baked two white cakes, each covered in pale pink frosting: one for the family to enjoy, and a small one intended for Polly Jean alone. Polly Jean threw herself into its deconstruction, squealing with glee. There were crumbs in her hair and clumps of frosting in her eyelashes. Bruno took the photos. Polly Jean’s laugh made everyone else laugh. Even Anna smiled, though it shamed her and she tried to stifle it. Mary put her arm around her and in a whisper told her that there was never any shame in joy. “If Charles were here, Anna, he’d be laughing too.” Until that point every mention made of Charles had sent Anna spinning into sobs. But the tone of Mary’s voice was yielding and her genuine belief that Charles, wherever he was, was fine and without a doubt happy and safe—yes, Anna, in Heaven!—pulled Anna away from the company of her despairs. Mary was sure. “Yes, Anna. I’m positive. Your son is well,” she said. Mary had never given Anna any reason to distrust her. So in that moment, with her family around her, Anna tried to imagine Heaven, and Charles in it. Where are you? What are you doing? Is this possible? Oh Schatz, my love! Can you see me? I miss you! I love you most of all!
The attempt, to Anna’s astonishment, succeeded. There were no harps or halos. There wasn’t a gate. In this Heaven there wasn’t even God. And it wasn’t so much a place as it was a dimension that existed just beyond the tangible three of the physical world and outside the immaterial chronology of the fourth. It was only a glimpse, and a quick flicker of a glimpse at that—but what she saw was a vicinity near to her own (nearer in fact than she would have expected) where time and physical form no longer mattered, if ever they mattered to begin with, and there, in that realm, was Charles. He was faceless and formless and yet altogether whole. The universal benevolence Doktor Messerli believed in cupped the soul of her son in its palm. The palm was warm. The warmth was real. This, she could accept. She could live with this.
Anna began to feel some of the hard, black fog lift from her shoulders and with Mary’s permission, she embraced the feeling. It won’t be bad forever, Anna soothed herself. I don’t need to feel bad forever. She was hopeful but wary. A mood is a fickle thing. As quickly as it comes it can depart.
Polly Jean was a glorious mess. There was even cake in her ears. When enough became enough, Anna made a motion to pick her up and take her away, but Ursula intervened. “I’ll bathe her. Stay with your guest.”
Oh, Anna said, which she hoped translated to Thank you.
Victor ate two pieces of cake then ran off to watch television in Ursula’s living room. He, too, seemed lighter. Bruno, Mary, and Daniela drank coffee and chatted. All interaction hedged against levity. Anna felt better, this was evident. Still, everyone remained cautious in his or her speech. No one wanted her disposition to slip.
The conversation began in earnest innocence. Mary had mentioned how much like Bruno Victor looked. “It’s his eyes and nose. And the shape of his face. A Xerox, Bruno!” Mary laughed at this clever-only-to-herself remark. Anna nodded from the other side of her coffee cup as she sipped. Victor did look exactly like Bruno. He acts just like him too. On his best days and his worst. “Max and Tim look nothing alike. Well, maybe in the eyes. A little. Everyone says he favors my side of the family. But oh—listen to this. So my great-grandfather Alexander had two children …” Mary, who had already been talking in circles, launched into an even more circuitous story about Alexander’s fraternal twin sister and what Alexis looked like as a baby. Anna wasn’t listening. She was looping the memory of Charles’s first birthday. It was a balmy mid-April day and the whole family and all the neighbors sat under the apple trees and watched as Charles took his first unaided steps. He toddled three feet and then collapsed on the grass in giggles. It was a good day.
Mary continued. Bruno listened closely, or pretended to. He smiled at the right pauses and made appropriate comments when the moments allowed and held an interested expression as Mary rattled on about babies and family resemblances. Mary had made no secret that she longed for a third child. When Anna asked why, Mary responded by admitting that having a baby would give her something to do. Anna laughed until she realized Mary wasn’t kidding. At the time Anna had thought to herself she’d do better with a lover, they were less trouble.