But that is for later. . . .
For now I must say good-bye. Unlike my wife, Caitlin is beautiful in death. Sarah was beautiful in life, but cancer stripped away her loveliness piecemeal until all that remained was a living husk. On this table, Caitlin reminds me of stories from London during the Blitz, when lovers seated on park benches had the life snatched out of them by the blast of a V-2 rocket they never even heard. The bullet wound in her chest is obscene, as is the thoracotomy window the surgeon cut in her side, but the rest of her body bears no mark. Her skin was always china white, and with her veil of black hair, she looks more like an actress playing a murder victim in a film than an actual corpse. For a surreal moment, I half expect someone to yell “Cut” and to hear the footsteps of the crew rushing in to congratulate her and give her sips of Perrier.
But no one does.
Looking closer, I see that Caitlin died without a trace of makeup on. Jordan Glass’s influence, no doubt. Beneath her frozen perfection, though, I sense that the process of decay has already begun. Her cheeks sag in a way they never did in life, and her breasts lie flatter than I ever saw them. This woman will never bear a child, never nurse one, or watch one take its first steps. She will never sit proudly at a graduation, or grow old and touch the wrinkles on her face with exquisite sadness over slowly encroaching mortality. For Caitlin Masters, mortality arrived all at once, in a tiny package of lead and copper that rearranged her vibrant heart just enough to smother it in its own blood.
Questions swim like ravenous fish below the surface of my consciousness, yet something of almost terrifying power holds them at a certain depth. Since Caitlin cannot answer questions for me, the fish must wait to be fed. Some part of me understands that this will be the last time I spend with Caitlin in her natural state. As a prosecuting attorney, I know too well the clinical rituals that follow death. After this brief lacuna in the rush of events, she will be violated by the pathologist’s saw; her organs will be weighed upon the scales; her blood will be pumped out by the embalmers and replaced by chemicals; all the other ghoulish sequelae we inflict upon the dead will follow in train. Yet all this leaves me strangely cold. My temporarily cauterized nerve endings transmit no signals of agony; my brain experiences revulsion as a concept, not an emotion. I know that pain will come—in minutes perhaps, or hours, or even days—and when it does, I may not be able to endure it.
But for now . . .
I reach out and take the cold hand of the woman I would have married next week, had my father not taken leave of his senses, and gently squeeze it as I did in life. She does not squeeze back, but I still remember with absolute clarity what the reciprocal squeeze felt like: the proof of love returned.
The OR’s double doors open behind me, but I do not turn. A nurse gently suggests that I rejoin my friend outside.
I ask her to leave.
Perhaps I was not as polite as I should have been, for I hear voices just outside the door. Some male, others female. Someone is talking about shock, suggesting I might need to be seen by a doctor.
Shock.
Am I in shock?
“Penn?” says a hesitant voice from behind me. “It’s Carl. Can I talk to you?”
“Talk,” I say without turning.
Carl walks slowly up beside me.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t save her, man. I did everything I could.”
“I know you did.”
“I think I broke her ribs, doing CPR. I’m so sorry about that.”
“That means you did it right.”
“You don’t—” Carl’s voice catches, and he has to pause to regain his composure. “You don’t think I made her worse, do you? That pericardial thing?”
In truth, he probably did, but nobody could have wanted Caitlin to live more than Carl Sims in those moments. “She wasn’t going to make it, man. You did all you could.”
Carl sobs once, then wipes his nose on his sleeve. “You heard what that doctor said? Your daddy tried hard to save her. And Caitlin did all she could to save herself. She did shit even a combat soldier might not do.”
My throat constricts painfully, cutting off a single wracking sob.
“Your daddy’s awake now, they said. Down in the ER. He went into sugar shock. A few more minutes and he would have been dead.”
I grunt but say nothing.
“I didn’t tell them who he was, but that trauma doctor knows. And I mean . . . he’s still a fugitive. You better think about how you want to handle that. State police could show up any time.”
“It doesn’t matter now.”
“Well . . . I just thought I should tell you. They’re getting kind of antsy out there. The hospital folks.”
“It doesn’t matter, Carl.”
The deputy makes a sad sound deep in his throat. “Look now, Sheriff Ellis ordered me and Danny back to Athens Point. We told him you didn’t have a ride back, but he said you weren’t our problem, that we had a job to do out in the swamp. But then I got a call from Agent Kaiser. Kaiser said we weren’t to leave this hospital without you on board, and he would take care of the sheriff. And I guess he did, ’cause the sheriff ain’t called back once.”
I nod but don’t take my eyes from Caitlin’s placid face.
“Penn,” Carl says, stepping closer to the table, then turning to look up at me. “I never got a chance to ask you. Why’d she go back out there, man? She didn’t say nothing to me about it, I swear. Did she tell you she was going back?”
“No.”
“Lord, I just can’t believe it. I feel for you, brother. I know that don’t mean nothing right now. You just tell me and Danny what you want us to do, and we’ll do it. I don’t care what it is.”