Cleo

Never. Sam would never grow up and savor the ecstasy of falling in love, the joy of seeing his own children born. Forever. He was lost to the world forever, remembered as a golden boy who never had the chance to become a man. The only way to stop the words spinning through my head was to go to the picture window—one that couldn’t be taken to the paint strippers because it was attached to the house—and attack it with a small crimson paint scraper. Never, forever, never, until my wrist ached and my fingers were bleeding and on the brink of bursting into flames. The view through the picture window of city, hills and harbor felt malignant, but it was the frame that needed scraping. With each stroke I stripped another layer of pain. Maybe when the wood was finally bare and smooth my heart would be healed. One time (was it daylight or dark?) Steve led me gently away from the window that had no solution. My pointless, obsessive behavior was disturbing.

On the few occasions I ventured out into the world—the impersonal stage set of shops and offices—I had no qualms burdening strangers with the facts of my recent tragedy. “My son died,” I’d confided to the woman behind the post office counter. “Yes, he was run over three weeks ago. He was only nine.” The woman had turned pale all of a sudden, narrower and taller. She seemed to want to dissolve into the poster advertising a new series of pictorial stamps. Collector’s items, an excellent gift for friends overseas, convenient to post. Glancing nervously towards the door, she’d said she was sorry. Her tone was flat and quiet. Sorry about what? That I’d used her as a receptacle for shocking information or that I’d walked into her post office in the first place?

A fleeting wave of shame had washed over me. What business had I ruining the day of a normal person who was simply trying to earn a living? She’d had every reason to think I was mad, lying, or both.

I told the bank teller, too. His reaction was similar. What was this need to expose my wounds, so horribly raw, to strangers? The satisfaction of witnessing their shock and discomfort had been minimal. I must have had some kind of need to redefine my place in the world, to wear a label for strangers to read and, ultimately, force myself into accepting the unacceptable. Perhaps there was logic in olden-day mourners wearing black for a year. It would be a signal that the wearer was at best unstable.

While I resented roosting at home to be the target of compassionate visitors, I was in no shape for the outside world, either. Walking down the main street searching for new clothes for our surviving son, children’s designer clothes of a quality so fine he’d be protected and sheltered forever, I became suddenly lost and disoriented. Awash in a tide of faces, all of them unfamiliar and disengaged, I fought an urge to cry out. Glossy shop windows leaned forward, threatening to crush me on the pavement. My knees weakened. An acquaintance spotted me and guided me back to the car. Humiliated by my need, I thanked her and sent her away.

Gulping breaths in front of the steering wheel, I knew exactly how I must’ve looked. A human skull with hairs protruding from its scalp. Glancing in the rearview mirror, I was astonished to see a twenty-eight-year-old woman, unaccountably young, with red eyes.

We tried to resume normal life, whatever that was. A couple of weeks after the funeral, wearied from my weeping and yelling, on top of the burden of his own secret grief, Steve packed his bag and headed off like a sleepwalker for a week at sea. I hoped he might find serenity in the routines and order of shipboard life.

A few days later I heard the knocker pound against the front door. Sheltering in the shadows at the end of the hallway, I contemplated the figure behind the frosted-glass panel. While the silhouette appeared feminine, its shape wasn’t familiar. It seemed tall for a woman, the hair short and shaggy.

Rob glanced up from the kitchen table, where he was building a space station with his new Lego set. In past weeks he’d been showered with toys and clothes, all blindingly bright in their shiny wrapping. Rata, once a reliable guard dog, maintained her prostrate position in the doorway of the boys’ old bedroom and pricked an ear. Ever since the accident she’d been immobile, inconsolable, and would barely lift her head. Whenever anyone tried to comfort her, she rolled a mournful eye.

“Let’s not answer it,” I said. “They’ll go away in a minute.”

Another visitor was the last thing we needed. Exhausted and numb to the core, I wasn’t capable of conversation. The story would have to be told again. He—or she—would gaze at me with whirlpool eyes while I explained how our two beloved sons went down the road and only one came home. Retelling the story, reciting it like plainsong in an empty cathedral, wearied me. I didn’t want their tears, was tired of their cancer-ward voices.