“So? That doesn’t mean we can’t.”
The guy with the machines up front flashes Torrin a thumbs-up. Torrin returns the gesture.
“Costigan, dude”—Trent shifts closer—“you’ve got balls.”
This time a couple others join Paige in hissing a warning at him.
Recognition flashes across Trent’s face. “I mean, Father Costigan, dude. You’ve got . . . testicles.”
I bite my cheek to keep from laughing, but the others don’t. They just laugh. It’s a nice sound. A real one. It takes me back to a time when I used to hang out with these people and watch movies and eat pizza. I relax a little more.
“Come on. Dance.” I don’t think Torrin even heard anything Trent said. “You promised to go to Sadie Hawkins, winter formal, and prom with me. We missed all three. I’m willing to exchange three dances for one song.”
“Are priests allowed to dance?”
“I don’t know—I think so. But Torrin Costigan’s allowed to dance.” He reaches out his hand like he’s going to drop it onto my lower back. At the last second, he changes his mind and holds out his arm for me instead. He’s not going to push me—he’s letting me make the choice. “I’m not just a priest. There’s more to me than that.”
I take his arm because he’s giving me the choice and I want to. I want to be with him in whatever way we’re still allowed. “Kind of like I’m not just the missing girl?”
“Kind of like that,” he replies.
Static breaks through the room right before a distantly familiar melody filters around us. Torrin leads me a few feet away from the group but not far. Stepping around in front of me, one hand reaches for mine and the other slides around my back. It lowers until it’s fitted into the small of my back. Then it presses deeper. My body slides against his, not quite so close that they’re touching. But I’m so close I can feel the lapels of his jacket rubbing against my skin
The song plays, and people start to turn so they’re facing us. I feel like everyone’s been watching me all night anyway—at least now I’m doing something I want to do while they stare at me.
“Tell me this.” I rest my free hand against his chest, slipping it just beneath his jacket. He still has on a vest and a dress shirt, but the motion feels intimate. “Did you ask me to dance because you wanted to or because you didn’t like the way Trent was looking at me?”
Torrin’s chest rises against mine. It falls a moment later. “Both.”
He looks a little ashamed, but I don’t. “Good.”
“Trent Covington’s had a thing for you since freshman year—I caught him talking about what he’d like to do to a certain part of your anatomy in the locker room after practice. Ten years later and I can still remember what he said—word for word.”
I feel almost normal. So close I can feel it trying to cling to my skin. “Is that jealousy I detect in your voice?”
“No, it’s loyalty. Which Covington doesn’t know the first thing about.” When I continue to look at him, saying nothing, he sighs. “And maybe a little bit of jealousy.”
I focus on the shiny button of his dress shirt so he doesn’t notice my eyes lighten. “Good.”
After that, we dance. Or I think this is what dancing is. It’s been so long, but I know this is the same feeling I used to have when Torrin tucked me close to him while music played in the background. Sometimes he’d hum the tune in my ear. Sometimes he’d whisper something else. Sometimes he’d just tip his face against mine and breathe me in like he was trying to keep a part of me inside him forever.
I focus on the lyrics of the song because if I don’t, I’m afraid I’m going to do something that I don’t want a hundred people to witness.
“That’s why you like the song, isn’t it?” I say as we sway together. “Because we’re lost souls?”
Torrin’s hand tightens around mine. “No, we’re not lost. We’re right here.”
He pauses to make sure I’m looking at him. I am. When I look at him like this, I know I’m here. I’m real and not some apparition that comes and goes.
“I chose this song because I used to listen to it day in and day out after . . .” He doesn’t say anything else—he doesn’t have to. “I thought that if I just listened to it enough, thought it enough, wanted it enough, the wishing you were here would become real. Now you’re here. No more wishing. It’s kind of cathartic, you know?”
My chests feels hollow when he says this because I know that even though we’re dancing and reunited and still looking at each other the way we used to, we can never really belong to each other again. Something is digging out my insides, one shovelful at a time, because I’m in his arms but I’ve lost him.
I distract myself from the hollow feeling by touching his bow tie. “So why are you wearing a tux?”
“Remember what I said? Nothing kills a party like a priest showing up.”
When my fingers pull away from his bow tie, it’s a little crooked. I hadn’t meant to twist it around. I’d just wanted to touch it. “Yeah, but just because you’re not dressed like one doesn’t mean you aren’t one.”
The song’s winding to an end, but Torrin’s hold is tightening. At least that’s what it feels like. It’s so gradual I’m not sure. “And just because I am one doesn’t mean that’s all I am.”
“I know.”
He blinks. “Do you?”
Pink Floyd’s guitar is still playing, strumming to its end, when I see a large figure stride up behind Torrin. I know who it is, but I’m not ready. I’m not ready to let go. I’m not ready to go face more of the inevitable.
Accepting Torrin is lost to me in the way I want him is enough inevitability for one night.
Torrin must sense him there too because his mouth floats just outside my ear. “And maybe I’m wearing what I am because tonight because I don’t want to remember who I am.” His hands hold me closer right before they loosen. “Maybe tonight, I want to forget.”
Maybe tonight and every night forward, I want to forget too. Forget it all. Except for this. Except for him. He’s not supposed to be the one I tether myself to, but it doesn’t change that he’s the one I already have. He’s not supposed to be the one . . . but he always has been The One.
I don’t know what to do what that knowledge and the acceptance that he’s a priest. I’m so damaged all I remember about love is how it’s spelled.
“Jade.” Dad’s voice cuts through the final note of the song, slicing it in half. “You’ve got more than one guest here this evening. And most of them are starting to stare.”
Torrin glances around the room, and his throat bobs.
I don’t look, because I already know everyone’s staring. I’ve had a lot of experience with that lately. “I don’t care, Dad. We’re just dancing.”
I don’t know if Torrin requested another song or not, but another one streams into the room.
“You and Torrin, you two could never just do anything.” Dad motions between us like that confirms everything. “He might be who he is now, and you are who you are, but you’re both fools if you think you can ‘just be’ anything.” Dad must see my jaw setting because he angles toward Torrin. “You need to let her go, Torrin. She’s going through enough without adding this to the headlines.”
Dad’s eyes move to Torrin’s bow tie, but I know what he’s seeing there instead. What I should see first and always whenever I look at him too.
“Dad . . .” I don’t know what else to say.
“No, he’s right.” Torrin doesn’t break eye contact with my dad for a second. “Besides, I got my dance. I can’t keep you all to myself.”
When his hand falls away from my back and unwinds from my hand, that hollowness opens up a little more.
“I wish you could,” I whisper across the space separating us.
Torrin backs up—but just a step. “And I spent ten years wishing you were here. I got mine. Maybe one day . . . someday, you’ll get yours too.”
MY VOICE IS straining, m
y skin is burning, and my body aches. As much as I don’t want to tell my parents this party was a bad idea, I’m about five more reintroductions and awkward embraces away from telling them.
It’s too much. Too many people. Too many questions. Too many smiles of pity. Too many strangers touching me and talking to me and acting like I haven’t missed the past decade of life.
I’ve met Patrick, who was a little warmer than Sam, but that doesn’t say a lot. I’ve talked to every family member, most every old friend, and at least half of my parents’ acquaintances and work friends. This would be a lot for anyone—to be at the center of this kind of attention. Up until two weeks ago, I’d spent years with one person—a person who talked without really speaking.
I’m proud of myself for doing so well tonight, but I know better than to push my limits. I don’t want this day to end up with me passed out in a small room and flashing back to one of my worst memories.
I’ve just managed to pry myself away from a couple of our old neighbors to find one of my parents and tell them I need to leave when a conversation catches my attention as I pass the dessert table. They’re work buddies of my dad’s, and they’re shaking their heads at each other.
“Can you imagine if that was your daughter? I don’t know what I’d do,” the one close to my dad’s age says to the others. I can’t remember his name, though I know I was told it when we were introduced.
“You know exactly what you’d do, and then Tom and I would have to arrest you, and you’d spend the rest of your life rotting with the same criminals you put away.”
“How would that be a crime, for Christ’s sake? I mean, come on, putting a guy like that out of his misery? Although if it was my daughter, I would have beat a lot more misery into that son of a bitch before putting him out of it, if you know what I mean.”
The two men around him bob their heads.
“I know they’re saying he never touched her like that, but he might as well have for as much as he fucked her up. That is not the same Jade. That’s not Jade at all.”
Chills spill down my back, and I know I should keep moving. I don’t need to hear anything else.
“I wish that sick fucker was right here right now because let me tell you what.” One of the others sets down his plate and points at the ceiling. “I’d string him up by his ankles and let everyone in this room take a swing. I’d let Jade take as many as she wanted until it was his guts spilling out instead of Butterfingers and bubblegum.”
The other guys are still nodding, and I know I should keep going. Pretend I didn’t hear any of it.
“I wouldn’t want one.” My voice doesn’t sound as small as I’d thought it would.
The three officers twist around to find me standing in front of them. I see regret. I see shame. I see more pity.
“I wouldn’t take a single swing.”
“I’m sorry, Jade. We didn’t mean for you to hear any of that. Just forget about it. We’re a couple of old-school cops with a little too much whiskey in them right now,” the one who suggested the stringing up says. He’s fair-skinned, but he’s reddening in embarrassment.
“He wasn’t a bad man.”
The three of them look at each other.
“He took a young girl. From her family. From her life. He took her for ten years and did terrible things to her,” one of the others says, glancing at my neck. “That isn’t just a bad man—that’s the devil himself.”
My throat is tightening with emotion. I’ve managed to not think about Earl Rae tonight, but now that I am, I can’t stop thinking about how today was his funeral. Today was the day his body was laid to rest at Holy Names Cemetery, and all of these people are thinking the worst kinds of things about him. These three are talking about wanting to kill him all over again.
It’s the day of his funeral, for Christ’s sake, and I’m at a party, talking and smiling and pretending like I belong here.
I back away from the trio of men, eyeing the door. “He wasn’t a bad man,” I repeat, slipping farther away.
They don’t argue with me this time. Instead they drop their heads and stare into their empty drinks.
I keep backing toward the door, managing to slip by friends and family and acquaintances. They don’t see me. Or maybe they do and are just pretending not to for my sake. When I reach the doors, I slip through them undetected. Not even my mom, who hasn’t seemed to look away from me for more than five seconds, sees me. I don’t see Torrin anymore, but I guess he’s still here. I want to invite him to leave with me, but I don’t because somewhere inside, I know my dad’s right—Torrin and I have never been able to “just” do anything.
Besides, for what I have planned for tonight, it’s better if I’m alone. No one else understands. They all have opposite views from mine on this.
On my way out of the building, I skim through the coat closet to find the one I know Dad brought in for me. It’s summer, but I still get cold. Especially when it gets dark. I find the dark jacket Mom picked out for me and slide into it. I check the pocket to make sure the twenty I slipped in there earlier is still there, and I keep going.
No one’s in the hall as I leave. No one’s outside the doors when I escape. No one’s around to watch me disappear.
I’m glad for it.
I rode the bus a few times with Torrin when we sneaked into the city, but I’m nervous as I wander toward the bus stop a block down from the event center. It’s late. It’s dark. And I feel like a mewing white kitten that’s just been dropped into a cage of owls. It’s the first time I’ve been on a dark sidewalk alone since . . . and every car that passes makes me flinch.
I tie my jacket around me tighter and wait for the bus. I don’t have to wait long thankfully. When the giant machine whines up to the curb, its doors pop open.
“Will this take me by Holy Names Cemetery?” I ask the driver from the curb.
She looks down at me, in my long gown and afraid to climb the steps of the bus, and waves me on. “It will take you close. You’ll have to walk a few blocks if you don’t mind walking.”
I exhale and climb on board. “I don’t mind walking.” I pay for the ride and slide into the first empty seat. The bus is mostly empty, and the ride goes fast.
After making a few stops, the driver twists back in her seat. “Hun, this is your stop. Holy Names is three or four blocks down Ash here.”
I pop up and make my way off the bus. “Thank you.”
“Be careful, okay? It’s not safe for a woman to be out walking alone by herself at night.”
I nod and smile at her, wondering what she’d say if I told her I was off to Holy Names to visit the grave of the very person who’d abducted me a decade ago.
The bus doors whine closed behind me, it screeches away from the curb, and then it’s quiet. I double-check the street sign hanging above to make sure this is Ash, then I start walking.
I feel bad I didn’t tell my parents or someone who could have told them because they don’t need me going missing on them again. I’d just been in such a hurry to leave, and I knew they’d never have let me out those doors if they knew where I was going.
I wish I had a phone. At least I could call them to let them know I’m safe and fine and will be home later tonight. That is if I can find another bus that will somehow take me all the way back to Sammamish.
I sigh as I continue down the sidewalk. I haven’t thought out any of this. All I’d been focused on was getting to the cemetery. The before and after and repercussions hadn’t even flickered in my mind.
I keep going because I can’t turn back.
The cemetery gates are locked, but it’s only to keep cars out because I can slip right through the metal gates. Other than a few lights glowing from a couple of buildings, it’s dark, and no one else is around.
I don’t know where Earl Rae’s buried—I only know the cemetery because of the article I read in the paper my dad left on the arm of his recliner. My parents have been careful to keep the television off
during the prime news hours and make sure the daily paper is never in plain view, so yesterday’s paper I found was a fluke. Or maybe it was meant to be.
I wander up and down the driveway for a while, examining the expanse of grass and graves for a patch of earth that looks freshly disrupted. I’m almost to the end of the cemetery when I notice a mound where the earth hasn’t settled. Finding it takes me longer than I’d thought it would, making me thankful for the jacket I grabbed. I take a breath, hold it in, and weave my way toward it. This plot’s tucked in the far back corner, so close to the fence’s barrier that weeds coming from the other side have started to creep in.
When I’m close enough, I read the letters stamped onto the gravestone. I’ve found it. I’ve found him.
My chest moves faster as my legs feel like they’re turning to stone. My pace slows. Taking the last few steps is next to impossible while dragging this kind of weight.
His tomb stares up at me. I can see him staring at me from beneath the ground. All at once, I feel everything I ever felt during those ten years with him. It drops me to my knees.
The earth is cold, damp. It soaks through my dress like my skin is lapping it up. His name is stamped across the gravestone in impersonal letters, the dates of his birth and death below. There’s nothing else. Not even a scroll etched into the corners of it. No title, no scripture verse, no warmth.
When I lower my shaking hand to touch it, it’s colder than the soft ground my knees are sinking into. So cold. So hard. So empty.
I don’t want this to be my last memory of him. I don’t want to remember him like this because if I do, how can I move on? I want to remember the person who celebrated my birthday every year with balloons and yellow roses . . . even if it wasn’t Jade’s birthday but Sara’s. I want to remember the person who didn’t do to me the things everyone assumes he did. I want to remember the soul who wasn’t evil . . . just lost.
If anyone can empathize with a lost soul, it should be me.
The stone doesn’t warm no matter how long I keep my hand pressed to it. Instead of accepting my warmth and radiating it back, it seems to consume it—to extinguish it. I feel the cold creep up my arm and tangle around my elbow.