One of James Seville’s longest recurring clients was an aging accountant named Hugo McDonald. He had diagnosed Hugo with bi-polar depression, but aside from attempting suicide twenty-three times, Hugo acted much the same way as James: he had a sizable 401K built up; he drank frequently, but never to excess; he dry-cleaned his suits and folded his hands when they talked. But Hugo was fascinated by death, especially his own.
On his lunch breaks and weekends, Hugo researched every cemetery in a fifty-mile radius of his house, comparing their rates, services and track-record, then printed out embossed memorial schedules. He had even purchased himself a custom rosewood coffin. One August day, when James asked him the inevitable question why, Hugo simply shrugged. “Seems like the logical thing to do,” he said. “It’s just as important as writing a will.”
Business carried on as usual that day, but later in the evening, as James was walking to Simone’s, he noticed a cemetery, tucked between a bank high-rise and a parking garage. It was called St. Jude’s Cemetery. St. Jude’s looked old, but it had aged particularly well, with black metal fencing all along the perimeter, through an archway above the entrance and even wrapped about the many oak trees, their leaves turned the color of fire.
James knew he should keep walking, but as he stared at St. Jude’s, he felt a wild curiosity. He stepped foot inside and followed the winding gravel path, stopping every so often to read the more idiosyncratic gravestones. Flowers, both real and artificial, dotted the grass. A brick and mortar cabin, as ordinary as any rental Upstate, served as the cemetery office. Inside, James was greeted by a caretaker with salt-and-pepper hair and a friendly smile. “I’d like to inquire about your rates,” James had told him.
It seemed like the logical thing to do.
James didn’t stop by Simone’s that night. He went straight home, locked the deadbolt, and slipped off his loafers by the fridge. Later, he went into the study and placed both hands on Zooey’s shoulders, then went to bed. They made love in silence.
Moments afterward, as Zooey leaned over to switch off her light, he blurted out: “I stopped by St. Jude’s.”
He hit his lower lip, expecting Zooey might stare at him quizzically, her right eyebrow raised, the way she sometimes looked when they watched a bad movie. But she just looked irritated now. “The cemetery?” she asked. “Why would you even do that?”
But the truth was, James had brought up St. Jude’s to have something new to talk about, a distraction to keep Zooey from turning off her light and falling asleep. Something to keep them from slipping further.
But in the end, he hoped that Zooey had remembered what he said.
Because now, as he stopped outside the gates of St. Jude’s Cemetery, James could only hope that Zooey had buried him here.
It seemed like a nice place to spend eternity.
James checked his watch. 1:20 a.m.
He set his alarm for twenty minutes later, then approached the gate and followed the gravel path inside, just as he had done so many times before. The oak trees were nothing more than wood skeletons now, their leaves scattered on the grass and pathway, mixed with the stray, spilt flowers.
James reached into his coat pocket to grab his flashlight. Then, he started searching for an unfamiliar gravestone.
He knew this was pointless: even so, he wondered what his gravestone might look like. Zooey was in her second year of grad school, and his parents were now in a retirement home, so he doubted it’d be anything more than an off-white granite headstone. But what would it say? He didn’t have any children, so it couldn’t read “Beloved Father”; he hadn’t married Zooey, either, so it wouldn’t say “Faithful Husband”, though he had been faithful. “Devoted Psychologist” seemed appropriate, yet he hated to think that this was all he could be remembered for.
The rain started without a sound.
James was inspecting the fourth row of headstones when heard a pitter-patter on the crumpled leaves, moments before it turned to a downpour. This was typical in Manhattan, but he had grabbed a flashlight instead of an umbrella when he left. He tucked his neck into his fleeced jacket and looked around for cover, but really, there was only one place to go.
Inside the cemetery office, James shook the water out of his thinning hair then parted it, as he always did, on the left side. Though the cabin looked centuries old outside, the interior seemed modern and nuanced, with a pair of suede couches in the corner, an ottoman littered with magazines, and an espresso machine. James was about to take off his jacket when he heard a crinkling sound.
Over by the front desk, Sarah Garner was leaning over the glass case that served as a countertop, flipping through a laminated black binder. She hadn’t noticed him.
James glanced over his shoulder and considered leaving, but hears the rain droning on the shingled roof above. Conversation, it seemed, was inevitable. “Mrs. Garner, it’s a pleasure seeing you again.”
Sarah turned about, her fingers still on the laminated pages of the binder. She looked much older now - James couldn’t tell if this was because her makeup had faded, or because of the dim lighting here, but he could see the wrinkles by her cheekbones, the crows feet under her eyes. She took a drag off her cigarette. “Mr. Seville. I thought you were headed home.”
“Just stopping by, I’m afraid. Yourself?”
“Comparing rates.”
This made James smile. “St. Jude’s seems nice, doesn’t it?”
“It’s the cheapest in a twenty-mile radius,” she replied with a shrug. “Knowing John, he didn’t spare a dime putting me six feet under, so I might as well call this place home. That’s my husband, John.”
“Ah.”
Trapped indoors by the rain, James felt he had no choice but continue making small talk. He asked what Sarah’s husband did for a living, but she didn’t seem to care. He was, in her own words, “a technical consultant something-something” so James quickly changed the subject. From subway fares to politics and menthol cigarettes, nothing interested him and he began to wonder how long this might last
But then the rain stopped as abruptly as it started, and when it did, James checked the time. 1:37 a.m.
“Don’t you think so?” Sarah asked.
“I’m sorry. What?”
“A smoker’s discount. They should give a smoker’s discount here. I mean, smokers probably account for twenty percent of the business here. At least.”
“Absolutely.” James looked at his watch again, exaggerating the motion this time by rolling back his sleeve. “Oh my, it’s much later than I thought. I should be getting home.”
“We could have our own wing here. Do you think cemeteries should be organized by category? I do.”
“I really must be going.”
“But you just got here.”
It irritated him, the way Sarah narrowed her eyes when she said this. “Mrs. Garner, it’s one in the morning.”
“Where are you going?”
“I said I was going home.”
“I heard you.” But strangely, Sarah seemed to be at a loss for words. She stammered and took a few tentative steps towards him, keeping her hand on the countertop, like it was a railing down a flight of stairs. “But do you have to go… now? Jim, I don’t know a damn soul here and I don’t think you do, either. Don‘t you find that strange?”
James opened his mouth to say something, but as he glanced at her some certain knowledge seemed to pass before her eyes, and he stopped. She expected him to have answers, answers to big questions. And he knew these questions well. As a child, he had looked to loved ones for these answers; as a scholar, he had searched for them in books and scientific reports; as a psychologist, he had been patient and kind, hoping the answers might reveal themselves in time.
But now, his life was over and James was still at a loss for answers, for reason even. “I’m sorry,” he managed.
Then he turned around and headed for the door.
It was getting late.
“Cigarettes didn’t kill me.”
James stopped. It wasn’t what she said, but rather how she blurted it out. She sounded just like James had, when he told Zooey about his trip to St. Jude’s. It was a distraction to keep James from walking away. “What did you say?”
“It wasn’t cigarettes. I lied.” Sarah unbuttoned one of her silver cufflinks and folded the sleeve back. She revealed a jagged, black gash that ran the width of her wrist. Sarah did the same with her opposite sleeve and exposed a reciprocal, fatal cut, but James did his best to look away.
A cold shiver chewed through his spine.
Sarah stared at him, curious and vulnerable now.
“Why?” James asked at last.
“Christ, I don’t know, James. I had like the world’s worst day. I lost my job and my husband, he—”
“No. Why are you telling me this?”
Sarah furrowed her eyebrows, her mouth agape. Carelessly now, she unrolled her sleeves and took another drag. “You’re a psychologist, aren’t you?”
“I already told you that.”
“Well, that’s why.”
James shook his head. “I know you’re looking for answers, but I can’t help you.”
“I know. I just wanted someone to know the truth. It happened so fast, you know?” Sarah looked at her wrists, though they were covered now. “They say, the doctors anyways, that it takes about four minutes to bleed out, but God, it happened so fast. I had second thoughts, too… I tried to move, but my body wouldn‘t work.”
Sarah touched her cheek, surprised to feel the trail of a tear. She didn’t turn away or wipe her cheeks; instead, she looked strangely at peace. The tears kept coming, released from emotions she had buried long ago, long before her suicide. “I just wish I could’ve seen my funeral. Like in the movies, an out-of-body type thing. Then I’d know they still cared.”
It was odd. James thought about Hugo McDonald, a man who fantasized about suicide. Then he looked at Sarah Gardner. Even though she was older, Sarah still acted like a child. He doubted she had ever thought about suicide, and certainly didn’t think of the consequences - yet somehow, she had succeeded where Hugo McDonald had failed so many times before.
Because of this, James repeated something he had told Hugo years ago: “But they still care about you, don’t they? Your family, I mean. They still love you. Surely, you know that.”
For a moment, it was hard to tell if Sarah was laughing or crying. And when she looked up, tears dribbled down her cheeks, but her lips were entwined in a dark, nasty smirk. “But that’s where you’re wrong, James. Everyone here, they’re still so locked up in their own little worlds. They’ve got their photo albums and home videos and all their memories and they hoard them all away. And when they’re alone, they look at these things over and over, cause they’re afraid that if they don’t, they’ll start forgetting. They’ll forget about their loved ones.”
Sarah cleared her throat. “But in this place… in this purgatory, it’s not how you will remember the people you’ve loved - it’s how those people will remember you.”
All of a sudden, James knew why a person like Sarah Garner was in this place and someone like Hugo McDonald wasn’t. Sarah’s soul had yet to be broken. And this spirit, this hope she still had, it needed to be preserved. It needed to be protected.
The alarm on James’s watch beeped once. 1:40 a.m.
“Come on,” James said, extending a hand. “I’ll walk you home.”
5.
On his way back to Archstone Clinton, James Seville stopped by Vartan's Fine Jewelry, and peered into the frosty glass, just as Zooey had done countless times before.
The lights here were always on. There were wired ceiling lights and fixed showcase displays that looked like miniature spotlights, but the brightest lights, a series of luminescent bulbs, were saved for the locked glass counters, which were arranged in two squares around the cash registers. He knew exactly where to look - in the outer square, two countertops from the left, top shelf.
Most nights, James liked to play a little game. He pretended that tomorrow, he’d stop by again and buy Zooey’s wedding ring. Maybe then, she’d shut off her laptop and James would carry her off to bed, where she’d fall asleep on his chest and whisper those three wonderful words in his ear.
But tonight, James couldn‘t ignore the truth.
He would never bring himself to buy Zooey’s wedding ring, because it wasn’t the ring that he couldn’t live without.
James sighed, his breath fogging up the window pane. He thought a moment about what Sarah had told him earlier, then pressed his thumb up against the condensation and held it there for a few moments.
Then, he stared at the imprint his thumb pad left behind.
It looked like a horizontal chunk cut out of a tree. He watched as the outer rings faded first, then one by one, each ring disappeared into the glass. The innermost rings, those at the center of his thumb pad, took the longest to fade out.
James kept staring until there was only one ring left - one tiny, crooked little ring.
Then he closed his eyes and, for the first time since he died, he began to pray.
“Please God… please be Zooey.”
By the time he opened his eyes, the imprint was gone.
James Seville took one last look at the window, then headed home.
Inspired by the Descendents song “Get the Time”
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