Audrey joined the line, pulling Harold with her discreetly by the hand. Dylan she permitted to fade silently away. Unlike Harold, she wanted to look. She needed to look, because she couldn’t believe Tom was dead. He’d been alive four days ago, when she’d seen him in Home Depot. And Tom had always been larger than life—she simply couldn’t imagine him dead. She had to see for herself.
He’d been so good for Harold, once. And now he was gone again—gone for good.
Harold, making his way slowly up to the coffin, tried diligently to think about something else. It would be awful to show emotion; he hated to draw any kind of attention to himself.
They shuffled slowly forward and as they approached the front, as Harold stepped up to the coffin and saw Tom—definitely looking older, but somehow not looking dead, in spite of everything—Harold felt that sudden weirdness again, the same alarming palpitation of the heart, the difficulty breathing, the pooling of his blood in his feet. The world started to go black, as if from the outside in.
The last thing he remembered, before he keeled over and struck his head on the hard ebony casket, was the look of regret on Tom’s once-loved face.
• • •
DYLAN HAD OBSERVED all of this with great interest. With nothing else to do while he waited for his parents to file past the coffin, he’d studied them closely. He liked to watch people, particularly in situations of stress, to see how they would react. Someday, he was going to make a lot of money in the movies. Even at fifteen, he knew he had the looks and the confidence. All he needed was the craft, and he didn’t think there was really that much to it, other than being a keen observer and thinking yourself into someone else’s shoes. He’d been reading up on method acting, and he thought it was something he could do. He just had to sign with an agent, and then he’d be on his way. But his mother was being completely unreasonable. Whenever he brought it up, she got kind of hysterical.
From the sidelines, he’d observed his mother’s face as she looked down at the dead man. There was something interesting there, something unreadable. It certainly wasn’t indifference, which he’d kind of expected, given that he’d never heard of this guy till he died. Dylan wondered what, exactly, his mother was feeling.
Next, he watched his dad shuffle up to the coffin and look down at the corpse. He saw his dad turn a funny colour; his face contorted, and he started croaking in what Dylan thought was grief—and then he wasn’t so sure.
Dylan took an involuntary step forward as his dad swayed and then collapsed, knocking himself out on the coffin.
• • •
AUDREY HAD TURNED away from the casket—tanned, healthy skin against creamy white satin—when she heard a funny gurgling sound coming from Harold behind her. When she turned back to look, she knew instantly that something was wrong. Harold was an odd, worrying colour, and he seemed to be hyperventilating as he stared at the corpse.
They shouldn’t have come, Audrey realized at once. She should have persuaded Harold not to attend—she knew how much he hated funerals. The noise Harold was making became louder. It was an involuntary, struggling, personal, embarrassing sound, and Audrey was mortified. People started to look.
It was true what they said about slow motion, Audrey realized. She watched, stupefied, as Harold weaved unsteadily on planted feet and then pitched forward and to the right, striking his head on the side of the casket on his way to the floor.
Everyone within close range took a silent step back to give him room. Other than that, for a moment, no one did anything but stare in surprise. Then Audrey let out a yelp and things started to happen.
The slow motion thing was over, and now everything was happening so fast that Audrey wasn’t really taking it all in. Someone called out for a doctor, and a number of middle-aged men quickly stepped up. Audrey remembered anxiously that Tom had been a gynecologist. Remembered it anxiously because by now, she was convinced that Harold had had a heart attack, a massive cardiac arrest, that he was being taken from her, and she wasn’t prepared for this at all.
They laid Harold out on his back below the casket, his head at Tom’s feet. His jacket was opened, his tie was removed, and his shirt unbuttoned; there was interest, definitely, but no one was doing chest compressions like on TV. Why the hell not? Were they all gynecologists?
“Do something!” Audrey shouted, hysterical. Where was Dylan? Where the hell was John?
A voice said, “An ambulance is on the way.”
Desperate, she got down on her knees beside Harold and bent over him, imagining fleetingly how she must look, with her big behind up in the air. She’d taken CPR, years ago when the kids were little.
Audrey put the heel of her left hand down on Harold’s chest where she presumed his heart to be, placed her right hand on top, and was ready to lean into her first compression, when suddenly— unbelievably—a hand grabbed her left forearm and tugged, causing her to lose her balance and tipping her behind farther up in the air.
“Lady, what are you doing?”
“I think that’s his wife.”
“We can’t just let him die!” Audrey sobbed.
“He’s fine,” said the man still holding on to her forearm. He added in a reasonable voice, “Look, he’s breathing. Here, feel his pulse.” Audrey let the man guide her hand until she could feel Harold’s pulse, rapid but strong.
“That’s okay then,” Audrey said, adjusting her take on things.
“He fainted. The worst thing is the knock on the head, but it’s probably not as bad as it looks.” Audrey turned to the man, undoubtedly a doctor—he had that bedside manner thing down— and found herself nodding vigorously in agreement, just as if she hadn’t been clumsily trying to revive Harold seconds before. There was already a nasty lump forming on Harold’s forehead. And then Dylan was there at her side, grabbing her hand.
“He’s coming around,” said the doctor.
• • •
JOHN ARRIVED AT the funeral home as the ambulance pulled up. The paramedics hurried past him with an orange-sheeted gurney and John followed, barely curious. He noticed some kind of commotion up near the front of the room, but he had more important things on his mind. Where was she?
John scanned the packed room. He didn’t see his parents anywhere, but he saw the girl, standing on her own, craning her neck at the excitement up front. John headed over.
“Hey,” he said to her.
She glanced at him, surprised, and then gave him a slow, pleased smile.
“Did you follow me here?” she asked.
She had the most extraordinary green eyes. He smiled but didn’t answer. He was aiming for casually flirtatious but aloof. She tossed her shoulder-length hair back to great effect. At least it had a great effect on him. He tried to guess how old she was, but you never knew, with girls. She could be younger than him, or she could be older. Anyway, she was in the ballpark.
“I’m Nicole,” she said.
“John.”
She pursed her lips at him, sizing him up. “Do you have a cell?”
“Sure.” He reached into his pocket—so casual—and handed her his flip phone, intensely grateful that he’d gone for the upgrade.
She took it from him playfully and began pressing buttons with her perfect, polished fingernails. “I’m programming myself in,” she said, “so you can call me—anytime.” She handed him back his phone, her eyes locking with his.
She had to be simultaneously the coolest and the hottest girl he’d ever seen. This kind of thing never happened to him. John felt deliriously happy. In order not to show it, he pointed his chin in the direction of the paramedics. “What happened?”
“Some old guy passed out,” she said.
There was a realignment of bodies up front and through a gap John recognized his father, propped up unsteadily on the floor, a big goose egg on his forehead, a paramedic crouched beside him. His mother clung close by, and Dylan was holding her hand.
“Holy shit—that’s my dad!” John blurted
out without thinking. He quickly considered ducking into another funeral down the hall—a gut reaction—but remembering Nicole, realized it was too late for that.
This had to happen now? He glanced at Nicole, his delirium fading. Any second now she’d ask for his cell back.
But she only said, “My parents embarrass me all the time.”
• • •
THEY GOT THROUGH the funeral somehow, as a family. Harold stubbornly insisted on staying for the service, even though Audrey tried to persuade him to leave. Audrey and the boys stood around him, as if propping him up, ready to spring into action if he should start to sag.
When it was over, Audrey decided they would skip the trip to the cemetery and go straight home. John drove, while Audrey kept a fretful eye on Harold. They were halfway home when Harold started patting his suit jacket pocket, as if reassuring his heart.
“My wallet,” Harold said suddenly.
“What?” Audrey said.
“My wallet!” Harold repeated, checking his other pockets frantically.
“Maybe it fell out of your pocket when you fainted,” Audrey said. “Stop the car!”
John circled back and dropped Audrey at the door of the funeral home. “Wait here. I’ll just be a minute,” Audrey said, getting out of the car. She hurried back inside, getting down on her hands and knees and looking all around the area where the coffin had been. But there was no sign of the missing wallet, and the fact that someone might have taken it, from a funeral, seemed to Audrey to be in particularly bad taste.
Giving up, Audrey went out to the front and asked the funeral director if anyone had turned in a wallet. She left her name and phone number in case it showed up and went back to the car.
“When we get home, remind me to cancel your credit cards,” Audrey said.
CHAPTER TWO
“Somebody called here for you today,” Audrey said, turning to Harold and lowering her reading glasses a little on her nose. The two of them were sitting in bed, propped up with pillows. “I told her to call you at the office.”
“Who?” Harold said irritably. “What did she want?”
“She didn’t say.” Audrey went back to her magazine.
Harold was squinting beside her, making another attempt at the Saturday paper, tipping his head back and holding the newspaper farther away so that he could see the print more clearly. It was now Thursday. He seemed to be finding it harder and harder to keep up with just about everything.
The mark on Harold’s forehead had faded, and Audrey was almost able to look at him without thinking about what had happened at the funeral, but not quite. She was now worrying full-time.
After the funeral, Audrey had sent Harold to the family doctor. Dr. Goldfarb checked Harold out thoroughly and said he was fine, that he’d probably just had a panic attack. Since it had happened only once—at a funeral, an admittedly stressful event—he said they would do nothing in the way of medication at this time, and see what happened. Harold firmly declined the doctor’s suggestion of talking to a counsellor, even when Audrey took the doctor’s side. Dr. Goldfarb had recommended that they keep Harold’s stress to a minimum.
Naturally, Audrey would do everything in her power to keep Harold’s stress to a minimum, even if it meant she had to have a breakdown herself. She loved him, after all. He and the kids were everything to her. She poured everything she had into them, and if it sometimes seemed like she was micro-managing them, it was only because she cared so much.
In practical terms, keeping Harold’s stress to a minimum meant that she wouldn’t share with him her suspicions that Dylan had taken her bank card out of her wallet and cleaned out their joint account. He was the only one, besides her, who knew the pin. She’d deal with that herself. Secondly, John was out with the car again, and he should have been home ages ago. It was a school night. However, this wasn’t the time to bring up the problems they were having with John. She’d deal with that too.
She tried hard not to be annoyed that Harold’s paper was getting sooty newsprint all over the fresh white duvet cover.
• • •
JOHN WASN’T HOME yet because he was sitting on the hood of a wrecked SUV in an east end auto shop’s junkyard, where the yahoo who’d towed his dad’s car had taken him while he was still too numb with disbelief to ask where they were going. Now—life certainly took strange turns—he and Roy, the tow-truck driver, were sharing a joint in the dark.
John had been so distracted by his sexual reveries about the girl he’d met at the funeral several days before—he’d scarcely been able to concentrate on anything else since—that he’d ploughed right into the back end of a taxi. He was remembering her sexy smile and imagining running his hands high up those amazing legs—and then there was a terrific crash.
The asphalt was cracked and littered with glass and stray metal parts, and the morbid, twisted shapes of damaged cars stood out darkly around the perimeter of the seven-foot high chain-link fence. Train tracks ran at an angle nearby, weedy and derelict. John felt his descent into disgrace could not be more complete. He took another drag on the offered joint and felt that he had at least one friend in the world—Roy, the tow-truck driver. Maybe he was a little high.
“I’ve seen some fuckin’ wrecks man,” Roy said, playing the drums with his hands on his thighs. Roy was hyper. He never seemed to stop talking or moving. John had seen enough kids with ADHD, but this was his first adult.
Roy obviously didn’t give a shit about anything, John thought. He was his own man. He was about ten years older than John was— scruffy, scrappy, and quick on his feet. He wore jeans and a jean jacket over a black T-shirt, and smelled noticeably of sweat. He’d shown up at the scene within seconds, swooping in like a buzzard after roadkill. John couldn’t help being impressed by Roy’s big black truck and even more by the skill and bravado with which he handled it. John, in stark contrast, hadn’t known what to do. He’d never done anything with skill and bravado. He’d never been in an accident before either. Roy had taken charge, treated him like a buddy.
“Better call the police,” Roy had said. And John had called the police and been charged with careless driving, with all the crap that would flow from that. And it wasn’t even his fault.
Now John was wondering if he could ever go home again. He looked at the mangled wreck that had been his father’s nine-year-old Camry, and wondered how a bump, a fucking tap, into the back end of a taxi—at roughly 10 kilometres per hour—could possibly result in so much damage. The whole front end of his dad’s car was pushed in and up, its pitiful guts showing. There was fucking Styrofoam in there.
If only it had been serious, John thought. If only he’d been injured—not badly, but sufficiently. But this was just ridiculous. The taxi didn’t have a scratch, no one had been hurt, and here was Roy saying it looked like his dad’s car was a write-off.
“You really think it’s a write-off?” John said, not sure what that actually meant in real terms, but he was sure it couldn’t be good. He felt stoned and strange, like he was speaking under water.
“Probably, yeah. Looks like it.” Roy nodded vigorously up and down several times, bouncing his knees. “Those Crown Victorias man, they’re built like tanks.”
John didn’t think to question anything Roy said; he seemed to understand the way the world worked so much better than John did himself.
“Hell, you’re okay, that’s the main thing,” Roy said, thumping him on the back, causing John to drop the joint. “And don’t worry about the charge, eh. The cop probably won’t even show up. I beat two that way. No shit.”
John simply couldn’t imagine being that lucky.
Roy began rolling another joint with his thick, stained fingers. “Hey, cheer up, buddy.” Roy took a quick drag and grinned. “You wanna shoot some pool, have some beers?”
It was an idea. John wasn’t old enough to get into a bar in the province of Ontario, but he didn’t think that would be a problem if he went with his buddy Roy here. Stil
l, John, by now reeling with dope, knew that there was something he ought to be doing. If he could only think what.
Roy lowered his face right into John’s, blasting him with an ugly, fetid sample of his breath. “Hey buddy, you okay?” John tried to focus, tried to swim to the surface. “You wanna go home?”
That was it. He had to call home. But he still had just enough of his wits about him to know that he was in no shape to call home.
• • •
HAROLD WAS DREAMING about trying to fix the lawn mower without the right tools, and slowly becoming aware of the sound of something going on outside, beneath his bedroom window.
He felt Audrey stirring, then heard her get up and pad across the hardwood floor to the window; maybe now he could go back to sleep. But from the front porch below, he heard loud, clumsy stumbling, the scraping of furniture, the thumpety-thump of something heavy tumbling down the wooden stairs and then a stream of loud, colourful swear words, some of which Harold had never heard before, at least not combined in that way.
It sounded like men trying to move a piano up the front steps and into the house.
At this thought, Harold opened one eye and looked toward Audrey at the window. She’d lifted it up and stuck her head out, her rump wide and round beneath her nightie.
“Harold,” she hissed at him over her shoulder.
He didn’t move.
She hurriedly withdrew her head from the window and turned to him. “Harold,” she hissed again, motioning at him with her hand to come over. There was no avoiding it; he’d have to get up. But by now Harold was wide awake. “There’s someone on the porch.”
“Who is it?” Harold whispered loudly on his way over to the window.
“How the hell should I know? I can’t see the porch from here. But look at that.”
Harold looked to where she pointed. There was a black tow-truck parked on the street in front of their house. Harold didn’t know anybody with a tow-truck.