train wreck? He was on that train, and something had gone wrong, a signal or something, they didn’t know, and his train slammed into the other, and seventy people were dead, and one of them was him.
Jamie had heard the news from Da. Da had borrowed a car so Jamie could drive down to tell me in person. I tried to ask details, and could only manage one word at a time. How. But. And finally got out the sentence that was roaring in my head.
“Are they sure?”
At the look on Jamie’s face something tore inside me, and I screamed.
It was later that he coaxed me into the bathroom. He put the seat down on the toilet and bathed my face with a washcloth. I looked at him as he did it, as he concentrated on the movement of the cloth on my skin.
He was thinner, and he needed a shave, reddish stubble on his cheeks. There was a muscle I’d never noticed in his jaw that jumped.
We went back to the couch and he sat, his hands clasped between his knees. For some reason I held the washcloth now, and I felt water soak my robe as I squeezed it, over and over. I felt my hands and my legs shake. I couldn’t stop. Even my teeth chattered. Jamie put a blanket over me and took the washcloth away.
“But why was he on a train to Long Island?” I asked. “He was staying in Brooklyn. And he was going home for Thanksgiving, he said.”
Jamie shrugged. “I guess he got on the wrong train.”
“Maybe it’s not him,” I whispered.
“Nate identified the body last night. It’s all over Providence. Nate drove up to tell Angela. Someone called Da to let us all know. I’ll make us some tea. Do you have tea?”
I nodded numbly. I sat waiting, listening to the normal noises in the kitchen of running water in a kettle, the clatter of cups. It seemed impossible that tea could be drunk on such a day.
When he came back in, holding the cups, I noticed what he was wearing for the first time.
“Why aren’t you in uniform?” I asked.
“Da wrote to my commanding officer and told them how old I was. It took awhile — everything takes awhile in the army — but I got sprung. Muddie wanted to surprise you at Thanksgiving.”
“The last time I saw Billy… he was here. We had a terrible fight. There’s a story in the papers —”
“I know. I saw it in the Journal.“
I couldn’t look at him. “Do you believe it?”
“Of course not.”
“Billy believed it.” I gasped, feeling it again — the deep, sharp pain.
He leaned forward, hands clasped. “I know from Fox Point, from school, from the army…. There are some guys who are always spoiling for a fight. Billy… he was always ready to be betrayed. He was always waiting for it. It made it hard on the people who loved him. That summer you were down at the beach, that summer… we saw each other every day….”
I saw the muscle in his jaw jump again, and his face suddenly changed, went transparent. I could see the muscles under his skin, and I saw how thin and stretched the skin was, how hard he was working to keep his expression. And then in the next second his mouth opened. His sob was deep and breathless, just one, full of agony.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and a series of sobs tore out of him.
I didn’t know where to look or what to do. I wanted to comfort him, but wasn’t he here to comfort me? Wasn’t it my place to grieve? Inside I felt myself shrink from this rawness. I didn’t want to see Jamie’s pain. I didn’t want to think about what it meant.
“Stop it.” My voice was harsh. “Just stop it!”
He stopped. He wiped his tears with the back of his hand, swiftly, and then on his pants. He got up, clearing his throat, and went to the bathroom. I waited, hating him.
When he came out, he was composed, but his face had gone back to looking like a mask.
“Do you want to pack a few things? The car is outside. The funeral is tomorrow.”
“I can’t go to the funeral,” I said, and laughed. “I’m his father’s mistress. Don’t you read the papers?”
Jamie left.
There had never been such a silence between us. Never such a distance. I was afraid I didn’t understand him, and how could we still be close if