Michelle sped up. “Ten minutes, okay? We’re almost there.”
Jace looked out the window at the alternating farm land and forests.
That’s when he saw the dilapidated old church, the roof having finally
caved in. And then he knew. “Tell me,” he said. Quietly at first. Then he
shouted it. “Goddamn it Michelle, just tell me!”
Michelle hit the breaks, swerving to the side of the road. When she
faced him, there were tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“Victor.” His name came out as a croak. When Michelle nodded, the
ache travelled from Jace’s heart up to his throat, manifesting as a moan
of despair.
“Mom and Dad wanted you home before you found out,” Michelle
said. “We didn’t want to tell you over the phone.”
Jace tried to control his tears so he could speak, but his body was
wracked with sorrow, convulsing with the pain of it all. “How?” was all
he managed.
“Jace,” his sister pleaded. She tried to hug him, but he shoved her
away.
“How?”
“Suicide. He shot himself.”
Jace couldn’t breathe, literally couldn’t find any air to force into his
lungs. He didn’t want this, couldn’t face it. He scrabbled at the door
handle and stumbled out into fresh air. Then he remembered the church.
It couldn’t be too far away. Finally his lungs worked. He sucked in air,
then took off at a run. He heard Michelle call after him, but it didn’t
matter. Nothing mattered anymore, except reaching the place where
Victor had made his promise.
I promise you, Jace, that I love you. I love you now, and I will love
you forever and ever.
Victor had said that, sworn to him. He couldn’t have taken his own
life. That would be breaking the promise. His sister had lied to him.
Victor would be there, waiting for him at the church, his green and
brown eyes twinkling with amusement at Jace’s needless panic. Then he
would smirk, and take Jace into his arms.
Jace burst into the church, the smell of rot filling his nose. The
podium was gone, crushed beneath the fallen roof. He considered
clawing through the debris to unearth it, to bring the past back to life.
Instead he fell to his knees and sobbed.
Victor was gone. Victor had died.
His cheek was pressed against the wet earth when he felt a hand on
his shoulder.
“Jace.”
The voice wasn’t Victor’s, but it did belong to someone who loved
him.
“Jace, you’re scaring me.”
He sat up, let his sister wrap her arms around his neck. There was
something desperate about that hug, like she hoped to keep him from
running away again. And he wouldn’t. He was still her big brother and
tried to make himself behave that way.
“I’m okay,” he lied, getting to his feet. “Let’s go home.”
Michelle led the way, glancing back as if afraid he’d try to make
another break for it.
“I’m fine,” he assured her as she stepped outside.
He didn’t follow. Not right away. At the door to the church, Jace
turned and looked back at a room that belonged only to ghosts now.
Forever and ever…
* * * * *
“The police had come to evict him,” his mother said at the kitchen
table. She had that conflicted look on her face, the kind normally
reserved for when she had to take him to the dentist, or drop him off on
the first day of school. She hated what she was doing, but she had to for
his own good. “That’s when they found the body,” she continued.
“Victor had shot himself in a way that would have been quick and
painless.”
“How?” Jace asked. He needed to know, because otherwise he would
never stop imagining all the different possibilities.
Serena looked pale. “He, uh… Bob.”
His father cleared his throat. “He got hold of a shotgun, son. Put it in
his mouth. There’s nothing slow about dying that way, I promise you. He
couldn’t have felt a thing.”
Jace put his head down on the table and cried. He would give
anything to undo this, to turn back time and be there when Victor had felt
so desperate. He would sell his soul just to take that gun away from him
and tell him, “Not this. Anything but this.”
His mother stroked his hair until he had calmed down again. “We
took care of everything. We told his mother. I don’t know if she
understood really, but we told her. Victor’s body is taken care of too. He
was cremated, but we didn’t want him ending up in a common grave, and
Mrs. Hemingway is in no condition to make decisions.”
“Where are his ashes?”
“Here,” Bob said. Then, with discomfort he added, “In your room.
You can decide what to do with them, but the public administrator wants
to know so he can make a note and inform Mrs. Hemingway. He knows
the situation with her and was very understanding. We just need to keep
them informed.”
Jace shook his head. He didn’t have a clue what to do with the
remains. He wanted Victor, not a pile of ashes. Part of him still couldn’t
believe any of this was real. Victor was much too clever to take his own
life. Jace couldn’t picture him with a gun. Even when he’d considered
robbing Jace at the store, Victor had been empty-handed. “The shotgun!”
he said with painful realization.
“That’s something else,” his father said. “Once you’ve had a few
days, maybe you could go see Bernard. He’s taken all of this very hard.”
Jace winced. That this had happened to Bernard of all people was
devastating. But he couldn’t think about that now. Jace already felt like
his head was going to split in two, that he would go insane from the
constant ache and pain inside.
“I think I need to lie down,” he said.
“Okay,” his mother said. “You take all the time you need. We’re
here, though, okay?”
Jace nodded despondently, trudging up to his room. He didn’t want
to see the ashes, didn’t like that they were in there, but he didn’t blame
his parents. Where else would they keep them, on the entertainment
center? Maybe that’s why the door to his bedroom was closed, so they
wouldn’t have to see them when walking past.
When he opened the door to his room, he pictured the urn laying on
the bed, the spot his mother would always leave something new for him.
A jacket, a toy, his favorite candy, and now, his cremated boyfriend. He
was right. There was something waiting on the bed for him. From its
center, a small gray head lifted and blinked sleepily at him before
meowing. Jace cried again. He wasn’t sure if it was sorrow or if it was
joy. Possibly it was neither. All he knew, when he crawled into bed and
Samson pressed a dry nose against his tear-stained face, is that he
wouldn’t have to get through this alone.
Between bouts of crying, Jace tried to understand. He searched for
any reason to make sense of this madness. Victor had always been
unpredictable, but Jace had never seen this coming. Even as he watched
Victor slowly crumble, the worst Jace had expected was for him to
wander off into the woods and never be seen again. Of course Victor
dying had been part of that nightmare scenario, but never like this.
And yet, Victor had always struggled with the world, always fought
against it, suffering each time he was forced to compromise and play the
game. Jace found himself wishing Victor had disappeared into the
woods, turned his back on them all. Instead, his mother had forgotten
who he was, and Jace—
He swallowed against another wave of tears. The last thing Jace had
done was yell at Victor, telling him to do something. And he had. Were
Jace’s words what pushed him over the edge? He regretted them, wished
more than anything he could take them back. His only comfort was that
Victor had never listened to him before, had always done what he
wanted, despite what Jace or anyone else thought. Victor had always
forged his own path and made his own choices. Jace could only hope this
was what he truly wanted. If Victor still existed in some form, maybe he
was happy now.
Between fits of sorrow, guilt, and even anger, Jace dozed off. He
dreamt he felt arms around him, strong and reassuring. He heard the
sound of crying too. That’s what woke him completely. The tears
weren’t his own, but they were real. As were the arms around him. Jace
was curled up on his side, another body spooned against him from
behind. He lifted his head to see who.
“I’m sorry, man,” Greg said.
“Are you okay?” Jace asked, puzzled by the situation. “Why are you
crying?”
“Because I know how bad this must hurt you.” Greg shifted, as if to
move away, but Jace clung to his arm, desperate for the comfort he gave.
“Stay here,” Jace said, throat constricting. “Please.”
“I will,” Greg said. “Just promise me you won’t do something stupid.
Don’t follow him, okay? I still need you.”
Jace wanted to smile, maybe even laugh that Greg could think of
something as romantic as Jace chasing after Victor. But in truth, it hurt
that he hadn’t considered it, hurt more that he wouldn’t be able to. What
Victor had done was forever. Jace struggled with this unavoidable truth,
but there was no denying it. Victor was gone, and there was nothing any
of them could do except hold on to each other and ache.
* * * * *
“Life has a funny way of teaching you a lesson,” Bernard said.
They were sitting at the small kitchen table in his RV, the very same
one that Jace had stepped into soaking wet so many years ago. Together
they huddled around a bottle of something terrible and two shot glasses.
Jace didn’t know what he was drinking, but he didn’t think it would kill
the pain. The last few days had done nothing to ease his sorrow.
“Or maybe life is just horrible sometimes,” Jace said.
Bernard nodded. “Yup. That too.”
“I’m sorry,” Jace said. “You wouldn’t have tried to help Victor if it
wasn’t for me, and he wouldn’t have stolen your shotgun and—”
Bernard waved him into silence. “Maybe I wouldn’t have known
him. Maybe I would have met him on my own. I still would have tried to
help him.”
Of course he would have because Bernard was a good person. And
because he had lost his son to suicide, and had done everything he could
not to make the same mistakes. Life was fucking mean to do this to him,
to put Bernard through it again even when he’d done everything right.
“You don’t get to be my age without losing people you love,”
Bernard continued. “You don’t get used to death, by any means, but it
becomes more familiar and less shocking. Suicide is something
completely different. Losing someone to age is natural. Illness you can
get angry at. You can rage at the conditions that cause an accident, and in
war you can hate the enemy for taking a life. But when it comes to
suicide, only the person who committed it is responsible. Who in their
right mind would put the blame on them? Maybe that’s why those left
behind end up blaming themselves instead.”
Jace nodded, understanding all too well. “I could have done more. If
I had moved back here, stayed with him, then maybe he wouldn’t have
—”
“Maybe,” Bernard said. “Hard to say what was going through
Victor’s mind at the time. Did he leave a note?”
Jace shook his head.
Bernard grunted. “Don’t blame yourself. You did plenty for Victor,
all you could at the time. In retrospect, it’s always easy to find more.
Maybe we all could have done more, but none of us can really say what
might have happened. That’s not a game worth playing. Trust me.”
“Then what do we do?” Jace asked. “How can life ever make sense
again after something like this?”
“Learn from it.”
“What’s the lesson?” Jace asked.
Bernard exhaled. “The lesson is you can’t always save someone,
even if you love them. As strange as it sounds, it gives me some relief. I
always thought if I’d been a better father, that my son wouldn’t have
taken his own life. I’ll never know, but I tried to do right by Victor, and
it wasn’t enough. Some people are too haunted by their own demons.
Maybe my son would have been the same way. I can’t say, but I’m done
blaming myself.”
“You saved me,” Jace said. “You know that?”
“How could I forget?” Bernard’s face twitched with something close
to a smile. “Thank you for saying so, but the truth is I helped you save
yourself. At the end of the day, decisions like these are up to the
individual. You can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved. But
that doesn’t mean I’ll ever stop trying.” He raised a glass. “Here’s to not
giving up.”
Jace understood. Bernard was still looking out for him after all these
years, making sure he wanted to be saved. Jace raised his glass. “I’m not
giving up. Cheers, old man.”
Now Bernard really did smile. “Cheers, you little brat.”
Clinking glasses, they sent fire chasing down to their bellies.
* * * * *
Jace didn’t need time to let go of Victor’s ashes. He held no
attachment to them. They weren’t Victor at all, merely the husk that was
left behind. Cardboard box held between both hands, he walked down
into the valley, feeling like a solitary pallbearer. How strange that a
person could fit inside a space smaller than a shoebox, and how
insignificant it made the body seem compared to all the thoughts a
person had, all the deeds they had done, and all the lives they had
touched. Seeing a body so condensed only further convinced Jace that a
person was much more than the physical form.
He reached the lake, walking past it without stopping. He had
considered scattering Victor’s ashes across the half-frozen water where
they had once swam naked together, but there was another place that
seemed more appropriate. Jace hadn’t been to the clearing in years. What
remained didn’t match his memories. The shelter wasn’t where it had
once been. Greg had moved it to the other side of the clearing, probably
taking wind direction into consideration. Or maybe he’d torn it down and
started from scratch, because what stood was much sturdier and more
solid than what Jace remembered.
He let himself stare for a moment before getting to work. Jace set the
box of ashes in the shelter and began gathering firewood. Snow still
covered most of the ground, so wetness and cold quickly soaked through
