“Then that’s where we’re going. He wouldn’t miss Ben’s funeral. Come on, I’m coming over there with you,” he says, shaking his head. “Jesus fucking Christ, I can’t believe this is even fucking happening.”
4
SILVER
The driver doesn’t say a word about Zander’s robe, or the fact that the jeans he quickly put on are shredded beyond all functionality. His lips remain sealed in a tight, disapproving line as he drives us to the church. Greenwood Presbyterian is on the outskirts of Raleigh, set high on the side of a hill that overlooks town. It was the very first structure erected here, before the quaint stores on Main Street were built, or the warehouses and factories, owned by the Weaving family for generations, began to monopolize Raleigh’s modest skyline. The four families who founded Raleigh decided that the town’s people would need God more than anything else, and so they made a house of worship their first priority.
When we pull up outside the church, Zander and I bolt from the Town Car, hurrying inside the building. The large solid wood doors crash open, startling the figure dressed in white, standing in front of the lectern in the church’s apse. My legs nearly go out from underneath me when I see the small, half-sized coffin at the head of the pews, festooned with sunflowers.
Zander grabs my hand, pulling me behind him up the aisle, head sweeping from left to right. “He isn’t here.”
“Mr. Moretti?” the priest calls from the apse. “Welcome. I took the liberty of—”
“Nope. Not Alex,” Zander replies. “He hasn’t been here?”
Closer now, I see that the priest is ancient, in his late seventies, his bald head freckled with age spots. His eyes are clouded by cataracts and watery, giving him the look of a man permanently on the brink of tears. He shakes his head. “You’re the first to arrive this morning, I’m afraid,” he says.
“Fuck.” Zander claps a hand over his mouth. “Fuck, sorry, father. I didn’t mean to—damnit, I’m just going to stop talking. You take over,” he says, pushing me forward.
“I’m sorry, Father. We’ve kind of lost Alessandro. Is there any way the service can be held for a while? Just an hour, while we look for him?”
The priest’s face crumples into a maze of deep lines—a mourning mask, a face that has creased in sympathy too many times to count. “I’m so sorry, my dear. If it were any other day of the week, I would of course say yes. Today’s Saturday, though, and New Year’s Eve to boot. We have two weddings this afternoon. The first guests arrive in an hour. If Benjamin is to have a religious service, then I’m afraid we really must start now.”
“I can’t be here without him. I can’t…” Shit, it wouldn’t be right to sit here through Ben’s funeral service without Alex. Selfishly, I don’t think I can make it through the service without him. I’m not…I don’t feel that strong.
“If you don’t stay, then Ben’s not going to have anyone here with him. No one that he knows,” Zander says, his voice pitchy and uneven. He’s battling with his emotions, though he’s doing a stellar job. His cracked voice is the only sign that he’s struggling. And he’s just said the one thing that will enable me to get through an entire funeral service for a little boy on my own: Ben won’t have anyone here with him.
It’s been eating me alive, the fact that he was alone when he died. There’s nothing I can do about that now, but I can stay at the church and be here for this. I can stay with him so that he’s not alone for this part of his final journey.
“Okay, you go then,” I say to Zander. “Go. Find him. Bring him to the cemetery as quickly as you can. He can’t do this. He needs to say goodbye or he’s never gonna heal.” Even if Zander can find Alex and he does get him to the cemetery in time for Ben’s interment, saying goodbye isn’t going to be enough. I know that. Alex can say goodbye to his brother a thousand times over, every morning and every night until his lips are chapped and bleeding from the repetition, but it won’t help him heal. Only time will do that, and I have no idea how many weeks, or months, or years will be enough to accomplish that. Still, he has to be there. He’s going to hate himself for the rest of his life if he doesn’t show up for this.
5
ALEX
They used to play stupid games back at Denney. There was little to do besides work out, watch the same family game shows on repeat, and pretend to study in the library, so to appease the mind-numbing boredom, my fellow inmates bombarded one another with a litany of pointless questions. ‘Would You Rather’ was a favorite. Would you rather get your dick sucked by a Kardashian or fuck Taylor Swift in the ass? Win the lottery and die at fifty or live ’til you’re a hundred but be broke as fuck? During one of the last rounds of ‘Would You Rather’ I played before I walked out of Denney, Harrison Ash asked me would I rather be deaf or blind?
At the time, I’d thought it was an easy one. A no brainer. I’d told him I’d rather go blind. For months, I’d been dying to play my guitar, my fingers itching to fly up and down the neck of the instrument I’d had to leave in Gary Quincy’s garage. All I’d had to stare at were bland grey walls and the ugly-as-fuck faces of the other dumb bastards I’d been locked away with. I’d forgotten that there was beauty in the world. It seemed that without music I’d lost a piece of my soul, and the concept of losing it forever was pure fucking torture to me.
Amazing how quickly a mind can change when the world starts falling apart. Sitting in a pew of Raleigh’s Holy Trinity Catholic Church, the depth of the silence that cloaks the darkened alcoves and recessed confessional roars. The pressure of it butts up against my eardrums, a smothering quality to it…and I can’t help but feel relieved.
No one asking me if there’s anything they can do.
I dunno. How ’bout you bring my dead kid brother back to life?
No one giving me stupid fucking advice on how to navigate the hazardous terrain of grief and loss, and how this too shall fucking pass.
You don’t think I’ve been here before? You don’t think I’ve sat down and dined on the same bitter food as the Grim Reaper himself? We’re best fucking friends, asshole.
No one asking me if I’m okay.
No, of course I am not fucking okay. What the fuck is wrong with you? On what planet would I actually be fucking okay?
If I’m deaf to the endless questions and the sickening pity in their voices, then I don’t have to keep my temper at bay. I don’t have to force myself to swallow my angry responses down, where they burn at the back of my throat like acid-filled blisters.
I’ve gone so long with people pretending I don’t exist, that now they’re all wracked with sympathy and guilt, going out of their way to check in on me, I don’t know how to handle their attention. I don’t want it. I don’t fucking need it. I need for all of this to go away, to have never fucking happened in the first place. I need…god, more than anything, I just need Silver.