The Weight of Him(3)

In the days after Michael, a social worker had come out to the house. A brunette, save for the single blond curl at her forehead, and her eyes soft and kind. One of her pamphlets maintained that people lost weight with grief. That was true of Tricia, but not of him. He wasn’t even getting grief right. He recalled the anorexic woman earlier, trying to escape her skeletal body. He was the opposite, hiding inside his massiveness. He returned to the wardrobe mirror. His reflection stared him down. He raised his hand and made of his thumb and finger a pointed gun. His reflection aimed. Fired.

Beyond the window, the crows cawed, as if mocking. He lumbered across the room, lifted the net curtain, and watched the birds’ black flight. The view of the village and the town beyond rarely changed. Except for the birds and the weather. The furling and unfurling of the Meath flag from windows. The sometimes hurtle of an airplane, streaks in its wake like ocean whitecaps.

The haphazard scatter of the buildings in the village made them look thrown down rather than built up, like dice shaken and rolled, landing where they may. Billy’s childhood home stood on the hill, the straight line between him and the farmhouse just five hundred yards across the fields. It seemed much farther away. Smoke puffed from the kitchen chimney, as gray as rain clouds. He dropped the curtain.

*

Billy followed the smell of oil and fried meat to the kitchen. Tricia stood at the stove, prodding the chops with an orange spatula long deformed by the heat. The oil spat and sizzled, filling the small room with the distinctive waft of browned lamb and rosemary.

Tricia moved to the door and called the children. The three filed in and took their places. Billy avoided looking at Michael’s empty chair. Tricia plated the food. The meat pink and juicy. The fried potatoes black-gritted and glistening.

She carried more food to the table. So much food, as if she were still cooking for a family of six. Billy sliced open his lamb chop and found himself hesitating.

Tricia took her seat opposite him. “How is everyone?” she asked, trying to sound casual. The social worker had emphasized the importance of checking in.

“Yeah, what did you all get up to today?” Billy asked. The school counselor had said the children seemed to be doing as well as could be expected, but he and Tricia would never again trust the surface of things.

John gripped his knife and fork hard, his knuckles yellow-white. “Why do you both keep asking how we are? All the time now, it’s the same old thing—”

“Hardly all the time,” Tricia said, still trying at casual. John’s attention remained on his meal, but his cheeks flared red. Anna and Ivor looked out from wide, sad eyes.

“Eat up,” Billy said gently.

John’s knife and fork tore into his chop, as though he were killing it again. He had his grandfather’s hard, square jaw. His temper, too. The boy’s knife screeched across his plate, making the roots of Billy’s teeth hum.

“Take it easy, can’t you?” Billy said, too sharp. Tricia’s eyebrows shot up. A warning. They had to be careful. They had to do a better job with the remaining three.

The Beatles’ “Yesterday” floated out of the radio. Tricia crossed the room and powered it off. John chewed his meat as though still slaying it. Ivor’s chubby hand pushed a wad of bread into his mouth, his chin shiny with butter. Anna inspected the lump of potato on her fork. Tricia remained at the window, her back to them and her arms wrapped around what was left of her. Billy pushed away his plate, his dinner untouched. A first.

Tricia returned to the table and mentioned her morning shift at the chemist. Some strange fella had wanted them to sell his homemade potion, a “cure” for rashes related to measles, chicken pox, and the like. “He couldn’t understand why we refused.”

Anna chimed in about the Sullivan twins in her class, home sick with the mumps. “Their necks swelled like melons.”

The banter went around the table. Billy sat smiling and nodding, adding the odd comment. Inside, though, he couldn’t stop the churn of panic, awful sensations that had descended after Michael and which were getting worse by the day. The more he ached to turn back time and undo the unthinkable, the more the torment built. As his family chatted, clocks ticked in his head like bombs, their black arms turning wildly forward, carrying them forever into the future and farther away from Michael.

His attention jumped to the vase of lilies Tricia had moved to the counter, in the farthest corner. He could still catch their smell. The slice of the spades filling in Michael’s grave started up again in his head, a wet, rhythmic music. He saw his naked reflection in the wardrobe mirror upstairs. He was killing himself—not nearly as swiftly or brutally as Michael, but killing himself just the same.





Two

Billy had slept badly, his head a mess of thoughts, like an overheated radio about to blow. The same questions had chased him throughout the dark. Why had Michael taken his own life? How could he have done that to himself, and to those he left behind? Why hadn’t he, the boy’s father, noticed that Michael had felt so depressed or scared or heartbroken—whatever it was that ailed him? There must have been signs.

The social worker had said there are usually indications, especially in hindsight, and always reasons, even if they only make sense to the victim. Billy and Tricia had agonized, going over everything for any clue, but nothing stood out. Yes, Michael was sensitive, and could be troubled at times by his various fears—of exams, of the dark, of water, of bridges, and who knew what else—but there had been nothing to suggest any deadly extent to his anxieties. Billy could only imagine the stories going around. Drink, drugs, a fallout with family, friends, a girl. He and Tricia had asked the same questions of everyone they could, but no one could explain. No one could believe.