Beyond the Point(111)
Her sadness about Noah paled in comparison to what Hannah was experiencing. And for that reason, Avery was grateful for her proximity to Hannah’s sorrow. The sheer size of the mountain Hannah had to climb overshadowed the hills of Avery’s life. When you allowed yourself to enter someone else’s trauma, there were so many benefits: a righted perspective, a deeper sense of friendship, a holy devotion to the sacredness of now. Avery hadn’t gone running once since Hannah had returned home. At the moment, nothing seemed more important than being present and available for her friend.
The temperature had fallen overnight to below freezing but was supposed to climb into the high forties by midday. Tree branches, bare and gray, sliced through the sky like witches’ fingers. She shivered. Emily had agreed to go to the mall with Dani to find Hannah something to wear to the funeral, which left Avery to volunteer for a much different job. She didn’t feel ready.
Hannah placed herself heavily in the passenger seat of Avery’s beat-up Honda Civic. Tim’s parents sat in the back, and the four of them drove across Fort Bragg to a redbrick building near the hospital. When they’d walked through that cotton field a few days ago, Hannah’s face had momentarily regained its color—red cheeks, dimpled like God had touched her when her skin was soft as dough. But as they drove, Avery could tell that a tsunami of grief had wiped her out again. Margaret reached her hand around the headrest to rub Hannah’s shoulder, but she pinched her shoulders up by her ears, refusing to accept the touch.
“Are you sure you want to do this, Hannah?” Margaret asked once they’d parked.
“I don’t have a choice,” she said dismally. “I have to see him. Otherwise . . . I—I just have to.”
“I’m going to go in with Hannah first,” Avery said, hoping she wasn’t overstepping. But Hannah looked back at her with gratitude, like she’d just saved her life. “Captain Huerta said there’s a waiting room. I’ll send him to get you after.”
“I hope it will give you some closure,” Tim’s father said. “Even just a little.”
The night before, Avery and Dani had slept on the floor next to Hannah’s bed. Every few hours, they would wake up and find Hannah in the bathroom, or on the floor, or in the closet. She kept saying the same thing over and over again, every time they helped her back into bed: “If he’s really gone, wouldn’t I feel it? Why don’t I feel it?”
Avery felt her breath catch as they stared at the front doors of the mortuary. She couldn’t imagine what Hannah was feeling, knowing that in just a few moments, she would walk inside that building and see the lifeless body of her husband.
Avery reached for Hannah’s hand.
“Are you ready?” Avery said. Hannah’s eyes welled with tears and she nodded, thankful and brave. In that moment, Avery was certain she’d never seen a more beautiful woman. Magazines airbrushed celebrities. Television romanticized relationships. They showed sex and flirtation and forbidden moments of passion. But they never showed this. This love without makeup and without pretense. This love that forgives. This broken gray bravery in the face of loss. And that was part of love too. To be willing to see it die.
Tim’s parents found the waiting room, while Avery and Hannah walked down a hallway lit by fluorescent lights. With each step, Hannah’s breathing grew more irregular, her grip on the silver cross around her neck more intense. At the front desk, a woman asked Hannah and Avery to show their military IDs, then pointed them to the elevator.
A momentary loss of gravity filled Avery’s stomach as the elevator ascended. When the elevator doors opened, they walked down another hallway, to Captain Huerta’s office. He navigated them through a maze of hallways to a heavy door that required his fingerprint to open. And then, he unlocked a smaller door with a key. Inside that room was a closed casket made of dark stained wood. Classic. Just like Hannah.
“Take your time,” said Captain Huerta, closing the door behind them.
Now it was Avery’s breathing that grew fast and shallow. Hannah took three steps forward. Several hot tears streamed down her cheeks, one after another, and her cries sounded like whimpers, caught far in the back of her throat. As Hannah lifted the casket lid, Avery tilted her chin down, wishing she could melt into the walls and disappear. But when Hannah collapsed on the side of the casket, sobbing loudly at her husband’s side, Avery rushed over to hold her steady.
“It’s okay,” Avery said, though she wasn’t sure she believed that was true.
Holding Hannah’s broad shoulders, Avery let her eyes wander to the open casket. She held her breath, hoping to see what she’d always seen in the movies. A perfect Tim, quiet and at peace.
But the man in the casket was a shadow of the Tim she’d once known. His hair was the same dark brown; his nose held the same straight line. But his lips were a stiff shade of blue. His face was ashen, misshapen. The right ear seemed larger than it ought to be. And his eyes were closed and sewn shut—so shut, it almost seemed as if he were clenching his eyes closed. She found herself willing him to wake up, to shake and bring the color back to his face. But he stayed perfectly, tragically still. Avery fought her own breakdown so she could keep holding Hannah up. The green service uniform had his NESMITH nameplate above the right pocket, but aside from that, there was nothing left of the man she’d known. His spirit was gone. Only his body had been left behind.