The Meridians(29)

And suddenly, as fast as he had appeared, the man disappeared. But before he did, he swept his aged arm over the nearby kitchen island, knocking a glass of water to the floor.

Robbie saw the glass shatter against the floor, saw the water pooling right where he was about to step, but he had no time to alter his movement, and stepped in the watery patch. It was as though he was experiencing the most powerful déjà vú in history, a sweeping tide of foreknowledge that he could see in its entirety but whose path he had no power to vary in the least bit.

The water squeaked under his sneakers for an instant, and his arms pinwheeled in wide circles as he felt himself lose balance. His foot slipped out from under him, and in a way that was both slow as molasses and yet fast as blood spurting from a severed artery, he felt himself falling toward the kitchen island.

Lynette screamed a single word. It was all there was time for. Just a single, anguished, "Robbie!" and then he felt his head hit the corner of the kitchen island.

Falling from over six feet high, with his bearlike bulk propelling him with greater momentum than the body of a smaller man would have done, the fall was incredibly hard and powerful. He felt his skin puncture in a wash of blood, then felt the corner of the island go through his skull, shattering it with a crackle that resounded through his head in the instant that Robbie had left.

And then all was dark.





***





14.

***

Lynette was numb. She felt like her mind was swathed in cotton, a layer of cloth that insulated her from seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, feeling. In the short days between Robbie's death and his funeral, she had endured too many questions, too few answers.

What had happened? Doris had asked. And Lynette had no answer, because all she knew of the moment she lost her husband was that it had been a moment of insanity; a second of complete loss. Similarly, the next few days swept past in a torrent of activity that was so overpowering it actually intensified her feelings of disorientation and disengagement. Just as a car, when driven slowly over potholes will jitter and shake, but when driven at a reckless speed will drive more smoothly, so the many details that had to be attended to with Robbie's death rendered her almost a wraith, gliding across the surface of her life.

Robbie was gone.

That was the one thought that kept recurring, that kept waking her up at night and kept her wanting to fall asleep during the day as an escape from its rhythmic pounding.

Robbie is gone.

Robbie is gone.

Robbie is gone.

A mortuary had to be contacted, the body handled, and Robbie is gone.

The funerary arrangements had to be made, and Robbie is gone.

Robbie is gone.

Robbie is gone.

Robbie is gone.

Only Kevin seemed unaware of all the activity around him. As long as he had his cars and his two red balls, he was happy. Lynette hated those round red spheres, hated them for what they represented and the change in her life that they had wrought. Though of course they were in and of themselves neither evil nor even capable of any kind of action or activity, still she thought of them in the darkness of the night as being evil totems, mischievous spirits that had come to dwell with her child and in so doing had signaled the loss of her husband.

The funeral itself was almost impossible to bear. Not merely because she had to say goodbye to her beloved Robbie, but also because she had to reject her pastor's offer to eulogize him. She had no desire to hear of the tender mercies of God when it was that same God who had stolen her husband from her, and stolen him most cruelly. She gave the eulogy herself, as much as she was able, though she broke down crying halfway through and had to be helped away from the microphone.

Robbie was a much loved man among his students, among the Friends of Autistic Children, in their church, and in the community generally. So his funeral was a standing room only affair, full of well-wishers and grief-givers. But Lynette found no solace in the many hands that reached out to take hers; found no sharing of her grief possible, though many offered her their shoulders to cry on and to give them any of her burdens that they could carry for her.

But that was the problem. There were no burdens that she could shift. She was a single mother now, and had to find some way to take care of herself while at the same time caring for a son who had been hard enough to care for when that was all she devoted herself to.

Luckily - blessedly, her pastor insisted, though Lynette continued to keep her own opinions about God and His blessings - Robbie had been well-insured through his job. The salary of a teacher was poor, but there were perks to be found in the benefits. He left her with just over two hundred fifty thousand dollars, which was enough to permit her some time to grieve, and some time to figure out what to do with herself and with Kevin.

Kevin. He was asleep, his tired body not able to keep up with the single-minded intensity he brought to bear on every aspect of his activities. But sleep would not come for Lynette, no matter how hard she willed it. She kept reaching over onto Robbie's side of the bed, as though by doing so she could somehow call him back from the brink of eternity, could summon him to her side once again. No matter how often she reached over, however, she always found the same thing: an empty bedspread, cold and unruffled by her cover-hog of a husband. Finally, she took off her own covers and wadded them on his side of the bed, as though she were sleeping on one of the many nights where he had stolen the spreads from her. She shivered, and not from cold.