We Are the Light(4)
Anyway, after the tragedy, while all of you were being treated at the hospital, I was being interviewed at the police station. I, of course, waived all my rights because I hadn’t done anything wrong. Darce said it was fine to do this. And so I let a nice woman photograph the blood on my hands and take samples from under my nails and then—in a room with a video camera recording me—I told a few detectives and police officers exactly what had happened in the Majestic Theater. Naturally, I left out the part about Darce and Leandra and the fifteen others turning into angels, but I was one hundred percent truthful about everything else.
It took me a good hour or so to remember the following, but then it hit me. One of the police officers used to be a teenager I worked with a few decades ago. He was looking at me differently. The others appeared almost afraid of the words coming out of my mouth, but Bobby’s eyes were welcoming and reassuring. Several times during the interview, he said, “Mr. Goodgame helped me when I was in high school. I probably wouldn’t have graduated if it wasn’t for him.” I don’t know why he kept saying things like that, but it really helped me get through the interrogation. And when I concluded my testimony, Bobby declared me a hero, which seemed to annoy the other police officers in the room, probably because they wanted to remain objective and not rush to any conclusions, which is always the best way. Still, I appreciated Bobby’s taking my side and his understanding the more-than-obvious facts that explained why I had blood on my hands.
When I was finished being video recorded, I was surprised to find Jill yelling in the front part of the police station, saying that I shouldn’t have been interviewed without legal counsel, which was when I told her it was okay because I hadn’t done anything wrong—and I really hadn’t.
“We’re going to get you out of here right now,” Jill said, which was strange because it was only her there, so I didn’t really understand why she was using the plural pronoun.
Outside in her parked truck with the heat blowing on full blast, she let the engine idle for a long time before she looked over at me and said, “Is Darce really gone?”
Because Darcy had sworn me to silence, back in the Majestic Theater, I didn’t know how to answer that question, so I just stared at my hands, which Jill incorrectly took to mean that my wife had indeed been killed and therefore no longer existed, which I have already told you is not correct. This is when Jill began sobbing uncontrollably. Her chest heaved so hard I thought she might choke to death, so I grabbed her and—in an effort to get her to stop coughing—pulled her close into my body, which worked, although it took her more than thirty minutes to calm down. At some point, I began to stroke her hair, which smelled like honeysuckle, and tell her she was okay, that everything was all right, and it really was, even though I couldn’t exactly tell her why.
Jill stayed the night at our home and then sort of unofficially moved in with me. She closed the Cup Of Spoons for the month of December so she could accompany me to the seventeen sometimes-overlapping funerals and she ran interference for me whenever anyone wanted to ask questions I didn’t want to answer. Reporters quickly learned to fear her. And Jill was also very good at keeping my mother at arm’s length during Darcy’s funeral, which—and you’ll be happy to hear this—also helped to keep my mother complex at bay. Whenever my mother tried to corner me at the reception, Jill would interrupt and say, “Excuse me, Mrs. Goodgame, but I need to steal Lucas for a moment.” Whenever Mom would say, “But I’m his mother!” Jill would pretend like she didn’t hear Mom and then pull me away by the hand. When my mother first flew up from Florida, it was Jill who told Mom that she had to stay in a hotel and not in my house, which I didn’t even realize was a possibility.
I don’t know whether I would have made it through all those funerals if I didn’t have Jill. And she was very supportive when I couldn’t find my way back into the high school. She always echoed everyone else, saying I had already helped so many teenagers and now it was time to help myself, which was kind and made me feel a little better about my malaise.
The problem happened when Jill tried to outthink my grieving.
It was maybe four or so months after the tragedy, right before you had Bobby the cop gently tell me I’d be arrested if I didn’t cease knocking on your consulting-room door and peeking through your windows every Friday night. Jill and I were sitting at Darcy’s and my kitchen table, eating tuna-fish sandwiches that Jill had brought home from the Cup Of Spoons, when she said, “I think you and I should go away for a few days. Specifically, the first week in May.” When I asked why, she reminded me that it was Darcy’s and my wedding anniversary—our twenty-fifth—on May 3. Jill knew because she was Darcy’s maid of honor. Her offer put me in a bind. I wanted to spend my twenty-fifth wedding anniversary with Darcy, but Jill thought Darcy was dead, which was why Jill was always hanging around our house now. Jill wanted to take me somewhere Darcy and I had never been so that the pain of missing my wife might not be as bad, which was sweet of Jill. I said I would think about it, but when I met up with Darcy later that night in my bedroom with the door locked, Darce said, “You’re going!”
“But I want to spend our twenty-fifth anniversary with you, not your best friend,” I protested, which was when Darcy put her foot down and said Jill wasn’t yet ready to know the truth about my wife being an angel and, therefore, there was no excuse that would get me safely around going away with Jill for my anniversary. I sort of saw the sense in what Darcy was saying and—as she promised to fly to wherever Jill and I would be staying—I didn’t see the harm in traveling, especially since Jill and I would be in separate rooms, so there would be more than enough time for Darcy and me to be intimate on our anniversary.