So Much Love Read online

  If there was some comfort in the crowds and candles and cold, some righteousness, some secular prayer, Kyla couldn’t feel it. Donny’s parents told the crowd at the vigil they were touched by the support, but they looked like they were falling down as they spoke. Donny was an only child—what could his parents do now but fall down?

  For days afterwards, Kyla felt she owed them the thousand things she knew about Donny—the little kitten he had drawn on the sole of his left sneaker; the way he couldn’t grow a real beard, just fuzzy patches with blanks in between; that time he gagged on a Sriracha peanut and couldn’t stop coughing all day. Who cared about those things? Maybe only Kyla. Or maybe also anyone who loved Donny. But she was too exhausted, too miserable and angry, and in the end she didn’t call.

  The person she really wanted to talk to was Catherine Reindeer. Catherine, who had survived when Donny didn’t. Kyla wanted to know whether Catherine and Donny had been together all that time, and what they had talked about. If he ever mentioned her? If Catherine was there when he died? She was a stranger, but maybe she was kind. Anything was better than thinking of Donny dying alone. Donny never liked being alone. Sometimes he would get Kyla on the phone and then set it on the pillow beside him while he fell asleep.

  One day on Christmas break, by some miracle, Kyla was by herself in the house. No one had gone very far: Dermott and Louise were shovelling the driveway and Jaycee was building a snowman in the yard. Kyla was lying on the couch, the side of her face squished into a throw pillow. She focused vaguely on the other side of the room, the bookcase, the heavy books on the bottom shelf. Then she got down on the floor, scuttled across, and pulled out the big Iria phone book from the shelf. Only Dermott and Louise would even have that sort of thing anymore. The spine said 2014, but that didn’t matter—no one in Iria moved around much.

  There was only one listing for Reindeer, of course. It was a weird name.

  What could she possibly say to this woman who had been through the worst with Donny, who maybe now knew more about the boy Kyla loved than she ever would?

  She picked up the phone, keeping her index finger on the number on the page, pressing so hard she felt a spark of pain.

  Long Live Home

  There are problems all over the house. Grey keeps things acceptable, more or less, but dirty shirts lurk on the closet floor and the kitchen table is still covered with all the canned goods and toilet paper and bread he dumped there when he got back from the grocery store two days ago. At least he put the meat away. There’s nothing guests would notice, or at least comment on, but Grey keeps finding things are broken or askew everywhere. During the months Catherine was gone he didn’t notice. Of course, back then he had other things on his mind besides housekeeping and home organization. But with Catherine under this roof again, damaged but alive, here, he feels he has let her down. He should not have let the house revert to this bachelor state.

  The house—their house, which she loved so much—should be perfect for her, for the miracle of her return, especially since she doesn’t leave it much. They had both been shocked at their audacity when they bought it, such a precarious and amazing thing to purchase a home all their own. They struggled with the mortgage; every month was a victory. Catherine planned each little improvement like a royal wedding—a new shelf in the entryway where they put hats and keys, yellow tulips planted out front in groups of three, cleared eaves-troughs after a day spent on a ladder with Grey shouting caution from below. Even when she was gone, their house held the halo of her, from the sky-blue runner she chose for the stairs to the memory of the heart-squeezing excitement and fear they’d both felt, standing with their shoulders pressed together on the sidewalk out front when she whispered to the realtor that they wanted it.

  Now that she’s back, though, her presence is overwhelming; he feels it from the driveway, golden and sad. He loves her so much that sometimes he has to force himself to walk up the front steps, open the door, and see her wounded face. When she was gone, he came into the house with leisurely dread—little hope but no expectations either. He could sit quietly on her beloved blue couch—he always found it too bright, and narrow—doling himself out a maximum of two beers per evening through episode after episode of Orange Is the New Black or Game of Thrones. Sometimes he teared up thinking about all the plot points he knew that Catherine didn’t know, how confusing it would be for her to catch up when she came back. Or if she came back.

  But she did return, though she was struggling like a scuba diver who’d surfaced too quickly. At first, every time Grey entered her hospital room he would find her watching whatever station he’d had the TV on the last time. No, not watching, just staring in the direction of the light and noise. After about ten days of that unnerving stillness, punctuated by a sudden violent flail if he touched her unexpectedly, she started to respond to voices; to nod, to respond to instructions, to engage with what was said. He could tell she was listening, but for another few weeks she was still beyond words herself. Then he came into the room on the day after Christmas and she was furrowing the blankets with her fingers—the most motion he’d seen her initiate.

  “Hey, Catherine. How are you?”

  And she looked up, right at his face, and said his name. “Hi. Grey. I’m…fine.” He’d been listening to her voice trapped in the outgoing message on their phone for so long, he’d forgotten how it sounded without the metallic echo of the recording. It was gravelly, soft, alto. His response was Pavlovian—he wanted to talk to her about everything in his head, tell her about his day and how he was feeling at that moment. But he knew better than to overwhelm her with his terror and joy. He sat down on the bed beside her, gazed at her face, and when he touched her hand, she didn’t flinch.

  A few days later, she wandered to the bathroom and back into bed on her own, without being led, without anyone urging her along. Grey watched her pale, scarred legs below the hem of the peasoup-green hospital gown. From then on, she followed the nurses obediently to various exam rooms, to a therapist’s office, but she didn’t say much—couldn’t or wouldn’t, it was difficult even for the therapists to be sure. Grey still didn’t really know much about her time in hell, but at least now she looked at him when he was in the room.

  A few days into the new year, Grey carefully guided his wife through an alley door, avoiding the reporters who were gathered out front of the hospital, always waiting for a chance to “chat,” and brought her home. He watched as she climbed into their bed with the aubergine sheets she’d picked out for their wedding registry. He’d washed them and made the bed before she came home, thinking of her hair growing back, her reading aloud to him in bed, her squatting beside him while he played the newest Grand Theft Auto. He’d struggled with the hospital corners, trying to get the sheets wrapped tight and smooth as a gift. For months he had let the sheets hang slack. He didn’t like to be pinned down by the covers in bed and hospital corners were a lot of extra work, but Catherine didn’t like the sheets floppy, and so he folded and tucked for her.

  When Catherine was safely in bed, the phone rang—not his cell, which is what the hospital and the cops and his family called—but the landline, left mainly to telemarketers and pizza-order confirmations and crazies who found his number in the phonebook. The crazy people wanted to tell him theories about how Catherine had been taken by aliens or angels or their neighbours with the weird moustaches, but he’d kept picking up the damn thing because what if someone actually knew something. The cops even put a wiretap on the line for a while, so obviously they agreed with him that it was possible. Now that Catherine was back, he intended to cancel the landline—she used to call it his pointless homage to 1992—but he kept picking up out of habit.

  “Hello?”

  There was the silence of breath; this was always how the crazies started. But Grey was patient, listening, in deference to his former hoping self. These calls had been all the hope he had for a long time. He waited.

  Finally: “Is there someone there?”
A small soft voice, a woman or possibly a child.

  “Yes, I’m here.”

  “Um, is, um, Catherine there? Catherine Reindeer? The woman who got kidnapped and, um, came back?”

  “May I ask who is calling?” He usually denied that it was even her number because the thing with delusional people who called to “help” was that sometimes they meant the opposite. But the girl on the other end sounded so gentle and tired.

  “She knew my boyfriend. Before he died. I thought maybe she could…I don’t know, tell me things he said, before he died. I don’t know.” Her voice trembled, on the verge of tears or maybe hiccups.

  It took Grey a long moment before he realized who she might mean. “Donny? Was Donny Zimmerman your boyfriend?”

  A cough, or perhaps a whimper. “Yeah.”

  “I don’t know if Catherine can talk to you for a while. She’s not been…well.”

  “I know, I mean, I guessed. But if—”

  “Give me your number and if she can call, I know she will. Let me get a pen.”

  The girl dictated her number carefully, and Grey repeated it back.

  “And please, please don’t tell anyone else, anyone besides Catherine that I called.”

  Grey nodded, then remembered he was on the phone. “Okay,” he said at last. He had no idea why the secrecy was necessary, but he understood so little at this point in his life, he didn’t think to ask. Instead he said what everyone probably said to her, but how could he not? “I’m so sorry about Donny, so sorry for your loss. I met his parents—such good people. They loved him a lot. Love him.”

  “Thank you.” She was definitely crying now.

  “Listen, I don’t know what you’re going through, but I’m probably the closest…I mean, I’ve thought a lot about your situation. I—”

  He knew he was failing but still winced when he heard the dial tone.

  There was no TV in the bedroom—years ago, she had said, “Screens in the bedroom are a marriage-killer.” She got the idea from a book, but it wasn’t the worst rule. She even insisted they charge their cellphones in the kitchen, so the bedroom stayed a quiet, dreamy place. Now, without conversation, the silence was total. When Catherine was in bed, she stared out the window at birds, wind-ruffled maple leaves, and, he suspected, largely nothing at all.

  He found it impossible to climb under the pretty purple sheets with her that first night. She had been raped. He knew this because the doctor had told him about abrasions, because her therapist had warned him Catherine might react strongly to having her personal space infringed upon, and because he had stayed up late too many nights reading terrifying memoirs about other women who had been held for long periods. As much as he longed to sleep beside her and take in her smell, her warmth, he knew she didn’t like to be—couldn’t be—touched without warning. And once unconscious, he couldn’t promise that he wouldn’t brush against her, perhaps even try to hold her in his sleep. The way her body spasmed when someone caught her offguard was the worst thing he’d ever seen, all the more terrifying since he knew she’d seen so much worse. As he came into the bedroom that first night, she was curled into a tight, tendoned ball, eyes shut, but he could tell by her breathing that she was awake.

  “It’s me, it’s Grey, Catherine, it’s okay, it’s just me,” he said too fast, all one word. He came around her side of the bed, and when she opened her eyes the look of frozen horror was like nothing he’d seen before when she was his smart, serene wife. He had no idea what she was remembering—and he was too weak to ask. She turned her face to the ceiling and then, a few moments later, toward him again. “I’m sorry. I’m fine.” He had no idea what that meant either.

  He slept on the guest-room futon that night, but as the weekend went on, she was okay as long as she saw him coming. He read to her, made her toast and tea, and watched her eat and drink, downloaded stupid movies to watch with her on his laptop, of course in violation of her rule. But she didn’t enforce it, and seemed to pay attention to the movies, though she didn’t laugh at any of the jokes. Who could blame her? Grey sat next to her for hours with the books, the food, the movies, and Catherine seemed calm. So after a few nights, he emerged from the bathroom, minty and damp-faced. She watched him pull back the duvet with as much interest as she watched clouds roll across the sky or Keanu Reeves dart across a screen. When he lay down beside her and said, “Good night,” she even parroted it back to him. And when he sank down onto the pillow, she did too—monkey see, monkey do. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again a few minutes later, Catherine was staring out the window.

  Sue has been struggling, breaking into sobs far too often—when Grey is reading aloud and Catherine doesn’t react to a funny bit, or when Catherine fumbles or drops things, which is constant. She stares in silent wonder through her tears at Catherine, this new person, so changed from the daughter she knew. But Sue promises to be strong and spend a whole day with Catherine on her eleventh day home. Grey has to return to work because it’s been a long year and there is only so much understanding the merch department could have. But Sue can trade a weekday shift for a Saturday one at the bank sometimes. So he goes in, does some work, and leaves seconds after his boss does. When he gets home, he finds Sue sitting on the couch, legs neatly crossed at the ankle, reading a book with a sunset on the cover.

  “Hey, Sue. How is she?”

  She closes the book, not marking her place, and shrugs. “I don’t know. All right, I guess. She spent the day in bed, only ate half a sandwich, didn’t really talk to me. I mean, she’s fine, but she isn’t…her.” Sue begins to weep.

  Grey sits down next to her on the couch, palm hovering over her back for a moment before he remembers that he can touch her. His chest releases a tension he hadn’t known he was holding when Sue leans into him, actually accepts his comfort. After a few quiet sobs, she murmurs, “I wanted her to come back so badly, but I didn’t think it would be like this.”

  He bows his face into her hair, stiff against his jaw. “I know. I missed her so much—I thought if I had her back, I would never ask for anything else.” The smell of hairspray burns his throat. “But she’s back, and I still miss her.”

  Sue takes a tissue from her sleeve. “I’m sorry, Grey, I didn’t want to upset you. I know these things take time and she’s a strong girl. But it’s hard to wait, when we’ve already done so much of that. And I don’t know how to help her.”

  “I hope we are, somehow. I think she’s working on it, in her head, getting better.”

  Her smile is kind, but Grey sees a terrifying hopelessness there. The tears are gone. “There’s a pot of soup on the stove—just bean and bacon, nothing fancy, but I figured you wouldn’t feel like cooking.” She stands, picks up her book.

  “Thanks, Sue. Will you stay and eat?”

  She shakes her head. “It’s been a long day. I’ll be back in the morning, though. They’re letting me take a few more Saturday shifts.”

  So Grey climbs the stairs alone. Through the doorway, in the dusk light that flickers through the branches outside the window, he can see Catherine is still in bed, watching the shadows move. He rustles his jacket in the doorway until she turns toward him.

  “Hey, Catherine. How was your day?”

  “It was okay. I slept a lot.”

  “Do you want dinner? Your mom made soup.” The banality of the conversation makes his eyes sting, but as much as he wants to say something inspiring or at least kind, he has nothing to offer but soup.

  She nods slowly, her chin tipping down into the stretched-out neck of her T-shirt. His T-shirt, he realizes—one of his old worn gym shirts. A kind of proxy embrace.

  Downstairs he reheats soup, listening for a sound from above that doesn’t come. He stands in the dining room, a bowl of soup in his hand. Would she come down if he called her? It’s what they’ve always done since moving into the house. They had many conversations through walls, up stairs, around corners. Catherine always seemed to like that, to chuckle at some pri
vate joke as she asked him questions through the bathroom door, the kitchen wall. He realizes he should have asked her long ago what that was all about.

  He slides a spoon into each bowl and takes both up the stairs.

  Together, Grey and Sue manage a version of this plan with other meals on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Sue strengthens her resolve, no more tears that week, but she’s worn out. She greets Grey at the door with the news she persuaded Catherine to play a game of Go Fish, momentarily cheered, but then she shakes her head in disgust. “In a house full of poetry, in a city full of friends, all my daughter can rise to is asking if I have any sevens.”

  The bank Sue works at is having a staff meeting on Friday afternoon and Grey encourages her to go. She, too, is running out of other people’s patience. Besides, when he asks Catherine if she minds spending the day alone, she shakes her head without moving her gaze from the snow-crusted branches out the window.

  Friday night, Grey works nearly an hour late—some new specs came in at the last moment, and a whole display has to be rethought—but the truth is he can’t face the idea of cooking her some soggy pasta to eat on their aubergine sheets.

  Catherine has always been a better cook than him, which didn’t matter when she wasn’t there. His own standards are low, his palate unrefined—he prepared mushes of vegetables and meats he was happy to call stew or curry or stir-fry depending on the seasonings. It’s more depressing to serve them to her. He can remember her up at dawn, in the kitchen kneading butter on a chilled marble board—it took until the next day for the croissants to be ready, but they were filled with light and air and butter.