Light from Distant Stars Read online

  “It really is a beautiful city,” Kaye says.

  “Even more beautiful when Mom’s not in it,” Cohen said in a wry voice.

  “It’s nice of you to call her Mom.”

  Cohen laughs. “Big sis. Always finding the silver lining.”

  “Don’t say anything, okay? About the contractions?”

  “I don’t need an excuse not to talk to her.”

  “I’ll go to the doctor if they pick up.”

  “It’s okay,” he says, putting his arm around her. “It’s all going to be okay. I trust you.”

  “Now who’s being the optimist?”

  They turn and start walking back toward the room.

  “Seriously, though, why’d you have to bring her here?” he asks.

  “She deserved to know what was going on.”

  “Deserved? I can think of a million things she deserves, and none of them involve being told that her long-ago husband is dying.”

  “We don’t all get what we deserve, Cohen.”

  He lets that sink in. “You got me there. That was below the belt.”

  They walk up to the room and stand outside.

  “I’m going down to the cafeteria,” he says. “Would you like something?”

  “You’re going to have to talk to her at some point, Co. You can’t pretend she doesn’t exist.”

  “Coffee? A cookie? A candy bar for the twins?”

  Kaye shakes her head and walks into the room as if the whole world is about to be born from her. He turns to go.

  His mother’s voice shouts from the hospital room, abrasive and terse. “I’ll have a coffee. Black.”

  forty-seven

  Back into the City

  The light faded in the cave. Night came early there. Cohen stood up, pushed his way through the thick evergreen branches, and looked around the woods. Stars appeared even though the sky was not completely dark, and clouds caught the last light, bathed in it, their edges silver and shining. Cohen bent over and picked up a few pine cones, threw them absentmindedly into the forest.

  He heard the sound of branches rustling apart, and he turned to see Hippie pushing her way out from under the evergreens, followed by Than. The three of them stood there for a long time, not saying anything, watching the sky grow dark.

  “I wonder if my dad’s looking for me,” Cohen said to no one in particular.

  “Do you still have the gun?” Than asked.

  Hippie glanced at them with pursed lips, disappointment. Cohen nodded and patted his coat pocket.

  “It gets dark around here fast,” Than said. “We should go down to the tracks.” He didn’t hesitate but walked away with unwavering steps.

  At first Hippie and Cohen stood there without following. “I’m sorry we dragged you into this,” Hippie said, her voice fragile and hesitant.

  “Someone had to kill it,” Cohen said before correcting himself. “Someone has to kill it.”

  “It’s probably dead by now. We need to find it and make sure.”

  “Yeah. Probably.”

  But Cohen’s words felt as empty as Hippie’s sounded. He didn’t believe the Beast was dead.

  “You don’t like the gun?” he asked.

  She sighed. “No, not really.”

  “How else would you kill a Beast?”

  “I don’t know.” She reached over and grabbed his hand. “Do you remember in the funeral home how you jumped on its back? You didn’t have a gun then.”

  “That’s true. But it almost killed us. You think the three of us could take it down on our own, without the gun?”

  She looked over at him, and he felt a surge of whatever it was he had felt when he first saw her wandering through the woods with her brother. Her eyes, her skin, her mouth.

  “Probably not.” She sighed again, this time a sigh that sounded like a final breath. “Probably not.” She let go of his hand, not in the way you drop something but in the way a boat drifts from the dock.

  He followed her through the woods, down the steep hill to the tracks. They joined up with Than and the three of them walked in single file, no one saying a word. Filling the silence far behind them, a train whistled. Above, the clouds scattered. The stars shone, those faraway stars, their light only just arriving.

  It seemed too fast, but there Cohen was, staring down into the bowl-shaped valley, down at the mobile home. The darkness pooled there as if it were a liquid running to the lowest place, gathering, something they would have to wade through. The three of them moved through the blackberry brambles and Cohen wondered when they would get their leaves, when the berries would come.

  They walked around to the back of the trailer and the crashing path the Beast had made through the brambles. Than took out a flashlight and looked around the trailer one last time, the beam bobbing up and down, swaying from this side to that. Cohen peered into the darkness, straining his eyes to see what might be there. The night grew cold.

  “Nothing new,” Than concluded, coming back over to the two of them. “Nothing’s changed. You ready?”

  Hippie nodded, Than aimed his flashlight at the crushed path, and they followed along.

  The trail wasn’t hard to follow—the Beast had obviously not been concerned about leaving evidence behind. It careened from here to there, trampling everything in its way and leaving large swathes of black, sappy shadow. Black tar. Cohen avoided it. He didn’t like the coldness it put inside of him, the way he couldn’t shake it off. He remembered Hippie wiping down his hands, how warm she had been.

  The trail meandered more or less back the way they had come the night before, and soon they took their very first steps back onto a sidewalk. Streetlights rose ahead of them. It was late, the middle of the night, and buildings loomed like ancient outer walls.

  The Beast had gone back into the city.

  forty-eight

  There Is a Mender

  “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”

  Cohen sits comfortably in the chair. At each night’s confession, he has felt more at ease. He has not looked up at the crucified Christ. He’s afraid he will see the same thing he always sees.

  Behind the screen, Father James is a vapor, a mist, a temporary gathering of particles that will soon move farther and farther apart, dissipating into the universe. He clears his throat. “The Lord be in your heart and mind and upon your lips, that you may truly and humbly confess your sins: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

  The chapel is silent. Outside, night has a firm hold on the city.

  “Thank you, Father James.”

  Cohen looks closely at the screen separating them, wondering where it was made, what it’s made of. There is something comforting about it being there, something necessary about having that thin barrier between them, between his confession and the person who will hear it.

  “I confess to the Almighty God,” Cohen says, his voice barely above a whisper, “to his Church, and to you, that I have sinned by my own fault in thought, word, and deed, in things done and left undone, but especially, again, in regards to the death of my father.”

  At first Father James does not speak, and the silence gathers around them like an invisible crowd pressing in for a closer look.

  “I have absolved you of this sin,” Father James says in an even voice. “Why do you keep confessing it?”

  “My father is not dead yet. His death is ongoing, and I feel like I can’t experience true absolution until after he has died. I’m sorry. I can’t shake it. I know it’s not proper of me to dwell on sins that have been forgiven.”

  “I understand, Cohen.”

  I understand. Cohen cannot remember the last time someone said that to him.

  “You’re pretty quiet back there.” He tries to chuckle, managing something quite a bit less than that.

  “There is no true confession without someone who is willing to listen, Cohen. A confession is a thing flung into the silence.”

  “Silence. Yes. I
wonder about that.”

  In the silence, while he considers what to say next, he can smell the old carpet, the winter turning to spring, Father James’s cologne or aftershave.

  “Father, has God ever seemed silent to you? He seems silent to me. Actually, this is one of my troubles. I used to believe God heard us. I used to believe he intervened.”

  “And now?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t like not knowing. What do you think? But you’re a priest—of course you believe.”

  “Being a priest is not the same thing as always believing. Yes, God is sometimes silent. God is often silent. It is into this silence that I throw myself daily, trusting there is something more waiting for me there.”

  “More? More than what?”

  “More than what I can see. More than what I can taste, touch, hear, or smell. Something more.”

  “Still, it’s a lonely thing, a world where God does not intervene.”

  “Yes. And sometimes the silence is unbearable.”

  Cohen sighs. “I was about fourteen years old, I think. I’ve managed to block it out pretty well since then. Haven’t thought about it much. We never talked about it, my dad and me. Never. I never processed it. I don’t think we did that kind of thing in the eighties—processed stuff. Only crazy people went to a shrink. But now with my father’s death, you know, it’s been coming back to me in pieces.”

  The chapel seems to grow smaller during his confession, as if the entire universe is pressing in for a closer look.

  “What are you thinking, Father?”

  The priest stirs, seems to uncross his legs and cross them again. “We are all broken, Cohen. We are all reeling from the things that have been done to us in the past or from the things we have done. We have all killed, all destroyed, all hated. There is nothing new in what you have done or what you are remembering, nothing new under the sun. This is confession: remembering and bringing something into the light so that it can be seen, held, and let go of, into the silence.”

  “Yes,” Cohen says. “Yes.”

  “We cannot let go of that which we have not grabbed on to.”

  “Yes.”

  “Who or what did you kill, Cohen, when you were a boy?”

  “It is the great secret of my life, Father,” Cohen says, trying to figure out how to tell it.

  My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The sentence runs through his mind over and over again. He remembers Miss Flynne giving the lesson for that one, the wooden cross, the crucified Christ sticking to the flannel board, falling off, being put back on. A little girl—what was her name?—always cried at this lesson. He remembers staring at the flannel-graph Jesus, wishing he could cry.

  “This girl, Ava, she was there. She’s here now. She’s the agent who opened the investigation into my father’s death. It’s like everything is converging. I feel emotionless. I feel like I’m a helpless observer forced to watch my past happen over and over again.”

  He stops. There is too much to tell. He knows that now.

  “I don’t know where to begin, Father. I don’t know how to tell it. It’s all tangled in my mind, some of it here, some of it there. I killed someone when I was a child, not on purpose. Not really. I didn’t know what I was doing. This person, they deserved it, if that’s possible. And I’m angry at my father for never talking to me about it. It’s the one thing he could have done for me when I was young. He could have listened. He could have asked how I was. But he didn’t. And now he never will.”

  Father James sits rigid, listening. Cohen does not know what else to say. He stumbles into the rest of the confession.

  “For these and all other sins which I cannot now remember,” Cohen says, and there is an ache in his voice, a sadness at the thought that he might never be able to tell it, might never be able to confess the right way. “I am truly sorry. I pray God to have mercy on me. I firmly intend amendment of life, and I humbly beg forgiveness of God and his Church, and ask you for counsel, direction, and absolution.”

  “I will speak with my fellow priests in this parish to determine if I should take any further action, but Cohen . . .” There is compassion in Father James’s voice, and sadness. “We are all broken. Hope remains. There is a Mender.”

  Cohen stares down at the floor. He wishes he could believe that, even if only for a short time.

  “Our Lord Jesus Christ who has left power to his Church to absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in him, of his great mercy forgive you all your offenses; and by his authority committed to me, I absolve you from all your sins: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

  “Amen,” Cohen says.

  “The Lord has put away all your sins,” the priest says.

  “Thanks be to God.”

  “Go in peace, and pray for me, a sinner.”

  forty-nine

  Followed through the Dark

  Cohen walks out of the chapel a few minutes after midnight on Thursday. Could it be Thursday already? Could it be he came to the hospital on Monday afternoon, that his father is still alive, that Ava has returned, that he has seen his mother, that his sister will give birth to twins at any moment? So many things that were incomprehensible only four days before are now spinning his reality into something he can barely recognize.

  Confession has left him feeling both lighter and sadder. It’s as if some invisible weight has been lifted, but now that it’s gone he misses it. Perhaps it was the chat he had with Father James about the absence of God. He’s not sure. He’s been thinking those things for a long time—months? years?—but this is the first time he’s ever spoken them. Speaking them felt right.

  He has the strange sense he’s being followed. But Duke Street is the same as it has been on nearly every late-night walk he’s taken that week—the streetlights are still, the sidewalks cracked, the air some fresh mix of far-off cigarette smoke, exhaust, and trees moving into this new spring. The sky is as unobservable as ever, lost above the light pollution. The hospital rises a few blocks ahead, the randomly lit windows a modern constellation.

  He looks behind him, stops, and listens for footsteps. He turns at the last minute and takes a few quick steps down a narrow alley that’s belching steam from someone’s boiler exhaust. Standing in the quiet darkness and waiting to see if his tail will make themselves known, he wonders if this is what it feels like to be a private investigator, or a criminal. He remembers ducking down an alley like this one so long ago, tracking the Beast.

  First there’s a shadow sliding along the pavement. The sound comes next, someone with a light walk, someone quick. He sees a young man with a ball cap.

  “Thatcher?”

  Thatcher jumps as though he’s been shot. “Oh, man! Mr. Cohen! You scared me to death! What are you doing?”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I was trying to catch up to you.” Thatcher ducks his head, clearly embarrassed. “I followed you to the church.”

  “You what?”

  “I know. I was bored and curious. I stayed back pretty far, and when you went inside, I sat on the street around the corner. I was going to say something when you came out, but I fell asleep.”

  Cohen laughs and shakes his head. Thatcher grins.

  “How’s your grandpa?”

  “Not good. Actually, my dad came back—that’s why I was kind of itching to get out of there. But they don’t think Grandpa’ll make it through the night.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Thatcher shrugs, doesn’t say anything. His mouth quivers and he clears his throat to chase off the emotion. “What about your dad?”

  “Same, I guess. My sister still doesn’t want to take him off life support.”

  “Is there a chance he’ll come back?”

  “I don’t know, Thatcher. I really don’t know. It doesn’t seem that way.”

  The two of them go the rest of the way without speaking, Cohen thinking about death, its approach, the losses to come.

>   The sound is the first thing Cohen notices.

  It’s like a roar that goes on and on, a roar and a sob and a cry all in one, and at first Cohen thinks it’s coming from his father’s room. The first thought he has is that his father has come out of his coma and is in terrible, unrestrained pain. He knows how silly this is even before he arrives at his father’s barely opened door and looks inside. The room is dark. His mother is asleep in one of the armchairs, looking as prim and in control as she does when she’s awake. His sister is standing at the window, staring into the night.

  He moves to speak to her but the roar erupts again, and now he realizes it’s coming from Thatcher’s grandfather’s room. Thatcher has already gone in and walked around the bed, and he’s standing at his grandfather’s side, crying softly. The roar fades. There is a moment of silence, the kind that drapes over most nighttime hospitals, and then the sound comes rushing back.

  It’s coming from Thatcher’s father. He’s on his knees at the foot of the bed, wearing jeans and a flannel shirt, the sleeves rolled up. His ball cap is crumpled in his hands, which are covering his face. His mouth, even in between cries, remains open, saliva escaping in long threads like sap oozing from a tree.

  “Ahhhhhhhhhh!” he cries again, bending further under the weight of his anguish. There’s a nurse at the grandfather’s bedside and a nurse behind the father, appearing unsure of what to do. Two more nurses, drawn by the awful shout, nudge Cohen aside and enter the room. A doctor follows.

  One of the nurses, the one beside the bed, uses her stethoscope to check for a heartbeat, listening at his wrist, his chest, here and here. She bends down close and listens at the grandfather’s open mouth. She straightens, looks at the man as if saying farewell, makes eye contact with the nurse standing behind Thatcher’s father, and shakes her head, a subtle back-and-forth.