Light from Distant Stars Read online

  He could have convinced himself everything was okay and everything would be okay, except for the way the car didn’t slow to take the slight curve at the bottom of the hill, veering into the grass and stirring up more dust, or the way his mother didn’t take a parking spot but drove right up to the ballfield.

  “Play ball!” Cohen’s father shouted again, fury gathering at the edge of his words. He had not yet seen the car. He had not yet seen his wife opening the door, careening out, leaving the door open behind her. But Cohen had, and when his father realized the stare-down with his son had broken off, he turned to see what his son was looking at.

  Cohen’s mother didn’t stop at the line of parents who did not now know what to pay attention to—the argument between the pitcher and the umpire or the woman storming the field. And she didn’t stop at the gap in the chain-link fence where the coaches stood speechless at the disagreement between father and son. She pushed between them. And she didn’t stop inside the fence where the grass ended and the dirt infield began. And she didn’t stop at the infield but walked right up to home plate, right up to where Cohen’s father clutched the umpire’s mask. She poked her index finger into his incredibly puffy chest protector, her finger sinking in, not even touching his real chest.

  “How could you do this?” she said in a voice that was simultaneously tears and rage and a refusal to be disappointed by someone so clearly less than her.

  Calvin didn’t seem to know what to say. Cohen’s glove fell from his hand and landed palm up in the dust. The wind died down. The corn stopped rustling. The clouds stopped moving.

  “You are nothing without me! Nothing!” she screamed, poking his chest protector with each and every word. Kaye came wandering from the car, taking each step as if it might be the step where she fell through the crust of the earth.

  “You are disgusting and immoral! Immoral! And a sinner! And you will go straight to hell for this!” Cohen’s mother screamed.

  By now Calvin had recovered enough from the initial onslaught to speak, and even though he asked a question, Cohen could see his guilt creeping out from the edges of his face, the wrinkles around his eyes, the slouching of his shoulders. He no longer squeezed the mask—it hung at his side, hooked tenuously by his index finger, ready to drop.

  “What are you talking about, Rachel?” he asked quietly, seeming to forget he was the home plate umpire at his son’s Little League ball game. He didn’t shush her and lead her away. He didn’t ask her if they could talk about this some other time. No, his guilt drowned him, and he could do nothing but offer halfhearted denials.

  But Cohen’s mother was out of words. She was spent. Her sobs, the ones she tried desperately to hold down, came out like coughs. She wiped her eyes fiercely with the back of her hand as if she wanted to rip them out, angry at the tears they produced. She reached into her pocket and pulled out something small and white and balled up, and she threw it down into the dirt where it rolled to rest directly on home plate.

  The sock.

  HMF.

  She turned and walked away, and when she reached Kaye she grabbed her by the arm in fury, as if Kaye had been the unfaithful one. She dragged her to the car, Kaye’s numb half-steps stumbling to keep up. And then they were in the car, careening again up the hill and out of sight.

  Cohen’s father took out his handkerchief in the midst of that profound silence. He wiped his head, his eyes, and his neck and put the hanky in his pocket. He bent down and picked up the sock and put it in his other pocket. He looked once at Cohen, and the expression on his face was one Cohen had never seen before—he looked lost, unsure of where to go or how to get there.

  Calvin dropped the umpire’s mask, took off the chest protector, and laid it carefully on the ground. He stopped to say something to the coach but didn’t seem to know what. He walked through the stunned and embarrassed crowd to the car, where he waited for Cohen without saying a word.

  seventeen

  A Letter

  October 12, 1984

  Dear Co,

  How are things back home? Here in the big city—and let me tell you that Philly is the real deal, no small city like the dinky one you’re living in but big and scary and full of monsters. Ha ha. Me and Mom are okay. The new school is better than I thought it would be and I’m meeting some nice girls. I like walking to school, and the sound of the city at night is cool. It makes me feel very small.

  I miss Dad’s breakfasts, though. Mom has been on this health-food kick so all we have in the house is something called muesli? I had to look at the box just now to be able to spell it. It tastes like sawdust with little chunks of wood in it. I keep wanting to threaten Mom that if she doesn’t buy some bacon I’m running away and coming back to live with you guys, but I don’t think she’s at the joking stage yet. Ha ha. Sometimes she buys this super healthy bread, and then I can have toast, but even the butter we have is weird. Oh well.

  How’s Dad handling everything? I feel so sad for him. His whole life is falling apart. I’m kind of glad I’m not there to watch it happen. You and I both know Mom isn’t the nicest person to live with, so I’m sure there are some things he doesn’t miss, and he probably enjoys his quiet nights. You know how he was always begging us for quiet. But it must be lonely around there, especially on Sunday mornings.

  Do you guys go to church anywhere? Mom and I visited a few different places, but everything here in the city is stuffy stuffy stuffy. I should have written those words in all caps. I don’t know how much longer we can keep up this search. Sunday mornings are so awkward. But you know Mom. She probably thinks that if we missed a week of church we’d be signing a one-way ticket to h-e-l-l.

  (I wrote it like that in case Mom reads this letter before she sends it. Are you reading this, Mom? That’s not nice, if you are. Ha ha.)

  Do you like the new apartment? Do you have a nice room? Are you scared with all the bodies in the basement??? I would be terrified. Mom said I can visit in the summer, but that was after she said “maybe” so many times that I kind of wonder if she isn’t putting me off until the summer when she’ll say no again. She seems desperate to keep me away from Dad. I think she’s scared I might decide to move back in with you. It makes me so sad sometimes when I think about it. I try not to. Maybe when I visit, you can show me around and we can have a sleepover in the basement with all the bodies and tell ghost stories! Wouldn’t that be terrifying?

  How’s your friend Ava? Do you have a girlfriend yet that you’re not telling me about? There are no boys here worth getting to know. Including Jimmy. They are all big-city know-it-alls.

  Please write again. I miss you. I love you.

  K

  eighteen

  And All My Other Sins

  “But especially, especially in regards to the death of my father.”

  Cohen pauses, and the words are absorbed into the carpet, into the sky-blue wall, into the downturned face of the crucified Christ. Father James says nothing. He waits for Cohen to finish his confession. That has always been something Father James has been good at, something Cohen marvels at: his ability to remain quiet for such a long time, to wait when words are expected. His patience is uncanny.

  Cohen looks up again at the painting. It feels precisely as if the disappointment on the downturned face of Christ was painted there for this very moment. Cohen thinks the painting might as well have been titled The Eternal Disappointment of the Christ in Regards to the Life of Cohen Marah. He races through the final words of confession, and even as he’s saying the words he knows at least part of what Father James’s response will be.

  “For these and all other sins which I cannot now remember, 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.”

  “Cohen . . . Cohen,” the priest says in a gentle voice. “Slow down. This is a prayer you are saying from your heart. Your soul! It is an offering to the e
ternal force that created the universe, the force that created you. Slow down, my son, there is no rush. Think of the words you’re saying.”

  Silence.

  “Should I say it again?” Cohen asks sheepishly.

  Father James lets out a low grunt that is somewhere between a chuckle and a snort.

  “For these and all other sins which I cannot now remember,” Cohen says again, slowly, “I am truly sorry.”

  Cohen pauses between each phrase, trying to catch the words in his mind before they evaporate.

  “I pray God to have mercy on me.”

  He takes a breath.

  “I firmly intend amendment of life.”

  He becomes acutely aware of how late it is.

  “I humbly beg forgiveness of God and his Church, and ask you for counsel, direction, and absolution.”

  They sit there without saying anything. Cohen glances one more time at the eyes of the crucified Christ, hoping the sense of disappointment has lessened. The heat kicks on, and warm air rushes into the room from the low vents, rustling the pages of a prayer book someone left open on one of the chairs. Exhaustion overcomes all of his defenses. His eyes are heavy. If the priest doesn’t speak soon, he might fall asleep there in the chair.

  “Before I absolve you, Cohen, I must encourage you to take anything—anything—the authorities need to know . . . should know . . .” He stops. “Cohen, are you saying you took your father’s life?”

  Cohen glances at the screen, looking for the eyes of his confessor, but when all he can see is a shifting shadow, he stares back at the floor. “No, Father. Not physically. But I am concerned that I may have caused his death. Indirectly.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you?”

  Father James pauses. “No, not completely.”

  Cohen tries to find the priest’s eyes behind the screen. Time passes strangely there in the chapel. He can’t remember what time it was when he left the hospital. When he walks outside, will the sun be rising? Or are there still hours and hours of night remaining?

  “We had a . . . conversation. An argument? I told him some things he didn’t want to hear. When I left his house the night before, we were both very angry. I worry he may have . . .”

  Again, he’s overwhelmed by this sudden desire for sleep. He considers asking the priest if he can spend the rest of the night right there in the chapel, asleep on the warm rug, curled up beside one of the heating vents.

  “I worry he may have taken his own life. Tried to.”

  “I see.” Father James peers out at Cohen from behind the confession screen and sighs. “Our Lord Jesus Christ,” he says quietly, and again Cohen can picture him speaking with his eyes closed, “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 whispers.

  “The Lord has put away all your sins.”

  “Thanks be to God.”

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

  nineteen

  The Beast

  After everything came tumbling down—after the tornado of shouts and awkward silences, after the furiously packed bags and his mother dragging Kaye from the house, after they drove away, leaving him in the middle of the country road—came a long, slow stretch of days and months and years when Cohen felt mostly numb. In their passing, they were lonely and quiet. But when Cohen looked back on those years from age nine to fourteen, they were blank. He knew he lived them. He knew he existed then, during the latter half of the 1980s, but there was very little to remember.

  During the fog of the first few months after his mother left them, his father made an awkward but rather quick transition into a new occupation, from pastor to funeral director. The church would not have him, not after what he had done. There were rumors about Miss Flynne of the decorative socks, Miss Flynne of the neon-green nail polish, that she had fled west. Cohen never saw her again.

  Kaye and Cohen’s mother found a place to live in Philadelphia, closer to her own family, and Cohen and his father moved into an old apartment above the funeral parlor, right there in the small city only a few miles from their old place. The country road gave way to a grid of cement and concrete and macadam. The forest of tangled oaks and maples and pines transformed into straight lines of sycamores lining streets named after the monarchy: King and Queen and Prince and Duke. A sky once filled with the light from distant stars was overwhelmed by streetlights and headlights and the glow of the monolithic hospital a few blocks south.

  The previous owner of the funeral home hadn’t lived in the apartment. It had been empty for years, unused, and smelled like shadows, so they left the windows open for the rest of the summer and into the fall. Cohen lay stretched out flat in his bed and tried to sleep but couldn’t for the sound of the city and the heat and the presence of all the bodies coming and going in the basement.

  “That is no place for a boy,” he had heard his mother hiss to his father during one of their rare in-person encounters, soon after the separation, just before the divorce. His father had only stared at the floor before looking back up at her with empty eyes. It was as if, now that the woman who had written his sermons was gone, he could not find the words.

  Cohen had wondered if his mother might be right, if a funeral home was no place for a boy to live. He took to wandering the apartment at night, not because he was especially brave but because it was only slightly less terrifying than lying in his bed, waiting for a resurrected corpse to come for him. If he remained in bed, he stared through the dark at his bedroom door, the very same door that always seemed to be creaking open ever so slowly. He couldn’t take his eyes from it or the door handle, which always seemed to be rotating as someone or something tried to slide in and join him.

  At some point during those lost years, he began getting out of bed and wandering. He carried a flashlight and an aluminum Louisville Slugger baseball bat, hidden during the day between his mattress and box spring. He soon located, and knew how to avoid, the loose floorboards so as not to alert his father to this new nighttime restlessness.

  Not that his father would have heard him. When they first moved into the funeral home apartment on the second floor, his father had begun taking a nightly glass of port. Which soon became two glasses. Which soon became four tumblers each night before bed. His father’s snoring reverberated in an outward ripple the way his preaching always had, and it could be heard from anywhere in the second-floor apartment. Cohen could even hear his father’s snoring in most areas of the first floor, where the coffin displays and chapel were located.

  But then came 1989, when a blurry half decade ended and the memories began again.

  It was winter, and everything stood sharp and dry. He was awake, standing in the dark kitchen, when the sound of a car traveling at a ridiculously high speed eased its way into the silence, the high whine of an engine at its max, the squeal of tires going too fast around a sharp turn. He opened the window, stuck his head out into the freezing-cold air, and saw headlights bobbing and weaving, going back and forth from one lane to the other, coming fast.

  The car came up the street and onto his block without stopping at the traffic lights, and the driver lost control, slid sideways, rediscovered the car’s traction, and shot off the road, slamming into the blue post office box and lurching to a stop near the house across the street from Cohen’s living room window. He sat staring, eyes wide. The car remained eerily still on top of the post office box, tilted to the point that it might fall over on its top, steam or smoke rising from the engine.

  Various lights winked on as people who had heard the crash pulled themselves from their beds and came to their windows. But Cohen wasn’t paying attention to the house lights. He was completely absorbed by what crawled out from under the wreck.


  At first he thought a shadow was stretching from the side of the car, perhaps because one of the neighbors had turned on their outside light. It was like a slowly spreading pool of darkness, but it had a form, which made him wonder if the driver of the car had been wearing some kind of a costume. But it was no costume, and he was not coming out of the door.

  “What?” Cohen whispered, reaching down for the previously forgotten Louisville Slugger without taking his eyes from the spreading blackness. At that moment, at that same exact moment, all the streetlights in the town winked out. Maybe the car had hit something that brought on the darkness. Maybe some other car had also crashed and taken out a utility pole. Whatever had happened, the city fell into a deeper layer of inky blackness, and the only remaining light came from the windows of houses where people had woken up, and these were few.

  The thing that climbed out from under the car still had no clear shape, but Cohen saw enough of it to know that it had a head, and it had things like arms and legs, but not in a million years could he have described it. There was something of death about it, and the strong, metallic smell of fresh blood swept up through the open window where Cohen stood.

  The thing, the Beast, the whatever-it-was, had something like eyes and something like a face, and it looked up at the window and saw him. He knew it. He could feel that it had seen him, and its seeing of him was an ache that filled his mind.

  The thing began moving to cross the empty, dark street toward the sycamore tree and the glass doors of the funeral parlor.

  Cohen froze. He squeezed the baseball bat, held it in two white-knuckled hands. Should he shout for his father? Should he run and make sure the doors were locked? Should he go hide?

  Sirens pierced the night, and flashing lights approached from a long way off. The thing turned and looked at the lights, and it moved in the opposite direction, vanishing down unlit Duke Street. For a moment Cohen thought he could see the darkened trail it had left, like a slug’s. A trail of cold and fear.