Hole: A Ghost Story Page 14

  His mouth still over hers, Hank wriggled his penis through the opening of his pajamas. He was hard as a rock, harder than he’d been in years, even with his mistress when she was fresh and unknown to him. His balls were gravid with desire for her, the head of his cock glossy, a tomato ripe to bursting.

  She was slippery beneath him. Her whole body was drenched. It might have been sweat, but he knew it was not. She was covered in blood, and he knew he was covered in that blood now, too, but it meant nothing to him in his lust.

  He sank his heat into her ice. She grasped his buttocks and urged him deeper, crying out in delight. He filled her up. Joyously she arched her hips for more. Panting, he dashed himself against her pelvis, relishing the wiry feel of her pubic hair against his crotch, the buttery smooth caress of her thighs against his hipbones.

  She was so cold, but he had heat enough for both of them.

  “I love you,” Hank gasped in her ear. “I’m so sorry.”

  “This one last time, then never again,” Mary sighed.

  He quickened, groaned, spilled himself inside her. Mary held him to her and came with him, clenching him between her thighs, her toes curling.

  She hooked her feet behind his knees. He took her hand and rubbed his face in her palm, smearing her blood all over him, eyes shut in ecstasy.

  It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but this woman, here in his bed.

  He rolled off her, still panting. The wind that blew through the window dried the blood on his body to a crackling glaze. His blood soaked pajamas clung to his skin. His mouth tasted like pennies.

  He thought it was apt that she should trade him blood for semen. He was certainly guilty enough, but he’d never stopped loving her. Never. He thought he should tell her that again, but he was drifting.

  Typical male, he grinned, then it occurred to him that he was falling asleep in a dream.

  21.

  Hank woke with a start, lying on his belly with his face in his pillow. It was daylight, birds chirping outside in the trees. He didn’t know what time it was, only that it was late enough in the morning that the heat coming in the windows had wrung a bucket of sweat from him. The night had gone and took its cool caresses with it.

  He remembered his dream suddenly, and he flipped over in the bed and checked his sheets for blood. Irrational maybe, but it was such a vivid dream he half-believed it actually happened, that Mary had come to him in the night.

  Apart from some sweat stains, however, his sheets were perfectly clean.

  He wiped his face and examined his hands. Nothing.

  Before abandoning all hope, he lay back and pulled open the front of his pajamas. What he expected to find, he couldn’t have answered, but Sofronio (rigid with the need to urinate) was clean as a whistle.

  Hank sighed. He felt foolish, like a kid running downstairs Christmas morning expecting a saint, only to find a couple bleary-eyed parents assembling a bike from Chinese instructions.

  “Idiot!” he scolded himself.

  There was no magic, not in the real world.

  No miracles. No ghosts. No paranormal. No little gray men with big black eyes.

  None that he had ever seen, at least.

  “Your wife is dead,” he said, and his heart broke anew.

  Just death and taxes, and today you’re going to put your wife in a hole in the ground and cover her up with dirt.

  Hank dropped his face in his hands and sat there for a long time, not crying—he didn’t think there could possibly be any tears left—just… retreating for a moment, gathering his strength so he could wade through the day that lay waiting for him, sharpening its teeth outside his bedroom door.

  Voices from below: his family, already gathered.

  He could hear his mother, Trenton, Billy Joe yelling after his kids. He heard, muffled by the intervening walls, his sister Sue say something about the weather. Their mingled voices reminded him of the morning he woke on his wedding day. He’d slept at home the night before his wedding, in his boyhood bed in the split level his parents owned. He’d woke to this very sound, only it was his father teasing his mother about her forgetfulness, still alive back then—not some old horse rancher named Trenton, with his big cowboy hat and loud Tennessee drawl.

  He didn’t think he had the strength to see this through. Had he thought it was hard to bury his father? Mary’s death put that trial to dust.

  I’m too young to be a widow, he thought, for what seemed like the hundredth time.

  Hank mopped his face with his hands, then raised his eyes to blink around his bedroom. It was time to get up and do his duty by his wife.

  He walked to the bathroom and peed, then shaved again, though he really didn’t need to. He examined the marks around his throat, which were almost faded now, and the bruises on his chest and arms, which had purpled even further. The bruises on his arms, just above his elbows, looked like thumbprints.

  He showered, dressed, combed his hair. His mother and Sue looked up the stairs as he descended. They’d been sitting at the dining room table, chatting over coffee. They were twenty years older, and Sue was about sixty pounds heavier, but he was reminded again, the way they turned and looked up at him, of his wedding day. He was even dressed much the same.

  Just like then, Sue’s face clouded with tears, and his mother rose from the table to fuss with his tie.

  “You look nice, honey,” she said.

  “Ma… quit!” he said, taking her hands.

  “Well, I’m nervous and upset,” she snapped. “Please, Hank… don’t fight with your brother-in-law today.”

  “I won’t,” Hank promised, but he wasn’t sure that was a promise he could keep. Not if he was provoked.

  “I’ll keep an eye on him, Elvina,” Billy Joe drawled, tromping into the dining room. He threw an arm around Hank in a loose headlock. “He’s too old and fat to be fightin’ anyways!” Hank tried to slip from the headlock and the two began to wrestle. Hank’s mother returned to her seat, looking less than reassured.

  “Help! I’m being mauled by Fat Elvis!” Hank cried.

  Sue laughed, wiping her eyes as she watched the two men tussle.

  “Stop it, you two,” Hank’s mother scolded them, but she was smiling now, too.

  Billy Joe set Hank on his feet and retreated, slicking his hair back with his fingers. He was breathing heavy.

  “Looks like you’re a little too old and fat to be fighting, too,” Hank teased. He tucked his shirt back in and straightened his tie.

  Billy Joe’s children came running into the room to see what all the fuss was about, dressed in their Sunday finest. Hank’s cousin chased them back out with a roar, making them squeal.

  Hank was glad for the levity. It was a blessing to be distracted from all the morbid thoughts buzzing around in his skull.

  But the time came, as it always came, to dispense with the jokes and see off the dead.

  Billy Joe and Terri herded their kids from the house. Elvina checked her makeup one last time and gave Hank a peck on the cheek. “We’ll see you there, hon,” she said. Hank ducked into the guest bedroom to check if Steve was ready to go.

  “I’m ready,” Steve answered softly, slouching at the foot of the mattress in his charcoal gray suit.

  “You okay?”

  “No.”

  “Me neither.”

  They walked out to Steve’s Kia. Hank’s mother and stepdad were backing from the drive. Trenton gave his Caddy’s horn a little toot. Hank waved, then slid into the passenger seat and buckled his seat belt.

  “In case I haven’t told you yet, I really appreciate you chauffeuring me around,” Hank said.

  Steve smiled. “It’s okay. I’m glad you’re letting me do it. It helps take my mind off Mary.”

  He started the car, put it in reverse and backed down the driveway. A minute later, husband and brother were rolling down Route 5 headed into town, the cornfields and wooded windbreaks whipping past the windows at fifty-five.

  Hank coul
d see Trenton’s Cadillac up ahead, small with distance, then it rounded a hill and vanished from sight. Overhead, the sky was a flat, featureless blue. Summer was rolling on into the sticky tar heat of July, and the cicadas had begun to make an awful cacophony in the trees.

  He always associated that rattling susurration with the hottest patches of summer. He remembered visiting his grandparents when he was a boy. Their property way out in the boonies, thickly wooded, and the cicadas so loud there in the summers it sounded like the trees were full of angry rattlesnakes.

  No rain for Mary today either. The cool, dry warmth of the past few weeks had turned to humid heat, the kind that made you pull your sweat soaked shirt from your ribs. It was the kind of heat that made the mildest men act low and mean.

  Steve fiddled with the air conditioner, oily sweat trickling down his sallow face. His acne-pocked cheeks were red and hectic. “I should have started the car and let the air run.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Now we’re gonna be all sweaty and smelly.”

  “It’s okay. Honest.”

  Steve sighed, returned his attention to the road. “It still doesn’t seem real,” he said.

  “No. It doesn’t.”

  They drove for a few minutes in silence, then Hank spoke.

  “I dreamed Mary and I made love last night.”

  He realized what he’d just blurted, and he felt blood slam into his cheeks. Why did he tell Steve that? It was a very intimate thing to confess.

  Steve didn’t look offended. He cut his eyes toward Hank, smiling slyly. “Was it nice?” he asked. “I mean, was it a nice dream?”

  “Yes. I woke up this morning, and I halfway expected to see her lying next to me, like these last few days were the dream, and last night was actually the thing that was real.”

  Steve nodded.

  “Do you think Dean will be there today?” Hank asked. “After last night, I mean?”

  Steve’s eyes narrowed.

  “Especially after last night,” he answered.

  22.

  The assistant funeral director flagged them as they pulled into the parking lot. Steve rolled his window down and the elderly man leaned into the car and asked them to please drive around and park behind the hearse. Steve thanked him and circled the lot. He parked a little too close and Mr. Kelley waved him back, wiping the sweat from his face with a handkerchief. Steve reversed a couple feet, then killed the engine.

  “You okay?” he asked Hank.

  Hank nodded distractedly, staring grimly into the curtained back window of the hearse.

  In just a couple hours…

  But he couldn’t finish the thought. He suddenly felt like vomiting.

  “Do you need help getting out of the car?”

  “No. I got it.”

  “You always say you’re okay, then you fall out or get into a fight. Stop being such a hetero.”

  That surprised a laugh out of Hank, and he tore his gaze away from the hearse, smiling at his brother-in-law gratefully. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Steve’s eyes rolled toward him like an animal trapped in a cage. “No.”

  Hank saw the funeral director waving at someone in his rear view mirror. A moment later, Jim and Harriet’s late model LeMans pulled in behind them. Harriet heaved herself out as soon as she parked and stormed past Steve’s car, walking with her arms stiff and her hands curled into fists. She didn’t even glance inside the Kia.

  “Guess we know who’s side she’s taking,” Hank said low. “Can’t say I blame her. I acted like a real jackass last night.”

  Steve didn’t comment. A minute later, Jim Klegg shuffled past, looking cyanotic and confused. He was pulling his oxygen tank on its aluminum wheeled cart behind him. As Hank and Steve watched, the old man stumbled over an uneven patch in the pavement and Steve jumped from the car in alarm, running to his father’s side. Hank watched as Steve took his father’s elbow. Jim looked up at his son and smiled, then patted the side of his face. They shuffled together to the corner of the building.

  And that’s when Dean stepped around, directly in their path.

  Steve faltered in surprise. They stared at one another, exchanged words. Dean glanced toward Hank and smirked, then took his father’s arm and led the old man around the side of the building and out of sight.

  “What did he say?” Hank asked, when Steve returned to the Kia.

  “You don’t want to know,” Steve replied. He didn’t get back behind the wheel, stood in the open door. The bright sunshine made him squint, his upper lip pulled back from his teeth. “Your mom and dad are here,” he said, looking past his parents’ LeMans. “You want to go in with them?”

  “Yeah.”

  Billy Joe stepped up behind Steve and clapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, li’l man. You guys ain’t got in a fight yet, have ya?” His kids went running past and he yelled after them to show some respect. They slowed down a little, disappeared around the corner. They were racing to sit in the wicker rockers out front.

  “There isn’t going to be a fight today,” Hank said.

  “That’s what you say, but I know how you redheads are.”

  Elvina and Trenton joined them then, his mother already dabbing her eyes. Elvina had always had a soft heart. A moment later, two of her sisters joined the group. Aunt Janet and Aunt Karen. Hank realized his aunts had heard about the fight and had come to form a protective circle around him. He felt a surge of fierce love for all of them. They might be heathens in the eyes of Harriet Klegg and her holy roller bunch, but Hank had no doubt their love for him was genuine.

  “We going in?” his sister Sue asked, coming around to his side of the car.

  “I don’t want to,” Hank said, his voice tight.

  “I know, honey,” his mother soothed. “But you have to be strong for Mary, just a little while longer.”

  Hank nodded. He opened the door and got out. His family drew around him and they went inside.

  23.

  It went as well as could be expected.

  The tears commenced with the service, waxing and waning throughout the funeral but never completely stopping. The sniffles and sobs stretched from the beginning to the end, but his wife deserved as much.

  Harriet and Jim Klegg sat directly behind Hank. His mother sat to his left, Steve to his right. When the funeral home played “Her Father’s Eyes” by Amy Grant – one of Mary’s favorite songs, and the one he’d had trouble remembering the name of— it felt like someone had reached into his chest and tore out his heart. Hank gave vent to his agony as his mother held him around the shoulders, patting his hand and crying with him.

  Billy Joe’s two girls walked to the casket then, all dressed up in their frilly pink and white Sunday dresses. They held hands and nervously sang “Jesus Loves Me,” in their sweet piping voices while their mother stood nearby, smiling at them for moral support. When they were done, they fled back to their seats.

  Pastor Calvin Brunner of First Baptist delivered a very moving, if slightly muddled sermon. He’d led the services for Hank’s father years before and had agreed to preach Mary’s funeral, despite the circumstances of her death.

  When Hank told him over the phone that Mary had committed suicide, his reaction was surprising. “Hank, none of us know the pain another human soul endures except God,” he’d said. “That’s why we must leave the judging in His hands. From what I knew of Mary, she was a good woman, and I’d be proud to carry your heart’s burden for a little while.”

  The pastor tottered up to the podium, a white-headed frail old man, but when he began to speak, his voice took on a wonderful authority. “Dying, Christ destroyed our death,” he said, his voice low at first, then growing more impassioned as he continued. “And in rising, Christ restored our life. Christ will come again in glory. Here and now, dear friends, we are God’s children. What we shall be has not been revealed, but we know when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. Death is not the end, my bro
thers and sisters! No, death is only the beginning of eternity, wrapped in God’s loving arms…”

  He meandered a little and Hank wasn’t exactly sure he followed all of it, but the man spoke like he knew what he was talking about, and that certainty was a comfort.

  Hank felt eyes boring into the back of his skull then and turned to see who was staring holes through him.

  It was Dean, of course, sitting at the far end of the row behind him. Dean, who had been denied his chance to preach Mary’s funeral sermon, to take center stage as he thought was his place. He was sitting with his head lowered, staring at Hank under his heavy black eyebrows. Hank stared right back at him, thinking his brother-in-law would drop his gaze out of guilt, or at the least out of embarrassment, but Dean did not turn away. Instead, he continued to glare, and then slowly, the right corner of his lips curled into a sneer.

  Steve noticed that Hank was fuming. He jerked around to look at Dean, then shot Hank an imploring look.

  Hank was the one who finally turn away… with an expression of disgust.

  Pastor Brunner led the group in reciting Psalm 23. It was Mary’s favorite passage. Though Hank was not well-churched, he was able to follow along adequately enough.

  Then finally it was over. Hank stood at Mary’s side as the funeral goers filed past, hugging and kissing him, shaking his hand and patting him in sympathy. Dean approached, looked from Mary to Hank with the same hateful sneer on his face, then strolled past without speaking. Hank exhaled, forced his fingers to uncurl from the trembling fists they had tightened into. His palms stung where his nails had dug into the flesh.

  “Would you like a moment before we close the casket, Mr. Stanford?” the funeral director asked.

  “Yes, please,” Hank said shakily.

  While everyone turned aside to give him a moment of privacy, Hank leaned into the casket and kissed his wife’s cold lips. Crying, he stroked her cheeks, brushed her hair from her brow.