I follow him into the hallway. McGovern walks out behind me and closes the door. For a moment the two of them stand silently, arms crossed, faces stern.
My mind races, dissecting my every recent move. Did they go through the dorm? Did they find Edward’s liquor—or maybe even the eight-pagers? Dear Lord—if I get expelled now, my father will kill me. No question about it. Never mind what it will do to my mother. Okay, so maybe I drank a little whiskey, but it’s not like I had anything to do with the fiasco in the cattle—
Dean Wilkins takes a deep breath, raises his eyes to mine, and claps a hand on my shoulder. “Son, there’s been an accident.” A slight pause. “An automobile accident.” Another pause, longer this time. “Your parents were involved.”
I stare at him, willing him to continue.
“Are they . . .? Will they . . .?”
“I’m sorry, son. It was instant. There was nothing anyone could do.”
I stare at his face, trying to maintain eye contact, but it’s difficult because he’s zooming away from me, receding to the end of a long black tunnel. Stars explode in my peripheral vision.
“You okay, son?”
“What?”
“Are you okay?”
Suddenly he’s right in front of me again. I blink, wondering what he means. How the hell can I be okay? Then I realize he’s asking whether I’m going to cry.
He clears his throat and continues. “You’ll have to go back today. To make a positive identification. I’ll drive you to the station.”
THE POLICE SUPERINTENDENT—a member of our congregation—is waiting on the platform in street clothes. He greets me with an awkward nod and stiff handshake. Almost as an afterthought, he pulls me into a violent embrace. He pats my back loudly and expels me with a shove and a sniff. Then he drives me to the hospital in his own car, a two-year-old Phaeton that must have cost the earth. So many things people would have done differently had they known what would happen that fateful October.
The coroner leads us to the basement and slips through a door, leaving us in the hall. After a few minutes a nurse appears, holding the door open in wordless invitation.
There are no windows. There is a clock on one wall, but the room is otherwise bare. The floor is linoleum, olive green and white, and in the middle are two gurneys. Each has a sheet-covered body on it. I can’t process this. I can’t even tell which end is which.
“Are you ready?” the coroner asks, moving between them.
I swallow and nod. A hand appears on my shoulder. It belongs to the superintendent.
The coroner exposes first my father and then my mother.
They don’t look like my parents, and yet they can’t be anyone else.
Death is all over them—in the mottled patterns of their battered torsos, the eggplant purple on bloodless white; in the sinking, hollowed eye sockets. My mother—so pretty and meticulous in life—wears a stiff grimace in death. Her hair is matted and bloodied, pressed into the hollow of her crushed skull. Her mouth is open, her chin receding as though she were snoring.
I turn as vomit explodes from my mouth. Someone is there with a kidney dish, but I overshoot and hear liquid splash across the floor, splattering against the wall. Hear it, because my eyes are squeezed shut. I vomit again and again, until there’s nothing left. Despite this, I remain doubled over and heaving until I wonder if it’s possible to turn inside out.
THEY TAKE ME SOMEWHERE and plant me in a chair. A kindly nurse in a starched white uniform brings coffee, which sits on the table next to me until it grows cold.
Later, the chaplain comes and sits beside me. He asks if there is anyone he can call. I mumble that all my relatives are in Poland. He asks about neighbors and members of our church, but for the life of me I can’t come up with a single name. Not one. I’m not sure I could come up with my own if asked.
When he leaves I slip out. It’s a little over two miles to our house, and I arrive just as the last sliver of sun slips beneath the horizon.
The driveway is empty. Of course.
I stop in the backyard, holding my valise and staring at the long flat building behind the house. There’s a new sign above the entrance, the lettering glossy and black:
E. JANKOWSKI AND SON
Doctors of Veterinary Medicine
After a while I turn to the house, climb the stoop, and push open the back door.
My father’s prized possession—a Philco radio—sits on the kitchen counter. My mother’s blue sweater hangs on the back of a chair. There are ironed linens on the kitchen table, a vase of wilting violets. An overturned mixing bowl, two plates, and a handful of cutlery set to dry on a checked dish towel spread out by the sink.
This morning, I had parents. This morning, they ate breakfast.
I fall to my knees, right there on the back stoop, howling into splayed hands.