Suffer the Children Read online

  She approached just in time to prevent a scene.

  “They’re in a better place now,” Dad was saying.

  Doug bristled. “Oh, you think so?”

  She linked her arm in her husband’s and guided him toward the other side of the room. She knew he didn’t like the house being so crowded. He wanted everybody to get the hell out as soon as possible.

  He said, “Your asshole dad thinks Nate and Megan are happier not being here.”

  “Let it go,” she whispered. She glanced at him and saw a man in deep emotional pain. In the coming days, she was going to have to decide whether or not she still loved him.

  “Old Bob thinks they’re better off dead.”

  “Stop it.”

  “He never thought I was good enough for you and the kids anyway, and you know it.”

  “He wasn’t talking about you. He was trying to be supportive.”

  “You call that supportive? Running me down like that?”

  “This is why you shouldn’t drink. Always getting into fights.”

  “Don’t you start on me too,” he growled.

  Joan stepped away from him and called for everybody’s attention.

  “Thank you for coming tonight to pay your respects to Nate and Megan. I want you to know that Doug and I are taking great comfort from you being here. Now we’re going to have Sylvie start things off with a reading.”

  Maybe Pastor Gary was right. Maybe God was a son of a bitch. Vindictive enough to kill the children, or callous enough to let them die. Joan wanted a Bible reading anyway. If there was a supreme being and an afterlife, she wanted her children to arrive right with God. They were not always good, but they were always pure. They were innocent.

  “This is from the Book of Mark, chapter ten, verses thirteen and fourteen,” said Sylvie, reading: “ ‘One day some parents brought their children to Jesus so he could touch and bless them. But the disciples scolded the parents for bothering him. When Jesus saw what was happening, he was angry with his disciples. He said to them, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children.”’ ”

  Joan remembered reading the same verses in the King James Bible and had admired the archaic language. Suffer the little children, it had read. Don’t stop them. Let them go to Jesus.

  She tried to picture Megan sitting on Jesus’ lap right now up in Heaven. Knowing her little girl, she was telling him what she wanted for Christmas. She smiled at the image.

  Here they are, God. Meet Nate, age eight, who loves hockey and NASCAR. Meet Megan, age four and a half, who loves to play dress-up in princess costumes and lick the mixing bowl after baking with her mommy. You gave them life, and then you let them die for no good reason.

  “Amen,” said Sylvie, closing the book.

  “Amen,” the crowd muttered.

  “Lord, we give you our littlest angels. Too sweet for this earth. Too soon to leave it.”

  Joan gave Sylvie a long hug. She then told a story about Nate; after his first day of first grade, she’d asked him what he’d learned. Not enough, I guess, he’d answered, just like the old joke: They said we all have to come back tomorrow. The stories were about small things, and none very funny, but everybody listened, and laughed, and told their own. For just a short while, Joan felt like her kids were still alive.

  Yet she knew she wasn’t doing them justice. The right words failed her. Her family knew Nate and Megan from visits. Nobody knew her kids as well as she did, not even Doug.

  She wanted to tell them all about the real Nate, how he was always on the go, rushing breathless from one thing to the next, inquisitive and always up for anything. Nate wanted to be a doctor and loved geography. The world fascinated him. He never seemed to feel fear.

  She wanted to reveal the real Megan, the girl who lived in a fantasy world where magic and fairies were real, who slept hugging a stuffed animal under each arm and dreamed of hearts and kisses. Megan had always surprised her with how well she could articulate her feelings. She already knew the words to her favorite songs and liked to invent new lyrics. She had empathy for every living thing and mourned the passing of birds and ants. She wore all her feelings, too big for such a small girl, on her sleeves.

  They lived in Joan’s head now, but she didn’t trust herself to keep them alive that way. She wanted to share the burden.

  “What about you, Doug?” Jake called out.

  Doug stared at the liquor in his glass for a moment. “I’m just listening.”

  “I was hoping you would say a few words.”

  He meant it. While Joan’s father and Doug had little love for each other, Jake always looked up to Doug as a hardworking family man.

  The room quieted as Doug considered his words. Joan watched him.

  She said, “Doug feels—”

  “They were good kids,” he said.

  Everybody waited, expecting more.

  “They know how I feel about them. It’s time to say our final goodbyes, Joanie.”

  The room stayed quiet. Whatever joy they had accomplished through memory, Doug had drained it with a simple reminder of reality.

  “Not yet,” she whispered.

  Doug stood over Nate and Megan. Joan joined him. They stared at their children for a long time.

  He scooped Megan into his arms. “Come on, princess.”

  Joan lightly kissed the top of her head.

  “Good night, Meggie.”

  He took her little girl outside to the truck, where he put her in a body bag.

  Joan clutched Nate’s hand and kissed it.

  “Send me a sign you’re okay,” she whispered. “I just want to know you’re safe.”

  She didn’t want to say good-bye.

  Doug returned. The mourners parted for him.

  “Come on, sport.”

  Joan watched in horror as he picked up their son. Doug stared at her hand, still holding on to Nate’s smaller hand. She let go.

  “Good night, sweet boy,” she said, kissing the top of his head.

  “I’ll take good care of them,” Doug told her.

  “Don’t drop him.”

  He scowled. “What did you say?”

  She took a step back. She saw cold rage in his eyes. He’d never hit her once during nine years of marriage, but she’d seen what he could do to a man with his fists. She knew that right now, she was well within that violent territory that was her husband’s emotional state.

  “Nothing,” she said quietly, appalled that she’d blurted out something so cruel. She had no idea why she’d said it.

  “I’ll see you at the park.”

  Tonight, the entire nation would hold a vigil as Herod’s syndrome completed its projected sweep of the globe. They would bring candles to public places and mourn. Lansdowne’s was being held at Union Park. The skating rink was there, where her kids had died while she’d been seeing a movie. Where they’d died while Doug could only watch.

  She’d had them for three days, but now they were leaving for good.

  All she had left were her family and Doug, and she felt a sudden burning desire to see them all go away. Any comfort she’d gained tonight was leaving the house with her children.

  Doug paused in front of her father. “Time to get my boy to that better place.”

  Bob looked back at him wearing a stricken expression. Somebody gasped. Joan didn’t care. As Doug walked out the door with her son, she fell to her knees and watched, keeping all her screams deep inside. She knew she’d never see Nate again.

  The horror of having her children here was ending. She was already missing it.

  Without the horror, she had nothing.

  Doug

  78 hours after Herod Event

  Cody’s Bar hadn’t changed in years.

  It was still a honky-tonk beer joint with loud music belting out of a jukebox, broken peanut shells coating the floor, and plenty of red neon. And there was Cody himself, wiping the countertop
in a sleeveless black Rolling Stones T-shirt, arms knotted with muscle, now in his early fifties with flecks of gray in his flaring sideburns and a growing beer gut.

  Men ringed the bar nursing beers and smoking. They stared at nothing with haunted faces. Doug knew right away they were fathers in mourning. A bunch of rowdy teenagers sat at the wood tables around the empty stage. He stared at them and wondered just what the hell there was to laugh about.

  “Hey, look what the cat dragged in,” said Cody, extending his hand.

  They shook. Cody’s hand was dry and rough, like his own.

  “Been a while,” Doug said.

  “Sure has, motherfucker. Sure has. Been a long, long time.” He drew a mug of draft and dropped it on the counter, where it stood foaming. “What do you say? Shall I make it a doubleheader?”

  “You read my mind.”

  Cody tapped his forehead. “Bourbon, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “You have the memory of an elephant.” Doug put his pack of Win-stons and Zippo on the bar top.

  Cody slammed down a glass and poured a quick shot of Wild Turkey. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you wear a suit before, though. You look like a G-man.”

  Doug looked down at his black jacket sleeves. He’d forgotten he was wearing it. “We had a bit of a funeral tonight at our place.”

  “Oh, man, I’m so sorry. Horrible shame. You lost people, did you?”

  Doug didn’t respond, but instead downed the shot in a single burning swallow and sipped his chaser. He entered a brief zone of comfort.

  Cody refilled his shot glass and looked away. “On the house, friend. Good to see you again.”

  Doug glanced at his watch. Joan was with her own people and didn’t seem to care much to have him around. She wouldn’t be missing him any time soon. He could stay here, have a few drinks, and drive straight to the vigil.

  For the next two hours, Doug drowned his thoughts in round after round of bourbon and beer, studying the liquor bottles standing in formation behind the bar and smoking one cigarette after another. Between serving teenagers, letting his customers smoke up his bar, and helping Doug rocket past the legal blood alcohol limit, Cody was clearly breaking all the rules tonight.

  Doug watched the rowdy bunch for a while, his face sagging and his handlebar mustache dripping with beer. He’d reached an age where he thought anybody under the age of twenty-five looked like a kid. Their energy impressed him. While the world mourned, they were actually celebrating. They’d dodged the bullet. They drank to their health. A girl held up a sprig of mistletoe and invited a lanky boy to lean in for a passionate kiss. The men at the bar glared at them but said nothing.

  One of the girls glanced at Doug and smiled shyly before turning to her friends and laughing. Then another glance. She had a clean, pretty face. She barely looked out of high school. She definitely looked like trouble.

  He turned back to the bar with a sigh and nursed his beer.

  The song on the jukebox, Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out,” faded to the kids’ cheers. The men sitting around the bar stared into empty space. The grinding guitar chords of “Bad to the Bone” filled the ensuing vacuum. Doug turned, sipping his beer, to see the girl now standing at the jukebox with her back to him. She wore a brown leather bomber jacket with a big American flag patch stitched onto the back, and a short red plaid skirt that swayed as she swiveled her hips in time with the music.

  Doug thought of Joan standing in front of that very same jukebox, all those years ago. The way she moved, she set the room on fire.

  Cody leaned on the counter. “They bugging you? Say the word, and I’ll toss their asses out on the street.”

  “No,” said Doug. “Let them have some fun.”

  “Strange days, friend.”

  Doug nodded and kept on watching the girl.

  Before Herod, Doug had a perfect family. He and Joan were losing their youth one birthday at a time, of course, but they were taking a trip through life together, sharing its ups and downs. And he’d never given in to the pull, as some men did, to revise the bad choices of his youth by making new mistakes. Joan had been his rock, and his children his purpose in life.

  Taking stock, Doug now had nothing but regret, loss, and less time on this earth to make some new choices. The way he saw it, he had three.

  He could live out his days missing the past in bitterness and pain.

  He could start fresh with Joan or with somebody new.

  Or he could take one of his shotguns and blow his brains out.

  He still loved Joan. That was certain. Would she want to start over? She might not want to look ahead. Even if she did, Joan might not want to start over with him.

  The way she’d looked at him when he left with the kids. Accusing him.

  Don’t drop him, she’d said.

  The anger in her eyes.

  No, not anger. Disgust. More specifically, revulsion.

  Like he’d killed Nate and Megan himself.

  Joan, shouting: What did you do?

  If she didn’t want him, Doug could start over with somebody else, somebody younger. Try to forget the past. Make a new life, with new children if Herod let him.

  Of course, there was always the third option.

  Start over, or end it all.

  “Hellooo?” the girl in the bomber jacket was saying to him. “Earth to man.”

  Doug squinted at her and stabbed his cigarette into the peanut bowl Cody had given him to use as an ashtray. He emptied his mug in one last swallow and set it down.

  Time to go. Joan was expecting him at the vigil a half hour ago.

  “Hey, I’m Cindy,” she added. She gave him a quick once-over, taking in his suit. Her eyes were large and brown. “Are you a cop?”

  “Why? Should I card you?”

  “Um, are you like, okay? You just . . . looked so sad sitting here.”

  Doug lit another cigarette and eyed her.

  You have no idea, he wanted to say. You don’t know what you have. You have your youth and you’re beautiful, but you’re hungry, and that hunger blinds you to what you already have.

  All those raging hormones, making every decision for you. You’re always hurting, but you’ve never been hurt. Not really.

  Later on, though, you’ll realize youth is truly wasted on the young. Right now, you’re pretending you’re what, twenty-one? Later on, you’ll want to be twenty-one again. Really, no matter what age you are—ten or a hundred—you’ll want to be twenty-one.

  And, just as when you were a little kid, you’ll demand your dignity before you earn it.

  That was the essence of what he was thinking. His brain had grown soggy to the point where his actual thoughts were an incoherent jumble.

  “How old are you, really?” he said.

  Cindy took a long pull on her Bud Light and stared at him.

  He could picture her saying, Who cares? We’re all grown-ups now.

  Reality turned fuzzy around the edges. He barely knew what he was saying. His brain was on automatic. She was laughing, her eyes gleaming like candles, drawing him to her light.

  He knew he had a duty to his family, but he didn’t even have a family anymore.

  Doug stood and almost fell over, grabbing the bar for balance. The kids at the tables looked over and howled. The eyes of the other men around the bar shifted to stare. He shouted something like, Screw you all! I got to piss! He staggered toward the bathroom and leaned against the urinal. He rested his forehead against random graffiti on the cool wall and drifted.

  Reality blurred again. He woke up in one of the stalls, hands gripping the tops of the partitions and tears drying on his cheeks, while Cindy sucked his cock, sloppily but with enthusiasm, until his back arched, and he exploded in her mouth.

  The next thing he knew, he was outside and moving toward his truck. He had no idea how he’d ended up here, but hitting the road sounded like a fine idea. He climbed in and sat behind the wheel for several minutes, just breathing and watching
snowflakes land on the windshield.

  His vision doubled. He slapped his face to clear his head. The front of his shirt was damp and reeked of puke. His fly was open. He lit a cigarette and watched the curling tendrils of smoke. He squinted at his watch. Two hours late now and in no condition to drive.

  “Shit.” He fumbled with his keys until he got the right one into the ignition. The engine turned over, and cool air hissed through the heating vents. The blast of air gave him a small boost in mental clarity.

  Cindy had written her phone number across the back of his left hand. Her last name was Crawford, just like the model. Whatever her age, the girl knew what she was doing.

  He drove nice and slow. He rolled down his window when the world began to spin. The earth was turning too fast.

  What happened in there? It already seemed like a dream.

  He slapped himself again, this time in anger.

  “Aw, shit. What did I do now?”

  You fucked up, bro.

  He licked his hand and tried to wipe off the number.

  The parking lot at Union Park was jammed with cars, so he left his truck on the side of the entrance road. The park was filled with people, many of them holding candles that gleamed in the dark. They wandered like restless ghosts, searching for some focal point.

  Doug knew where to go. Where he was meant to go.

  The skating rink lay dark and empty, a large void ringed by candlelight. Hundreds of mourners had come to place flowers along the edge of the ice. Nate and Megan had died here in his arms. He couldn’t protect them. Somebody’s toast is burning, Nate had said just before the end. A cryptic prophecy Doug could study for years. One of the mourners threw her candle. Another did. Then everybody was doing it. The candles struck the ice like sparks and extinguished.

  When the last candle fell, the rink plunged into total darkness.

  A horrible keening wail rose up as the mourners gave in to despair.

  “It wasn’t my fault,” Doug shouted amid the screams. “Leave me the hell alone!”

  Nobody cared. Doug stood there crying. He didn’t bother with the flask this time. No matter how much he drank, he still remembered everything.

  Ramona