Page 2 of Swimming in Grief (Monster Match season two)

Reuben

The knock on the front door startled me. I wasn’t expecting anyone, and I knew Kyle had his keys. Plus, he always used the side door; our front door was a little sticky when the weather was cooler. My first thought was probably a solicitor of some kind. Fundraisers, replacement storm windows, pest control, we’d get all kinds of people offering services or goods in our neighborhood. I was not expecting to see two uniformed police officers when I opened the door.

One was a tall, white man with blond hair, looking every inch like Captain America. His partner was a Latina woman not much taller than five feet, with a round face and kind, brown eyes. “Hello, sir. Are you related to Kyle Thompson?” she asked.

“Yes, he’s my husband,” I said cautiously. “Can I help you?” I had stolen a comic book from a local store when I was ten, but that was forty years ago. I couldn’t think of anything that I had done recently that would warrant a police visit.

“I’m Officer Rodriguez, this is Officer Landin. May we come in?”

I frowned a little. Not that Kyle or I had anything to hide, but why would police officers want to come into our house? “Are you looking for something?”

Officer Landin’s face remained stoic, but Officer Rodriguez gave me a gentle smile. “No, sir. We just need to talk to you.”

I glanced back into the house, as if a mound of stolen weapons and drugs would appear in the middle of our coffee table, but it still looked as normal as ever. “Kyle is out, can it wait?”

“No.” The single word from Officer Rodriguez instantly made my stomach drop. Something was wrong. Sweat broke out on my forehead and my hands as my body reacted to something my brain hadn’t yet understood.

“Sure,” I said, opening the door wider and stepping aside for them to enter.

They did, and then Officer Rodriguez gestured for me to sit in my recliner in the living room. I did but only perched on the edge of it, gazing nervously back at them. Officer Landin was doing his best impression of a marble statue, and Officer Rodriguez gave me a sad, kind smile. “You said Kyle Thompson is your husband? What is your name?”

“Yes,” I said, leaning my elbows on my knees. “I’m Reuben Thompson. What is this about?”

Officer Rodriguez gave me a look that immediately made my stomach drop into my feet. “I’m afraid your husband is dead.”

Six little words.

Six little words were all it took to shatter my world like a pane of glass.

“No,” I said, much too quickly. “No, he just went out to pick up Chinese food. He’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Officer Landin shook his head once, his face still a mask of impassiveness. “No, Mr. Thompson. We’re very sorry.”

For some reason, I could feel every muscle in my body, and I realized I had a wide, dopey grin on my face. “No,” I said again, shaking my head, which suddenly felt as heavy as if it were filled with concrete. “No, he just went out to grab dinner over at Jade Palace.”

Officer Rodriguez gazed back at me, her warm, brown eyes full of what I recognized as pity. “We’re so sorry, Mr. Thompson.”

I think there’s a moment when you get bad news where you’re waiting for the punchline. For someone to pop up from behind the sofa and yell, “Surprise!”, or to have some white guy with a microphone and camera step forward to tell you that it’s all a trick, and you actually won a thousand dollars for playing along. I stared into the silence, waiting for the punchline. Whatever it was, it wasn’t funny.

There was only silence except for a bleep of static from Officer Landin’s radio on his shoulder, and he reached up to turn it down.

My eyes moved back and forth between the two police officers. The air around me suddenly felt like it was as thick as syrup, and I couldn’t take a deep enough breath. There was no gotcha, no camera, no surprise. “What happened?” I heard the words come out of my mouth, but I could not remember forming them.

“There was an accident,” Officer Rodriguez said, her voice low and what I assumed was meant to be calming. “That office building on Santos Street. We think one of the stone gargoyles must have broken. It fell while Mr. Thompson was walking underneath it.”

I knew exactly what building she meant. We passed it almost every day. ‘The Batman Building,’ we would call it, because it looked like something out of Gotham, and, at night, covered in shadows where the streetlights didn’t reach, the hulking, winged gargoyles looked like Batman crouched on the ledge, keeping his eye out for the evil villains of Gilmer Rock.

All of the air was gone from the room. My lungs felt like they compressed into tiny blocks. My head began to pound, and my eyes grew hot and heavy. The world went strangely silent, like I had suddenly been plunged under water, except for Officer Rodriguez’s voice as she said, “We will need you, or someone who knew him, to come down to the morgue and identify him.”

I started to shake. They were asking me to come look at Kyle’s broken body. It would possibly be my last look at him. The last time I might get to see the man I had devoted my life to would be on a cold, metal table in a morgue. Of course, there was always the possibility that it wasn't him. That this was all just a huge misunderstanding, that some other poor soul had ended up beneath the fallen stone. My heart clung to the desperate hope that that was the case, even though I knew it was not. “Is… is that where he is right now?”

Officer Rodriguez hesitated. “He will be.” My look of confusion must have prompted her, because she gently replied, “The crime scene investigators have to document the scene first.”

I was able to read between the lines there. Kyle’s body was still out on the street, because they needed to take photographs. Were people assembled even now, trying to look over the heads of the police to get a glimpse of him? Taking pictures and videos? Was there already social media commentary? I tried to rise from my chair, but my body felt as heavy as lead. “I… I need to see him.”

Officer Rodriguez shook her head. “You don’t want to see him like that,” she said, her voice gentle but firm. “The morgue opens at 9am tomorrow morning.”

I think I nodded, maybe I mumbled something in acknowledgement, I couldn’t be sure I did either.

“Is there someone we can contact for you?” Officer Landin said, his voice calm and steady, like a rumble of thunder. “Someone who can come be here with you?”

I wanted Kyle. He was the one who could comfort me. He was my rock, my foundation, my roots in a windstorm. And he was gone. “I… I don’t know,” I said.

“Family nearby? A neighbor?” Officer Rodriguez prompted.

I shook my head. Kyle was an only child and was estranged from his family. His parents had kicked him out at 17 when he had revealed that he was gay, and he had not spoken to either of them in over 30 years. They had not been invited to our wedding. Kyle didn’t even have them as friends on his social media. My own mother had passed years ago, and my father was in his 80’s with memory issues in assisted living several hours away. My younger sister, Brenda, was my closest relative, but even she was an hour and a half away, and she had 3 kids to look after. We weren’t that close with any of our neighbors. At least, not close enough that I wanted any of them to come be with me.

“Do you want some coffee?” I asked suddenly. My momma would have beat my ass if I was an ungracious host. Here were two officers sitting in my living room, and I had not offered them anything.

The two exchanged glances with one another. “We’re all right,” Officer Landin said.

I nodded. “I need some coffee.” I pushed myself to my feet. Why did my body feel so much heavier right now than it usually did?

“Can I help you?” Officer Rodriguez asked.

“No, no. You’re a guest,” I said, waving her down. “I’ll be right back.”

They let me exit to the kitchen, where two sets of dishes lay on our kitchen table, patiently waiting for Kyle to return with Chinese food. Chinese food that wasn’t coming, because Kyle wasn’t coming.

I stumbled, and the kitchen counter took my weight as I slumped against it, a sob tearing out of my lungs like I had been punched in the gut. Kyle was dead. The man I had loved since we had first met, who was supposed to grow old and gray with me, wasn’t coming home ever again.

Officer Rodriguez followed after me, and she moved to my side to help me up. She must have been exceptionally strong despite her tiny frame, because she supported me easily as she led me over to the table, pulling out one of the chairs with her foot and easing me down into it. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Thompson. I know this is a terrible shock.”

‘Terrible shock’ was putting it mildly. An asteroid could have been hurtling toward Earth right now, about to wipe out all of humanity, and I could not have cared less. I kept hearing a chant over and over in my head. Kyle is dead. Kyle is dead. Kyle is dead… On and on, like the droning of bees, blocking out everything else.

Officer Rodriguez pulled the paper napkin out from under one of the forks on the table and gave it to me to wipe my eyes and nose. My eyes felt swollen and squinty. I was sure I looked like an absolute mess. I blew my nose, only so I could try to breathe as sobs continued to wrack my frame. I could hear the soft crackle and garbled voice from Officer Landin’s radio in the next room, and his cool, measured response, but the words were mush in my brain.

I must have cried for a good ten minutes, because the napkin was sopping wet by the time I stopped enough to take a deep breath and forced myself to get my breathing under control. The last thing I needed right now was to pass out and potentially fall or end up in the hospital. Officer Rodriguez knelt next to me, holding my hands as I cried. I wondered if she had had to do this before, been the one to break such horrible news to shocked families. She smiled gently and offered me another napkin, which I gratefully took. “Mr. Thompson, I’m so sorry for your loss. Is there someone we can call for you?”

I couldn’t even think right now. Kyle had been my best friend, always there for me. There hadn’t been a time since we got together in college that he had not been available as my support. Who did I even know? Who would I feel comfortable sharing this horrible tragedy with? I pulled my phone from my shorts pocket and began to sort through my contacts. So many contacts. So many encounters once in my life that had resulted in them being in my phone. Places like the customers service for an airline we had used back in our early 40’s. Old high school and college friends that I hadn’t spoken to in years. The dry cleaner’s. A couple names that I couldn’t place at the moment.

Finally, one name jumped out at me. Jacky McQueen, one of Kyle’s fellow teachers who taught science. Jacky and her spouse Dex were some of the most outspoken queer people we knew in our area. Jacky was loud and bright and was the kind of person who made learning fun. Despite being nearly two decades younger than Kyle and I, she had become fast friends with Kyle when she started working at Gilmer Rock Middle School, and she and Dex would occasionally come over to our house to play board games and share a meal.

I looked up at Officer Rodriguez. “I… I think my friend Jacky and her spouse could come over.”

Officer Rodriguez nodded slowly. “Do you need me to contact her for you?”

I shook my head. “I will.”

Officer Rodriguez nodded again, giving my arm a reassuring squeeze. I was extremely grateful in this moment to have this absolute stranger by my side, making sure that I was not going through this alone. I hit the contact to call Jacky. I lifted the phone to my ear and listened to it ring. It felt almost unfamiliar; how often did we actually talk to our friends on the phone anymore instead of texting?

Jacky picked up after three rings. “Hello? Reuben?”

My mouth went dry. “Hi, Jacky,” I croaked out. I didn’t even recognize my own voice.

“Hi. What’s up?”

“Um… Could you… come over? Kyle is dead.”

There was a stunned silence on the other end of the phone before Jacky breathed, “Oh my god. What happened?”

What happened? It was a question that I had not been prepared for. And I didn’t know how to answer. He got smashed like a pancake by a falling gargoyle? Crushed by a stone monument in the middle of a busy street? It sounded absurd in my own head. The sort of story you’d tell when you were making up a story to get a rise out of someone. Killed by escalator, decapitated by ceiling fan, grabbed by alligator. And, again, that feeling in my gut rose. If I said it out loud, it would be true.

“An… accident,” I mumbled. That seemed a sufficient enough answer and the only coherent words I could form.

“Are you all right?” Of course I wasn’t all right! I was in a million tiny shards on the kitchen floor. “Are you hurt?” Jacky asked, and I suddenly realized that my vague ‘accident’ explanation had probably implied to her that it was a car accident in which I was involved too.

“No, I’m… I’m not hurt. I wasn’t… it was just him.”

“Are you at home?” Jacky asked.

“Yes.” I could at least answer that question without shaking.

“All right. Dex and I will be there shortly.” Jacky hung up the phone.

I turned to Officer Rodriguez. “Our… our friend is coming over.”

She nodded and gave me a small, sympathetic smile, one that I knew I was going to be tired of seeing very quickly. “Good. Officer Landin and I will stay here until they arrive, so you won’t be alone.”

The thought of being alone right now, even though I had been alone in the house only twenty minutes ago, was frightening. I supposed that’s why they would stay with me, to ensure I was all right, that I wouldn’t go running and screaming into the night or overdose on Tylenol in my sudden overwhelming shock and grief.

“What do I need to do?” I asked, my voice hoarse from crying.

Officer Rodriguez smiled and squeezed my hand. “Go to the morgue tomorrow morning to identify him. Officer Landin and I will also take a DNA sample tonight, which we will also use to confirm his identity.”

“My DNA?” I asked, my brain not fully understanding the statement.

Officer Rodriguez thankfully kept a straight face. “No, sir. Something of your husband’s. A comb or hairbrush, or a toothbrush? Something that was exclusively his.”

Of course they wouldn’t take my DNA to identify Kyle. I knew it was the trauma making me unable to think clearly, but I still felt a little ridiculous. “After that?”

“You can arrange with a funeral home to take care of him after the medical examiner releases the body,” Officer Rodriguez said.

I nodded numbly. I would have to take care of all of that, when we should have been planning something fun, like our upcoming fishing trip.

Officer Landin appeared in the doorway, giving me a small, polite smile. “I’m sorry to bother you, Mr. Thompson, but do you have something of your husband’s that we could take for DNA analysis?”

I nodded, pushing myself unsteadily to my feet and heading for the stairs. There were 14 steps total, but each one felt like climbing a mountain with no oxygen. I made my way into our bedroom, then the bathroom, grabbing Kyle’s blue and white toothbrush from where it sat on the counter. Not like he was going to need it again. I brought it back downstairs, and Officer Landin tucked it carefully into an evidence bag. “Thank you. Do you want it back after we’ve gotten a DNA sample?”

I shook my head. “No.” Even my addled brain knew I wasn’t going to use Kyle’s toothbrush myself.

We sat back down in the living room. There was silence between us now except for the occasional crackle of the police radios. I found myself leaning my elbows on my knees, my face in my hands, as I tried to process the situation. Everything was quiet until there was the sound of car doors closing outside, and then a knock on the door before Jacky and Dex walked in. Jacky was in her early 30’s, with brown hair pulled up into a messy bun held in place with a mechanical pencil. Behind her came her spouse, Dex, whose short hair was bleached blond, setting off their tanned skin. Jacky hurried into the living room, moving over to wrap her arms around me and hug me tightly. “Oh, Reuben, I’m so sorry,” she moaned.

I accepted her hug, then another one as she stood and Dex took her place. Jacky turned to the officers. “I’m Jacky McQueen, I work at Gilmer Rock Middle School with Kyle.”

Officer Rodriguez bobbed her head. “Officer Rodriguez, my partner, Officer Landin. Thank you for coming.”

Jacky stepped closer to them, and their voices dropped away as I just sat in my chair, Dex holding me close. They smelled like coconut and acrylic paint. After a few minutes, the officers turned to me. “We’re going to head out, unless there is anything else you need at the moment, Mr. Thompson.”

I lifted my head, my eyes stinging, my cheeks puffy. I was sure I looked about as horrible as I ever had in my life. “No, thank you. I’ll go to the morgue tomorrow.” I tried to smile, but my face felt stiff with salt, and I wasn’t sure if I would be able to summon a smile ever again.

The two officers headed out, and I heard them get into their car as Jacky turned to me. “Fuck, Ruby. I’m so sorry. What can we do?”

I shook my head. I had no idea. I only knew that I didn’t want to be alone. My stomach let out a growl. “Did you eat dinner?” Jacky asked.

I shook my head again. “No. Kyle was… on his way to grab Jade Palace. But I’m not hungry.”

“I know, but you have to eat something,” Jacky wheedled.

“How about some toast, at least?” Dex asked. I nodded, just because I knew it would make them happy. Dex got up and vanished into the kitchen.

Jacky sat down on the floor in front of me and rubbed my knees with her hands. “Hey, it’s okay. We’ll help you sort this out.”

“Thank you,” I mumbled.

“We should probably call Madelaine,” Jacky ventured gently. Madelaine O’Dillon was the principal at Gilmer Rock Middle School where Kyle taught English. If anyone needed to know, it was Madelaine. The kids wouldn’t have Mr. Thompson in class tomorrow. I was grateful for Jacky being able to think right now. I pulled out my phone. My hands were shaking, but I didn’t feel it. I didn’t feel anything except cold. A numbing cold that seeped deep under my skin and into the marrow of my bones, leeching warmth and happiness from me. I scrolled through my contacts, names rapidly flicking by, and I realized none of them knew yet. None of these hundreds of contacts in my phone list knew that my life had just been smashed apart. I was going to have to tell them. Which meant that I would have to acknowledge the truth, that Kyle was gone. I skimmed my list of contacts, names flying past, meaningless, a jumble of letters that equated a link to someone. A piece of my life, some of them long-forgotten. Old college friends I hadn’t talked to in twenty plus years, clients from when I worked in sales, my current co-workers, my boss. Seeing that name made me freeze for a moment. I would have to tell my boss. I still had a job. How was I supposed to get up in the morning, let alone put on a suit and drive in to the office building and crunch numbers, without Kyle there?

I couldn’t find Madelaine’s number. I thought I had it, but apparently, I didn’t. The school’s office line wouldn’t be monitored this late in the evening. “I don’t have her number.”

Jacky pulled out her own phone with the information. I punched the numbers into my phone with unsteady hands before holding it to my ear again. The ringing echoed inside of my head like my brain had disappeared, leaving my skull a hollow cavern of nothingness. I had a pounding headache forming, and I knew I needed to drink something and take something for my head. But lifting my body out of my chair felt like a Herculean task. So, I sat, and I counted the rings. Maybe Madelaine wouldn’t pick up. The fourth ring had almost completed when the phone clicked. “Hello, Madelaine speaking,” she said in her no-nonsense tone.

“H… Hi,” I said, suddenly realizing I had very little breath, and my voice came out high and shaky.

“Hello. Who is this?” Madelaine’s voice was calm but strong. She sounded very much like the principal she was.

“Madelaine, hi, it… it’s Reuben Thompson. Kyle’s husband.” I forced the words out in one big breath that left my lungs aching and starved for oxygen.

“Oh, yes, hello, Mr. Thompson,” Madelaine said, all business. “How are you?”

The pleasantry caught me off guard, and I realized I had no words again. How was I? I was cold. I was numb. I was angry. I was scared. I was sad. I was so many things, stuffed inside an empty shell filled with nothing yet weighing a million pounds. “Good,” I heard myself say. A fucking automatic response to a generic platitude. I was not ‘good.’ I was anything but ‘good.’ But that had been the only word that I could summon from the depths of my brain.

There was silence on the other end, and I realized Madelaine was probably waiting for me to say something. It would have been polite to ask how she was, but honestly, I didn’t care. Why would I care how she was? She was alive, and probably at home with whatever family she had, safe and warm and whole.

“May I help you with something?” she asked after what must have been a very long moment of silence. Her voice was pleasant but still no-nonsense, a patient adult to a misbehaving student. I turned my eyes to Jacky, and she gave me an encouraging smile.

I wasn’t sure if I would be able to speak, but I knew I had to. “I… I’m sorry to tell you this, but Kyle passed away tonight.”

It was her turn to be silent on the other end of the phone. I wondered what she was thinking. If she gripped her phone a little tighter, if her stomach dropped like mine had, if her vision became a blur.

“My god,” she finally said, letting out a soft breath. “I… I’m so sorry. What happened?”

“There was an accident. A construction accident.” Yes, that sounded more appropriate. Less like a car crash, and more like the act of nature that it was.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Madelaine said, and she genuinely did sound sorry, her normally brusque voice breathy and higher than usual.

“I just figured you should know,” I said, as if that wasn’t obvious to both of us. “For his classes and everything.”

“Yes, of course, we’ll take care of all of that. And I’m sure there will be some paperwork for you, and his personal affects in his classroom.”

That thought made my lungs squeeze again in my chest. There would be paperwork. Lots of paperwork. And Kyle’s belongings. They would have to be gone through. My head swam, and Madelaine’s words became no more than a buzz in my head. And then there was silence. I realized she had asked me a question. “What?” I murmured.

“I asked if there will be a funeral,” Madelaine said. “I’m sure the staff and his students would like to attend.”

Another thing to think about. A funeral. Flowers. A casket, if he could even have one of those. A service. A headstone. A grave somewhere. A reception afterwards. Food. Having to listen to dozens, maybe even hundreds, of people say his name over and over again, come up to me, hug me, tell me how sorry they were. There was so much to think about, and I didn’t want to think about any of it. Not right now. “I’ll let you know,” I mumbled numbly.

“Yes, of course,” Madelaine said. “Well, I am here if you need anything. We’ll get everything figured out.”

“Okay,” I mumbled into the phone. “Goodbye.” I hung up the phone and set it on the arm of the chair. Everything figured out. Like navigating this tragedy was just a puzzle in the Sunday paper. Solve the riddle, and Kyle would come back. I suddenly understood those movies and TV shows, where the hero lost their loved one and would do anything to get them back. Where even their own death could not stop them; they’d rise from the grave years or centuries in the future to find their lost love. I felt that in my bones. If someone had said to me in that moment that if I went forward in time and fought giant space monsters for a chance at a magic spell that would bring Kyle back right then, I would have done it, damn the consequences.

Dex came back out with a plate of toast and a large glass of ice water. My stomach churned at the thought of eating anything, but I knew I had to take care of myself. I swallowed the ice water, the cold making my headache worse, and then I took a piece of the buttered toast, chewing mechanically and swallowing it without tasting it.

My phone rang where it sat on the arm of the chair. It was Jade Palace. They were probably calling to see if we were going to pick up the food we had ordered. It rang and rang, feeling endless. But I couldn’t answer. If I picked up that phone and told the person on the other end that Kyle was dead, it would become real. If I said the words out loud, that meant they were true.

Jacky glanced at it, then at me. “Want me to answer?” she asked.

I shook my head, and we all went quiet again until the phone stopped ringing. I wondered if they had tried calling Kyle’s phone first. I wondered if his phone had even survived the accident. If it had, hopefully I could get it back. There were things on there I might need. His email, his social media, his fellow teachers and other contacts. I knew all the pieces of Kyle, but now I was going to have to find a way to wrap them up into a neat little package, to be placed on a shelf.

“Is there something we can do for you right now?” Jacky asked. “Make some calls? Draw you a bath?”

“I think I just want to lie down,” I said softly. Maybe if I laid down, I would wake up to find this was all just a bad dream.

Jacky nodded. “All right, honey.”

As I curled up in our bed, I hugged Kyle’s pillow to my chest. It was cool and didn’t smell like him the way that people often said pillows did in novels. It smelled like a pillow, and it did nothing to ease the ache deep inside of me. But I still clung to it, shedding tears into it until I felt more wrung out than a dishcloth. I finally fell asleep. When I woke up again later that night, I was still all alone in bed.