The next morning I woke up and immediately felt my head pounding. My brain throbbed, and within seconds I realized that Mike was knocking on the door. I grumbled curses to myself as I got out of my empty bed and walked to the door, pulling it open and rubbing my eyes.
"Phone…" he said, and handed me a cordless. I mumbled a thanks to him and closed the door, sitting on the couch and bringing the phone to my ear.
"Hello?"
"Kane…"
It was Mark. My heart ached. "Hey…"
"Um…are you having a…wake?"
I sighed. "Yeah. Tomorrow night. Can you make it?"
"Of course…" I heard him sighing. "What do you want me to do with Jake? It's really not fair to you to abandon him…"
Jake…I felt terrible guilt, holding him to me as if he were a child. "Bring him to me. And tell Raven and Saphrin to come…and Becky…oh and tell her that if she wants she can get her friend Glenn and…Kitten…" my mind swam with names and faces of people who deserved to be there, who Amber cared about, but I just couldn't say them. I didn't want it to be like a popularity contest, yet at the same time didn't want it to be so open that it wouldn't be serene. In truth I felt a jealousy to anyone who had taken time away from us, just miniscule seconds that had ticked away while she was talking to someone else, time that could've been spent with me…
But that was irrational and selfish and I knew it. "Fuck it…you know what? Call Vince for me and tell him that any wrestlers and their families are invited to the wake…and then for the funeral I want it to be just a few people…"
"Okay…" he sounded so broken. "I guess I'll see you then…"
"Yeah…"
"Bye."
"Bye…"
It hurt me slightly…leaving him that much. I dropped the phone onto the couch and lay back, closing my eyes. Everything was so…ugly. Everything was so horrible and disgusting. I couldn't stand it. I wanted Amber…
And who was I kidding? Anger filled me every time I thought of her, of wanting her there with me. What the hell did I think that for? Why did I bother torturing myself with more than I already had? It didn't make sense. I was being stupid and hurting myself more than I needed to be hurt.
All day this bothered me. I isolated myself in my room, spending an hour or more at a time in one place, sitting in one position, my mind racing, then pacing back and forth for a while before sitting down somewhere else. I was losing my mind, losing my sanity and my grip on reality. Everything was so wrong, so bad, and that was all I could think about.
"Amber…Amber Amber Amber Amber…" I would mumble over and over. At one point I was laying on the bed with my arms around a pillow, visualizing it to be Claudette. And for a long time I wouldn't move because I didn't want to wake her up. Needless to say, I was a bit out of it.
As dusk was approaching I snapped back into my normal mindset when the phone rang again. Mike picked it up in another room and yelled that it was for me. When I answered it I heard James' cool voice. He was so smooth, like the perfect super-villain, though I knew he was one of the good guys.
"Kane…there was a message on your answering machine this morning from a photo developer…"
My heart dropped. I felt the tingling in my spine, the bile rising in my throat. The blood drained from my face as I thought of it, the day that they'd been killed. "Oh…"
"I was just calling to ask your permission to pick them up. Do you know what they are?"
"Yeah…" I croaked out. "You won't find anything, they're just some pictures of us in the snow…"
"Oh. Well I'll be sure to give them to your brother. I've spoken to him and he told me that he was seeing you tomorrow."
"Thanks…" I don't think he heard me but I hung up the phone before he had a chance to respond. My heart was pounding. The pictures…
And how fucking morbid was that? Pictures taken the day that they died? I cringed and drank more, crying and pouting and brooding before I finally passed out. I had a bad hangover the next day, and cut back on the drinking, trying to clean myself up. I shaved and showered and cleaned up the room a little out of restlessness. I wanted to keep busy, wanted to keep my mind off of Amber. But just…something…anything…would trigger it and I'd collapse.
At one point I was trying to watch television, and on flipping through the channels I saw Hey Arnold!, which she loved, and watched as often as she could. I turned the TV off immediately and threw the remote against the wall so that it broke and fell to the floor. I pulled my hair and began to pace around the room.
"FUCK YOU!!!" I screamed, thinking of whatever goddamn bastard had broken into my house and murdered my wife and my daughter. I picked up a chair and tossed it, flipped over a coffee table and sent food flying all around. I just wanted to kill everything, rip everything in the room to pieces, but the more I caused the destruction, the less it worked. I had too much energy and no way to take it out, and eventually just fell to my knees in the middle of the mess I'd made and again was reduced to crying.
After an hour or so I calmed down. I shook my head to myself. "Pull yourself together…" I said out loud, and stood, walking over to my suitcase and putting on clean clothes. I needed a suit, and knew that there were some at my apartment. I was standing in the room for a while, contemplating going there, but as I saw the clock I knew I was running out of options.
"Mike," I said to him after leaving the room. "I'm going to go to our place and get some clothes…I'll meet you at the funeral parlor."
He nodded a simple response. I noticed that there was something dead in his eyes. It stung me, made me feel even worse. Pity, sympathy, empathy…I don't know what it was. But I felt worse and gave him a weak, forced smile before leaving, taking the elevator to the bottom floor and walking to where we lived. It wasn't very far and in what seemed like an instant I found myself standing outside our door. I realized I didn't have the key and cursed silently to myself. For a moment I stood there, wondering what to do, until I decided to go find the super and ask him for it. I checked his own apartment on the ground floor.
He greeted me casually and asked what I needed, and I told him that I needed my key and he produced a master key for our floor and asked me to please return it when I was done, which I agreed to do, and then he asked me how my wife and daughter were.
Don't cry don't cry don't cry…you can't just cry forever, Kane…
I explained to him very calmly what happened and he looked horrified. I tried to ignore it, push out of my mind the repetition of what was happening, pretend that I was alright about it. I left him standing shocked and saddened by the news as I went back upstairs and let myself in.
Amber. It was that smell that had come to me when I'd opened the suitcase. Just…Amber. And her perfume, her shampoo, the smell of candles and incense and hand cream. Such a beautiful sensation, such a warm feeling it gave…but so hollow. Slowly I closed the door behind me, feeling like I'd have a heart attack as I flipped on the light and stepped cautiously down the short front hallway into the foyer, as if something would pop out at me like a movie or a video game.
Everything was clean and put away, the way our homes always were when we were on the road. Not a single toy lay on the floor or any shoes kicked off in the doorways. Everything was put away, neat and tidy. I tried to relax, taking off my jacket and tossing it over one of the pieces of workout equipment we had in the foyer. I stepped forward and pushed through the light blue and clear glittery bead curtain into the living room. It seemed the only thing out of place was an empty glass on the coffee table, and I picked it up, walking through the dining room and into the kitchen. I placed it lightly in the sink, stung by the sound it made when the base of the glass hit the bottom of the metal. I closed my eyes and breathed, trying to be calm, but the smells, the knowledge of where I was, did nothing but rattle me. After a moment of uselessly trying to calm myself I opened my eyes and looked down the short hallway which connected the kitchen to our bedroom, a bathroom off to the right.
The bedroom door wasn't closed, and I saw our bed, the covers all made. I stepped slowly into the room, hit instantly with painful nostalgia. One of Claudette's dolls was on the floor, on a Persian rug which for whatever reason she enjoyed sitting on when she played. I cringed and bent down to pick it up.
It was the doll I'd given her as a Christmas present. I mean…it goes unsaid that we spoiled her, if not with love, with all the toys we could afford for her…but this doll…I had bought it specifically for Christmas. Just a special thing about it that I felt it should be a Christmas present.
The doll's name was Emmaline, and had bright green eyes and dark hair. She looked strangely like Claudette, but older, like what Claudette may have looked like had she lived to see seven or eight. Gently I fiddled with the buttons on Emmaline's dress. I lost my grip, my control just then, and felt the tears coming to my eyes.
I staggered back and sat down on the bed, clutching the doll to my chest. It must've looked so deranged…
"Claudette!!" I cried out, sobbing. I fell back and leaned against Amber's pillow, intoxicated by her scent, and curled into a ball. "I love you both so much…" I don't know that anyone who would've heard that could've told what I had said except for me, my voice so distorted from the crying. My chest tightened, eyes becoming sore as I held the doll against me, my hair in my face, Amber's voice filling my ears and Claudette's warmth covering my body. I was paralyzed by it and unwilling to fight it.
My Perfect Time…
My Perfect fucking Time…
…was over. And now I was alone, back where I started, with nothing.