Bruce was upset after the funeral.
Well, honestly, we were all pretty upset, but Bruce was visibly so. I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen him angry like that.
He stood in front of the open casket, Selina's hand gripped tightly in his own, eyes staring down at the lifeless body of his childhood friend.
Selina's attention shifted back and forth from Bruce to Harvey, clearly trying to accept her own grief while also holding space for her husband's.
Pam and I stood a step or two back, hands down at our sides, not holding each other, no matter how desperately I wanted to be.
"You'd think, with where he was in his career, he could have afforded a cosmetic surgeon," Pam offered to the group, referencing the scars still seared into Harvey's skin.
"Not everyone is so desperate to forget their past, Pamela," Bruce muttered.
"Perhaps he should have been."
"He was doing important work," Selina reminded us.
"Yes," Pam agreed. "Work that landed him in a casket, about to be buried in a town he despised."
Bruce turned to her, a passion in his eyes that I couldn't say I was completely familiar with. "Seems not everyone can lay their demons to rest as efficiently as you. Congratulations, Poison Pammy."
A chuckle bubbled up from deep within Pam's throat, one completely devoid of humor. "You know, Bruce, for the life of me I can't remember you being this big of an asshole. Big, brave Bruce Wayne wanted an adventure, so he got one. You chose your demons, hot shot, don't expect me to kneel at the feet of the selfless soldier."
There was a vain visible in Bruce's forehead as he took an almost threatening step closer. "I was drafted."
"Bullshit," Pam dissented. "None of you silver spooners had to go. We all thank you for your service, but you weren't born into your suffering."
Selina yanked Bruce backwards by the arm, then stepped between them. "OK, hey, we get it, you two; everything is awful. Harvey is dead, this town is toxic, and just because we're all pretty now doesn't mean our souls aren't still stained with heaps of bullshit we survived. Get over yourselves. At the end of the day, the three of us still got out. If there's anyone to feel sorry for here, it's Harley."
"Hey!" I was so offended, I forgot to whisper. "I didn't ask any of you to feel sorry for me, and believe it or not, I don't live with many reg—,"
"Oh, no?" Pam laughed again. "You live without regrets? Is that so?"
Goddamn it. "Pammy, that's not what I—,"
"Jesus Christ, let's go," Selina interrupted, yanking on Bruce's hand again. "Come here, all of you. Let's get out of this church."
"And go where?" Pam demanded.
"On a walk, Isley, you fuckin' stiff."
Pam's jaw dropped open, almost like she'd been slapped in the face, and I was suddenly transported back to an earlier time. A time in which Pam wore overalls and Selina's hair was uncouth.
The sun was there to greet us as soon as we exited the church. Pam cursed it, and we all walked for a few moments in silence before Selina slowed down to say, "Lead the way, Harl."
"To where?" I asked.
The brunette shrugged. "I wouldn't know where to go anymore."
I simply looked at her for a moment, studying her fair features, the subtle lines in her face. Pretty, but still broken.
"Mom, where are you going?" I heard Dick shout from the church steps behind us.
"I'm not sure!" she called back. "Harley's taking us where we need to go. Mind your grandfather, we'll be back eventually."
My feet seemed to move before I commanded them to. They knew the path. The path I'd tried hard to forget. But it was in me now, that direction. I'd always feared it would never leave me, and now I knew that to be true. It was a bittersweet moment, and I can't describe exactly why. Sometimes my words escape me, give way to simple feelings that take root deep in my gut. They don't require explaining, not to me, at least. I'd had one that day at the train station with Pam. It was like a weed, growing from the pit of my stomach up my throat, wrapping itself around my heart and screaming at me to "GO!"
I'd stayed.
"I didn't bring the right shoes for whatever the fuck this is," I heard Pam grumble behind me.
That made me smile. It doesn't matter exactly why.
The day had grown hot as the sun climbed in the sky. Bruce stripped himself of his jacket, hanging it over his shoulder as he walked. Sweat was visible through his white shirt, following the pattern of his suspenders across his back and down his shoulders. The dust our feet kicked up accumulated on our black clothes, sticking to the fabric like coal on the jacket of a tired miner. Pam stopped to role up her pant legs, Selina shed her mourner's hat and tossed it off the train tracks.
"You still sing, Pam?" Bruce asked, interrupting our long stretch of silence.
"I never sung."
"Sure you did."
"Then, no. I don't anymore."
"That's a pity."
We let our footsteps hang in the air for a moment, their rhythm predictable playing off the wooden slats of the tracks and the large gravel that lay between them.
"When was the last time you talked to him?" I asked, the question not aimed at anyone in particular.
"He visited us for Thanksgiving," Selina answered first.
"He sent me a letter the year I earned my bachelor's." Pam said.
I nearly tripped on a stone underfoot but righted myself before I spoke. "He left town and never came back, so I never saw him after high school."
We all waited for Bruce to answer. It took nearly another half mile. "We spoke two days before it happened."
I glanced back over my shoulder and watched Selina take his hand in hers. "You never told me that."
"He called me on the phone, as he often did," Bruce said. "Told me he was in the thick of a case but wanted to invite me fishing after it was done."
"Fishing?" Selina almost laughed. "Where?"
"Virginia."
Pam's pace slowed behind me.
"It's why I set the funeral here," Bruce explained. "I think he figured it was time for him to come home, finally, even just for a visit. So I made sure he did."
None of us spoke for a long while after that. We simply walked. But eventually I did feel Pam's hand find its way into my own, just as Selina was holding Bruce's.
We didn't stop until we reached the river. Really, the others didn't stop there, either, but I did. I froze atop the bank overlooking the water, my legs seeming to abandon my command. This forced Pam to stop beside me.
"I was upset with you," she muttered. "My waist was free but I didn't let you take it."
"What?"
"I should have hung onto you from the beginning," Pam told me. "You needed me, and I was almost too late." She squeezed my hand. "I've got you this time."
Those were the magic words that seemed to unlock my legs.
Bruce stopped just short of the water's edge, hoisting Selina up into a fireman's carry before wading in.
Pam took the lead for me, discarding her shoes and holding them in her free hand. She beckoned me forward.
"You still saved me in the end, remember?"
"How could I forget?"