Pen Pal (Standard Edition)

I INFERNO

The path to paradise begins in hell.

The Divine Comedy

1

It’s raining as my husband’s casket is lowered into the hole in the ground. Raining hard, as if the sky itself is about to rip in half like my heart has.

I stand motionless under an umbrella with the other mourners, listening to the priest drone on about resurrection and glory, blessings and suffering, redemption and the holy love of God. So many words, and all so meaningless.

Everything is meaningless. There’s a Michael-shaped hole in my chest, and nothing matters anymore.

That must be why I feel so numb. I’m empty. Grief has blown me apart, scattering my bones into a desert wasteland where they’ll bake in silence under a merciless sun for a thousand years.

A woman behind me quietly weeps into her handkerchief. Sharon? Karen? A colleague of Michael’s who I met at a long-ago faculty party. One of those awful holiday work parties in a school auditorium where they serve cheap wine in plastic cups and people stand around making awkward small talk until they’re drunk enough to say what they really think about each other.

Sharon or Karen behind me told Michael he was a prick at that party. I can’t remember why, but that’s probably why she’s crying now.

When someone dies, you start counting all the ways you failed them.

The priest makes the sign of the cross over his chest. He closes his Bible and steps back. I walk slowly forward, bend down to grasp a handful of soil from the pile to one side, then toss it onto the closed casket.

The wet clump of dirt makes an ugly hollow sound when it lands on the gray lid of the coffin, an uncaring splat of finality. Then it slides off, leaving a smear of brown behind like a shit stain.

Abruptly, I’m shaking with anger. I taste ashes and bitterness in my mouth.

What a stupid ritual this is. Why do we even bother? It’s not like the dead can see us mourning them. They’re gone.

A sudden gust of cold wind rattles the leaves in the trees. I turn and walk away through the rain, not looking back when someone softly sobs my name.

I need to be alone with my grief. I’m not one of those people who likes to commiserate over a tragedy. Especially when the tragedy is my own.

When I open the front door of the house, it takes a moment for me to register that I’m home. I have no recollection of the drive from the gravesite to here, though the blank spot in time doesn’t surprise me. Since the accident, I’ve been in a fog. It’s as if my brain is blanketed in thick clouds.

I read somewhere that grief is more than an emotion. It’s a physical experience, too. All kinds of nasty stress chemicals get released into the bloodstream when a person is grieving. Fatigue, nausea, headaches, dizziness, food aversion, insomnia … The list of side effects is long.

I’ve got them all.

I kick off my shoes and leave them under the console table in the foyer. Tossing my wool coat onto the back of a kitchen chair, I head to the fridge. I open the door and stand looking inside as rain drums against the windowpanes and I try to convince myself I’m hungry.

I’m not. I know I should eat to keep my strength up, but I have no appetite for anything. I let the door swing shut and press my fingers against my throbbing temples.

Another headache. That’s the fifth one this week.

When I turn around, I notice the envelope on the table next to the fruit bowl. It sits by itself, a white rectangle with neat handwriting and a stamp that reads “LOVE” in red letters.

I know for a fact it wasn’t there when I left.

My first thought is that Fiona must’ve brought in the mail. Then I remember she cleans the house on Mondays. Today’s Sunday.

So how did it get there?

As I cross to the table and pick up the letter, a rumble of thunder rattles the windows. A sudden gust of wind whistles through the trees outside. The eerie feeling intensifies when I read the return address.

Washington State Penitentiary.

Frowning, I tear open the edge of the envelope and pull out the single sheet of white unlined paper inside. I unfold it and read aloud.

“I’ll wait forever if I have to.”

That’s it. There’s nothing else, except a signature scratched below the words.

Dante.

I flip the page over, but it’s blank on the other side.

For a fleeting moment, I think the letter must be intended for Michael. That idea gets tossed aside when I realize it’s addressed to me. That’s my name right there on the front of the envelope, printed in neat block letters with blue pen. This Dante person, whoever he is, meant for me to receive this.

But why?

And what is he waiting for?

Unsettled, I fold the letter into thirds, stuff it back into the envelope, and drop it on the table. Then I make sure all the doors and windows are locked. I draw the drapes and blinds against the wet, gray afternoon, pour myself a glass of wine, then sit at the kitchen table, staring at the envelope with a strange feeling of foreboding.

A feeling that something’s coming. And that whatever it is, it isn’t good.

When I drag myself from bed in the morning, the headache is still with me, but the oppressive sense of dread is gone. It’s gray and blustery outside, but the rain has stopped. For now, at least. It’s wet and cloudy year-round in Washington, and January is especially dreary.

I try to work, but give up after only an hour. I can’t concentrate. Everything I draw looks depressed. The children’s book I’m illustrating is about a shy boy who befriends a rabbit that can speak, but today, my rabbit looks like he’d rather take an overdose of Percocet than eat the carrots the boy tries to feed him.

Abandoning my desk, I head to the kitchen. The first thing my gaze lands on is the letter on the table. The next thing I notice is the water all over the floor.

Overnight, the ceiling has sprung a leak. Two of them, to be specific.

I knew we should’ve bought something newer.

But Michael didn’t want a new home. He preferred older homes with “character.” When we moved into this Queen Anne Victorian six years ago, we were newlyweds with more energy than money. We spent weekends painting and hammering, pulling up old carpet and patching holes in drywall.

It was fun for about three months. Then it became exhausting. Then it became a battle of wills. Us against a house that seemed determined to remain in a state of decay no matter how much we tried to update it.

We’d replace a broken water pipe, then the heater would go out. We’d upgrade the ancient kitchen appliances, then we’d find toxic mold in the basement. It was a never-ending merry-go-round of repairs and replacements that drained our finances and our patience.

Michael had planned to replace the leaky roof this year.

I sometimes wonder what will be left on my to-do list when I die.

But then I force myself to think about something else, because I’m sad enough already.

I bring two plastic buckets from the garage into the kitchen and set them on the floor under the places the ceiling is dripping, then get out the mop. It takes almost an hour to get all the water up and the floor dry. Just as I’m finishing, I hear the front door open and shut. I glance up at the clock on the microwave.

Ten o’clock. Right on time.

My housekeeper, Fiona, walks into the kitchen. She takes one look at me, drops the plastic bags of cleaning supplies she’s holding, and lets out a bloodcurdling scream.

It’s a testament to how exhausted I am that I don’t even jump at the sound.

“Do I really look that bad? Remind me to put on some makeup before you come next week.”

Breathing hard, her face white, she braces an arm against the doorframe and makes the sign of the cross over her chest. “Christ on a cracker! You gave me a proper fright!”

I frown at her. “Who were you expecting? Santa Claus?”

Unlike the rest of Fiona, her laugh is small and weak.

Of Scottish descent, she’s plump and attractive, with bright blue eyes, rosy cheeks, and stout legs. Her hands are red and rough from years of work cleaning houses. Though somewhere north of sixty, she’s got the energy of a woman half her age. Having her help me keep the place up is an expensive luxury, but with two stories, over five thousand square feet, and what seems like a million nooks and crannies that gather dust, the house needs constant cleaning.

She shakes her head, fanning herself. “Hoo! You got the old ticker pumping, my dear!” She chuckles. “It’s been a while.”

Then she turns serious and looks at me closely, peering at me as if she hasn’t seen me in a hundred years.

“How are you, Kayla?”

I glance away. I can’t lie while gazing right into those piercing blue eyes. “I’m okay. Just trying to stay occupied.”

She hesitates, as if unsure of what to say. Then she exhales in a gust and makes a helpless gesture toward the window and the cloudy view of Puget Sound beyond. “I’m so sorry about what happened. I read about it in the paper. Such a shock. Is there anything I can do?”

“No. But thank you.” I clear my throat. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Pull yourself together. “So don’t bother with the kitchen today, obviously. I’ll find someone to come out and take a look at the leak, but in the meantime, there’s no sense cleaning up in here if it’s only going to get wet all over again. My office doesn’t need to get cleaned this week, and also…”

I swallow around the lump in my throat. “Also maybe skip Michael’s office. I think I’d like to leave it as is for a while.”

“I understand,” she says softly. “So you’ll be staying?”

“Yes. I’ll be here all day.”

“No, I meant you’ll be staying in the house?”

There’s something odd in her tone, a subtext I’m not getting, but then I understand. She’s worried about her job security.

“Oh, I couldn’t sell now. It’s too soon to make such a major decision. Maybe in a year or two, when things feel more settled. I don’t know. Honestly, I’m just taking it one day at a time.”

She nods. We stand in awkward silence for a moment until she points over her shoulder.

“I’ll get to work now.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

She picks up the bags from where she dropped them on the floor, then turns to go. But she turns back suddenly and blurts, “I’ll pray for you, dear.”

I don’t bother telling her not to waste her breath.

I know I’m a lost cause, that no amount of prayer in the universe can help me, but that doesn’t mean I have to be rude about it. I simply bite my lip, nod, and swallow my tears.

When she walks out, my gaze lands on the letter on the table. I can’t say what compels me to do it, but before I know it, I’m sitting down to write a reply. I scribble it on the back of the letter Dante sent me.

What are you waiting for?

I mail it before I lose my nerve. It takes a week before I get a response, and it’s even shorter than mine. In fact, it’s only one word.

You.

On the bottom right-hand corner of the paper, there’s a smudge of something dried and rust-colored that looks like blood.