2 The Judas Kiss (2 page)

             
He wanted to ignore the fact that Abby was dead, despite her last words to him before the bomb went off.  He told himself something happened, because if she’d died, there would have been evidence.  He didn’t care that months were flying by and Abby was still dead according to the state, and there were no signs pointing in any other direction.  He didn’t care.  He wouldn’t just let her disappear like that.

             
One evening, the smoky, slurred voice of his mother broke through his desk phone speaker.  “If you don’t,” she said, her words heavy and thick with booze, “then I will.  I got my social security back pay last week, and it’s enough to have a little plot put up.  Your sister wanted a Catholic funeral Benjamin.” 

             
Ben felt bile rise into his throat at the thought of his mother having control of Abby’s final resting place.  He couldn’t bring himself to say it aloud; not to her, that woman who barely remembered her own name most days.  She was telling the truth, and Ben realized in that moment he owed it to Abby.  She’d died for a cause, a stupid cause, a crazy cause, but something she believed in with her whole being, and Ben loved her for it.

             
He went home that night and drowned himself in alcohol.  In his drunken stupor, he’d managed to pull out the old childhood photographs he’d saved from one of his mother’s alcohol-induced rages, fading pictures with burns along the edges.  He kept them in a box in the closet, never thinking much of them, but not wanting to let them go.

             
They were kids, he and Abby.  A few of the photos showed three Stanford siblings, but that was an entirely different tragedy that Ben wasn’t willing to relive.  He stared at Abby’s college graduation pictures, the little tassel hanging across her eye, the smile she had, so full of life and wonder.  She thought she was going to conquer the world, saving one soul at a time.

             
Ben wondered if she ever thought she’d be stuck in some dead-end teaching job at a Catholic academy.  He was certain she never thought she’d die after being possessed by a self-described Greek goddess trying to take over the world.  He laughed a little at the thought, and realized that tears were pouring out of his eyes.  He swiped at them with the back of his hand and took a drink of his scotch directly from the bottle. 

             
It was time, he realized.  It wasn’t just the threat from his worthless mother.  It was time to let her go.  If he was ever going to move on with his life he had to bury her, even if it was just the mere idea and memory of her.  Too many months had passed and while he would never forget her, Ben was tired of living a half-life.

             
Greenhaven Mortuary was the only place willing to provide the last-minute service in the cemetery Abby had laid out in her living will.  Ben hadn’t even known Abby had a living will until a lawyer he also didn’t know about came forward with it.  She didn’t have any assets, just a few personal items she wanted Ben to take, and the request that Ben provide a Catholic funeral.

             
He wasn’t surprised by the funeral request and the will in the end.  Not really.  Abby knew how Ben felt about the church and she likely felt it was the only way she could protect her final wishes.  She wanted to be buried in the cemetery next to their baby sister who had died when Ben was twelve.  Elisabeth was her name. She was six, and looked exactly like Abby, despite having had a different father.  Elisabeth had come along, long after Ben and Abby’s dad had left.  Their mother hadn’t ever told them who Elisabeth’s father had been, and Ben never really wanted to know.

             
Elisabeth had never really fit in, she always felt temporary to Ben, like she wasn’t long for the world.  He remembered staring down at her wax-like face in the coffin when they had the viewing.  He remembered someone telling him right before the services that dead bodies looked like they were asleep, but Elisabeth didn’t.  She looked like a doll, a mannequin.  Her hair was too white, her baby skin covered in make-up.  She’d fallen at the neighbor’s pool one evening.  No one had known she was in the yard until it was too late.  The coroner said she’d hit her head before sliding into the water and drowned while she was unconscious.

             
Ben never thought he’d be burying Abby next to Elisabeth.  He never thought the baby girls would be the ones to go first. 

             
As Ben stepped out of his car, he felt the first sprinkle of rain on his cheek.  He looked up and saw clouds gathering and let out a sigh.  It seemed fitting for the day, the rain.  When he’d gotten up that morning, the morning when he finally had to let Abby go, he found the sun up, shining, mocking him.

             
Fog was rolling in, in the distance, and he looked around at the gathering people.  The cemetery plots were on the side of a hill, facing down into the valley.  It was an amazing view, a place he went once a year to lay flowers on Elisabeth’s grave, and he wasn’t surprised to find Abby’s request to be buried there when the time came.  It was a place fitting for the person he was about to lay to rest.

             
There was a shift in the murmuring of the crowd and Ben looked up to see the priest taking his place at the makeshift pulpit, a little wooden stand placed directly in front of a gaping hole.  They were carrying Abby’s empty coffin now, across the grass and to the little metal device that would lower it into the ground once the services had finished.  He supposed he should have been one of the pallbearers, it was tradition, but Ben hadn’t been able to find the strength to join the other men at the back of the hearse.

             
People started to take their seats in the cheap, white plastic chairs the funeral home had provided.  They’d arranged twenty or so on a blue plastic tarp, covered by a cheap awning that reminded Ben of something you’d buy for a camping trip.  It was hideous and tacky, and Abby would have hated it. 

The crowd was small and didn’t begin to encompass the people who missed his sweet sister
.  Ben knew there would have been more people around if he’d bothered to make a few more phone calls, but he just couldn’t bring himself to say, “Abby’s funeral,” more than a handful of times.

             
The priest was starting to look anxious at the state of the growing weather disturbance, and Ben knew he should hurry up to the row of chairs assigned to immediate family, but his feet didn’t want to move.  He felt rooted there, to the black pavement a few yards away, and he felt his throat start to tighten.  People were beginning to stare and he felt panicked, his collar too tight, his face red and hot.

             
“Just one foot in front of the other will do it,” came a soft voice Ben didn’t recognize right away.  He looked over and saw a man standing there, tall, thin, curly hair clipped neatly to his ears.  He had a shadow of a beard across his wide chin, his skin tan, and the areas under the brown eyes even darker.  The man was wearing a suit of ill fit, like something he had picked up last minute at a department store, and he looked uncomfortable in it.

             
It took Ben until he saw Mark getting out of a sleek black car to realize who this stranger was.  He looked very different from the man who had been disheveled and dirty in the church.  And different, still, from the man lying in the hospital bed hooked up to wires, machines and tubes.  “What are you doing here?” Ben asked.

             
“I’m sorry for barging in without an invite, but I had to come.  I just…” Mark said, his voice trailing off.  He blinked rapidly and looked off to the side.  “We can leave if you like,” he finally finished.

             
Ben shook his head and forced himself to put one foot, and then the other, onto the grass.  “I just want to get this over with,” he said shortly.

             
“Can we talk later?” Mark asked.

             
Ben let out a small sigh.  “Maybe.”

             
He walked swiftly, seeing Judas and Mark behind him at a slower pace, and he took his seat in the front.  The priest looked relieved as Ben sat, and he began to shuffle his papers around, preparing to start the services. 

             
A whiff of heavy alcohol and cigarette smoke overwhelmed Ben suddenly as someone sat beside him, and he turned to see the sallow, wrinkled face of his mother as she lowered herself into the chair.  Her hair was a mess, greasy and unkempt, pulled back thoughtlessly into an old clip.  She likely hadn’t showered in days, and her yellowed fingers were trembling as they sat atop her old, blue dress.

             
“She’s really gone.  My baby,” his mother said loudly with a small sob.  He stared her in horror as she looked around to see who was watching, and then sobbed a little more.

             
“Don’t,” Ben bit sharply, not caring who heard him.  “I don’t want to hear you pretending like you gave a shit about your daughter.  This is not the time to gain sympathy from others about your losses, do you understand me?  Abby was a good person, a genuinely good, selfless person, no thanks to you and your pathetic attempts at parenting.  I swear to God if you think you’re going to use her death for attention, so help me I will take you out right here, in front of everyone.”

             
Unsure if it was his words, or the absoluteness of his tone, but she fell quiet and moved a row behind her estranged son.  Ben closed his eyes, his head bowed slightly, and he tried to ignore the murmurs and stares of the people around him as he listened to the priest’s ramblings on prayer, God, faith and goodness.

             
Half-way through the opening prayer, Ben felt his chair shift over as someone sat down next to him.  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the curly hair of Judas, and next to him, Mark, his head bowed, cheeks wet with tears.  Ben let out a breath and wondered if he was going to cry.  Wondered if he was going to lose it right there as they lowered the coffin into the ground?

             
He didn’t.  There was an awkward pause while everyone stared at him, and it took Ben a moment to realize they expected him to get up there and speak.  He knew that he couldn’t, it wouldn’t be possible.  His legs refused to budge, and he could barely find the strength to shake his head.

             
When the priest realized Ben wasn’t going to move, he gave out the final blessing and then the horrible sound of whirring metal pierced the air as the machine turned on and the casket lowered into the ground.  It startled Ben enough to give him strength and he stood up, approaching the giant pile of dirt lying beside the green tarp covering the ground.  He took a handful of it and squeezed his fist hard, feeling the small rocks biting into his skin. 

Everyone was watching now, but he no longer cared as he stared down into the hole at that empty coffin that was just a symbol of his sister’s life and death.  He felt the dirt in his hands grow hot with the temperature of his palms and he held his hand over the hole.  This was it.  This was his goodbye.  There was no more waiting, no more searching for signs of a woman who was absolutely and completely dead.  He let out his breath, opened his hand, and
winced at the harsh sound of the mud clumps hitting the casket as it lay there deep and dark, and completely alone.

             
His throat tightened as he tried to whisper goodbye.  His lips moved but nothing came out.  He felt someone take his arm and he figured it was either Mark or Judas, but he couldn’t bring himself to look up into the person’s face.  He was dragged along the grass, away from the crowd, the heavy soles of his shoes sinking into the freshly watered lawn.  The grip on his arm was tight, too tight, but he just didn’t care.  If it was Mark, he had nothing left to say to him.  Ben was done.

It wasn’t until they were a hundred yards away that the person sp
oke, and it wasn’t anyone he knew.  Startled, Ben’s eyes shot up at the large, red face of the priest, but there was something off about him.  Something wasn’t right.

             
“I didn’t want to do this here.”  The voice was tense and almost metallic, nothing like the preaching voice he’d used during the eulogy.

             
Ben stiffened.  He’d heard a tone like that before.  It was the subtle shift Greg’s voice acquired as he shifted into the other thing that resided inside of him.  It was the shift he’d heard in Abby’s voice as she mocked him at the compound just before she died.  “What are you talking about?” he forced himself to say, despite his throat trying to prevent him from speaking at all.

             
He was older, just a bare ring of hair above the nape of his neck.  His skin was fairly pale, with rosy centers on the cheeks, giving him a jolly sort of look, but his eyes were dark, and as he looked around, his eyebrows rose, wrinkling his entire forehead.  Ben had seen him in passing when he would visit Abby at Sacred Heart.  He’d been present as Ben was collecting Abby’s things from her office after she’d gone, but he hadn’t said anything to Ben at the time.  They knew each other, but not well enough to constitute being dragged into a private conversation.

             
“I’m here bearing a message,” he said.

             
“Who are you?” Ben demanded, pulling away from his arm.