The Survivor

“I want you to know,” he said, “there was never anyone else for me, Janie.”

Her lips trembled, and then she nodded once, turned, and hurried inside. He walked to his car. He had the keys in the lock when he heard from behind, “Fuck you.”

He turned, and Cielle was standing there, her sweater sleeves pulled down over her fists, her face flushed. “I loved you so much.” She spit it, like a curse. “I lit candles when you were away at war, and then, when you left us, I lit candles that you’d come back. ‘Dear God, please bring my daddy back to me safe.’ And even when you were with us, you were busy with your stupid job taking care of everyone else except for the people you were supposed to be taking care of.”

“Cielle-”

“You can’t have my sympathy. You can’t have it. You don’t. I don’t care if you’re dying.” Despite her best efforts, tears were leaking.

He stood there, still, his heart coming apart for her. More than anything he wanted to go to her, but he knew if he took so much as a step, she’d bolt like a deer.

“You can’t die yet,” she said. “You didn’t earn it. You left us, and now you get to die before I can get even.”

When he trusted his voice, he asked, “How were you gonna get even?”

“I was gonna have a great life and get married and be successful and keep your grandkids from you. But you’re dying and trying to make me feel … make me feel…” Her face wobbled all around. “Why’d you come tell us anyway?”

“I wanted to say good-bye to you. I wanted to have a chance to set things straight.”

“Why now, Nate?” His proper name, like a projectile. “I mean, you found out months ago. And you’re not sick yet. I mean, you still have months left at least, right?”

The weight of his bones pulled at him. “It might be sooner than that, Cielle.”

She staggered a bit. Encased in her sleeves, her fists tightened. “Does Mom know that?”

He shook his head.

“Then why are you laying it on me?”

“It’s too late for me and your mother.”

She swiped at her cheeks angrily with her sleeve. “It’s too late for me and you, too.”

He watched her all the way up the walk, hoping for a final glimpse of her face, praying she’d turn around one last time.

She didn’t.

Chapter 11

A scattering of envelopes waited on the doormat outside Nate’s second-floor Westwood apartment. His mind flew to that dark sedan; were these written threats from the man attached to the tattooed hand? Not to worry-Nate was a handful of pills from being safely out of anyone’s reach. Crouching, he saw the network logos brightening up the flaps and let out a thin breath of relief. Letters from a bunch of local news affiliates, requesting interviews about his “heroic” role in the bank robbery. Kicking them aside, he scooped up the morning paper.

Standing in the hall, he folded the Los Angeles Times back to the obituaries, as was his recent habit. There was Mary Montauk, a professor of linguistics who had helped design the first spell-check program. Gwendolyn Dawson, born crocheter and special-ed teacher. Arthur Fiske, heir to a textile fortune, World War II airman, and benefactor to the Getty. Nate pictured the man in a canary yellow sweater, reclining on a puffy down bed bleached with ethereal light as he drifted off, a faint grin touching his lips. He’d had plenty of time to adjust to the temperature, Arthur had, to ease his way into a place of nostalgic contemplation, a prince’s view back over a life well lived. As always, Nate’s eye snagged on the last line:

Arthur is survived by Pamela, his loving wife of sixty-three years, four sons, and eleven grandchildren.

Good on you, Arthur, he thought.

Entering his apartment, Nate dumped the paper and letters in the trash. Three years later IKEA labels remained stuck on the furniture, arrows and letters to aid assembly. He sank onto the foldout couch he’d bought in optimistic hope that Cielle would spend the occasional night. Two thumbtacked photos livened up the opposing wall. A candid, blurred shot of Janie and him from the wedding, dancing and laughing into the embrace of a private joke. And Cielle at six, all broad smile and crooked teeth, crouching with a soccer ball at her knee. On the coffee table before him sat the signed divorce papers and his suicide note. He lifted the note to the light.

To Janie and Cielle, my collective heart.

Janie, I wish you every happiness with Pete. (Pete, please stop reading over her shoulder. This is a suicide note-a little damn privacy, please.) And Cielle. I’ve thought long and hard about what I want to pass on to you. And I guess it’s that there are no guarantees, so don’t waste your time here like I did too much of mine. If you hold on to stuff too hard, you’ll sink with it.

He paused and smirked a bit at himself. Nate Overbay, Armchair Philosopher.

I resent only one thing, sweetheart, and that’s every minute I spent away from you and your mom. I had so many chances to do better, and I couldn’t. But it was never for lack of love. You and your mother were the best part of me.

Were they ever.

To the cop reading this- First, sorry to the guy who had to scrape me out of the Dumpster. Or off the corner of Ninth and Wilshire if I missed. Second, when you serve the death notice to my wife and kid, please be patient and kind. Don’t check your watch. Make eye contact and hug them if they need it. -Nate

P.S. There’s half a ham sandwich in the fridge. Have at it.

Tapping the note to his lips, he sat awhile, thinking about his ill-fated visit to Cielle’s room and running figures in his head. Three more years of high school at twenty grand a pop. Then college at twice that amount. A familiar pressure mounted inside him until he sprang forward, grabbed a pad and pencil from the drawer, and tallied up estimates, weighing his checking-account balance (not much), benefits from Uncle Sam (minimal), and projected income for the few months he’d still be able to work (meager) against upcoming medical costs to sustain him through his decline (colossal). A very large negative number stared up at him from the pad. How dismal to see his worth laid out like this, his life reduced to this sad figure. He was not much use at all to Cielle, but he was more use to her dead now than dead later.

He tossed down the pad, went to the kitchen, came back with ham sandwich in hand, chewing. He clicked on the radio, Lady Gaga still caught in that bad romance. Just because it was a suicide didn’t mean it had to be depressing.

Taking another bite, he paused in the middle of the living room for a final survey. Everything was death. The unread books on the shelf, Moby-Dick staring out, unvanquished. The browning fern in the corner that would outlive him. That pillar candle that would be removed, half burned, from the shelf by a cleanup crew hired by his landlord. There was such a horrible self-centeredness to dying. Every detail, filtered through a gray lens. He’d been unable to break out of his own head. Until this morning in the bank when he’d floated past the bullets in a perfect suspended state of who-gives-a-fuck.

Grabbing a bottle of Knob Creek from the cupboard, he sat at the kitchen table, lined up his pill bottles, and took roll. Vicodin and antibiotics from the ER this morning. Xanax for sleep. Gold pearls of vitamin E. And his nemesis, riluzole-oblong tablets that left him alternately weak, fatigued, dizzy, or nauseous. Eleven Xanax, eighteen Vicodin-more than enough to do the trick. He arranged them in a vast smiley face, poured himself a tall shot of bourbon.

The thought of his dead body bloating here sickened him. The stench would seep into the walls, and then some poor person would stumble onto him, maybe the landlord’s wife- No, he couldn’t have that. He thumbed open his cell phone and called the number on the back of Agent Abara’s card. Voice mail. “Hi, it’s Nate. You said to call if … Well, I remembered something that might help in the investigation. I’m out right now, won’t be home for a few