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Authors: Chris Cleave
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I don’t think so.”
Charlie blinked. Under his bat mask he screwed up his face with the effort of trying to understand.
“Where is heaven, Mummy?”
“Please, Charlie. Not now.”
“What’s in that box?”
“Let’s talk about this later, darling, all right? Mummy is feeling rather dizzy.”
Charlie stared at me.
“Is mine daddy in that box?”
“Your daddy is in heaven, Charlie.”
“IS THAT BOX HEAVEN?” said Charlie, loudly.
Everyone was watching us. I couldn’t speak. My son stared into the hole. Then he looked up at me in absolute alarm.
“Mummy! Get him OUT! Get mine daddy out of heaven!”
I held tightly on to his shoulders.
“Oh Charlie, please, you don’t understand!”
“GET HIM OUT! GET HIM OUT!”
My son squirmed in my grip and broke free. It happened very quickly. He stood at the very edge of the hole. He looked back at me and then he turned and inched forward, but the greengrocer’s grass overlapped the edge of the hole and it yielded under his feet and he fell, with his bat cape flying behind him, down into the grave. He landed with a thump on top of Andrew’s coffin. There was a single, urgent scream from one of the other mourners. I think it was the first sound, since Andrew died, that really broke the silence.
The scream ran on and on in my mind. I felt nauseous, and the horizon lurched insanely. Still kneeling, I leaned out over the edge of the pit. Down below, in the dark shadow, my son was banging on the coffin and screaming
Daddy, Daddy, get OUT!
He clung to the coffin lid, and planted his bat shoes against the sidewall of the grave, and heaved against the screws that held the lid closed. I hung my arms down over the edge of the hole. I implored Charlie to take my hands so I could pull him back up. I don’t think he heard me at all.
At first, my son moved with a breathless confidence. Batman was undefeated, after all, that spring. He had overcome the Penguin, the Puffin, and Mr. Freeze. It was simply not a possibility in my son’s mind that he might not overcome this new challenge. He screamedin rage and fury. He wouldn’t give up, but if I am strict and force myself now to decide upon the precise moment in this whole story when my heart irreparably broke, it was the moment when I saw the weariness and the doubt creep into my son’s small muscles as his fingers slipped, for the tenth time, from the pale oak lid.
The mourners clustered around the edge of the grave, paralyzed by the horror of this thing, this first discovery of death that was worse than death itself. I tried to go forward but the hands on my elbows were holding me back. I strained against their grip and looked at all the horror-struck faces around the grave and I was thinking,
Why doesn’t someone do something?
But it is hard, very hard, to be the first.
Finally it was Little Bee who went down into the grave and held up my son for other hands to haul out. Charlie was kicking and biting and struggling furiously in his muddied mask and cape. He wanted to go back down. And it was Little Bee, once she herself had been extricated, who hugged him and held him back as he screamed,
NO, NO, NO, NO, NO,
while each of the principal mourners stepped onto the thin strip of greengrocer’s grass and dropped in their small handfuls of clay. My son’s screaming seemed to go on for a cruelly long time. I remember wondering if my mind would shatter with the noise, like a wineglass broken by a soprano. In fact a former colleague of Andrew’s, a war reporter who had been in Iraq and Darfur, did call me a few days later with the name of a combat-fatigue counselor he used.
That’s kind of you,
I told him,
but I haven’t been at war.
At the graveside, when the screaming was over, I picked up Charlie and held him on my front, with his head resting on my shoulder. He was exhausted. Through the eyeholes of his bat mask, I could see his eyelids drooping. I watched the other mourners filing away in a slow line toward
Charlie blinked. Under his bat mask he screwed up his face with the effort of trying to understand.
“Where is heaven, Mummy?”
“Please, Charlie. Not now.”
“What’s in that box?”
“Let’s talk about this later, darling, all right? Mummy is feeling rather dizzy.”
Charlie stared at me.
“Is mine daddy in that box?”
“Your daddy is in heaven, Charlie.”
“IS THAT BOX HEAVEN?” said Charlie, loudly.
Everyone was watching us. I couldn’t speak. My son stared into the hole. Then he looked up at me in absolute alarm.
“Mummy! Get him OUT! Get mine daddy out of heaven!”
I held tightly on to his shoulders.
“Oh Charlie, please, you don’t understand!”
“GET HIM OUT! GET HIM OUT!”
My son squirmed in my grip and broke free. It happened very quickly. He stood at the very edge of the hole. He looked back at me and then he turned and inched forward, but the greengrocer’s grass overlapped the edge of the hole and it yielded under his feet and he fell, with his bat cape flying behind him, down into the grave. He landed with a thump on top of Andrew’s coffin. There was a single, urgent scream from one of the other mourners. I think it was the first sound, since Andrew died, that really broke the silence.
The scream ran on and on in my mind. I felt nauseous, and the horizon lurched insanely. Still kneeling, I leaned out over the edge of the pit. Down below, in the dark shadow, my son was banging on the coffin and screaming
Daddy, Daddy, get OUT!
He clung to the coffin lid, and planted his bat shoes against the sidewall of the grave, and heaved against the screws that held the lid closed. I hung my arms down over the edge of the hole. I implored Charlie to take my hands so I could pull him back up. I don’t think he heard me at all.
At first, my son moved with a breathless confidence. Batman was undefeated, after all, that spring. He had overcome the Penguin, the Puffin, and Mr. Freeze. It was simply not a possibility in my son’s mind that he might not overcome this new challenge. He screamedin rage and fury. He wouldn’t give up, but if I am strict and force myself now to decide upon the precise moment in this whole story when my heart irreparably broke, it was the moment when I saw the weariness and the doubt creep into my son’s small muscles as his fingers slipped, for the tenth time, from the pale oak lid.
The mourners clustered around the edge of the grave, paralyzed by the horror of this thing, this first discovery of death that was worse than death itself. I tried to go forward but the hands on my elbows were holding me back. I strained against their grip and looked at all the horror-struck faces around the grave and I was thinking,
Why doesn’t someone do something?
But it is hard, very hard, to be the first.
Finally it was Little Bee who went down into the grave and held up my son for other hands to haul out. Charlie was kicking and biting and struggling furiously in his muddied mask and cape. He wanted to go back down. And it was Little Bee, once she herself had been extricated, who hugged him and held him back as he screamed,
NO, NO, NO, NO, NO,
while each of the principal mourners stepped onto the thin strip of greengrocer’s grass and dropped in their small handfuls of clay. My son’s screaming seemed to go on for a cruelly long time. I remember wondering if my mind would shatter with the noise, like a wineglass broken by a soprano. In fact a former colleague of Andrew’s, a war reporter who had been in Iraq and Darfur, did call me a few days later with the name of a combat-fatigue counselor he used.
That’s kind of you,
I told him,
but I haven’t been at war.
At the graveside, when the screaming was over, I picked up Charlie and held him on my front, with his head resting on my shoulder. He was exhausted. Through the eyeholes of his bat mask, I could see his eyelids drooping. I watched the other mourners filing away in a slow line toward
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