The bright morning sun flooding through the floor-to-ceiling windows brought with it a ringing phone. It was the doorman announcing my parents, my sister and her husband, and Ethan’s parents, Rachel and Perry Gahain. Scott was in the shower. I threw on jeans, white socks, tennis shoes, and a logoless sweatshirt. It was seven in the morning. We’d gone to bed at three. I’d confronted Donny around four. I called to Scott to tell him they were here. He said he’d hurry. There was no sign of Scott’s nephew as I unblocked the elevator. As I passed Donny’s room, I glanced in. He seemed to be sound asleep.
I let the six of them in. If we had slept little, they had obviously slept less. Mr. and Mrs. Gahain’s eyes were red-rimmed with dark circles around them. They were still in the clothes they’d worn to the reception. We sat in the kitchen. I switched on the automatic coffeemaker and set it to brew. Several years ago we’d gotten the properly exotic brewer with the properly exotic packets filled with properly exotic and annoyingly perky coffee. I got out regular cream for my mom, the fake cream my dad likes, sugar, blue and pink diet-sugar packets (my mother likes to use one of each), and honey for Scott. I placed the tray in the middle of the breakfast nook. As we all filled our coffee cups, Scott entered the room.
My mother said, “We’ve been up with the Gahains all night. We’ve been trying to make sense out of Ethan’s death. Of course, we can’t. The police talked to Rachel and Perry, but either the police didn’t know anything or wouldn’t tell them anything.”
Mrs. Gahain said, “We need to understand why.”
“Ethan insisted he had to come to the wedding to talk to you,” Mr. Gahain said. “What did he say?”
“In the receiving line, he said we needed to talk, but we never did.”
My mother said, “Rachel called me yesterday morning. I told her it was okay to bring Ethan along even though he wasn’t on the guest list. I told the security guards to admit him. I didn’t think you’d mind.”
Mrs. Gahain said, “Thank you, Dolores, I know you were always close to Ethan. He didn’t say anything to anyone?”
Everyone shook their heads no. I said, “Not to me. I’m sorry.”
Mr. Gahain said, “Ethan arrived late Friday night. We knew something was wrong, but he wouldn’t talk to us. If there was anyone he could always talk to, it was you, Tom. He always trusted you.”
At this moment I was not about to say their kid and I hadn’t exchanged more than a few words in years and hadn’t confided in each other in far longer. Quite obviously they assumed their son and I were still close. Whether this misperception was due to Ethan’s lies or their lack of insight, I couldn’t be sure.
Mrs. Gahain said, “We weren’t as close as we should have been. Many people don’t confide in their own families, certainly not after they’re grown and out of the house.”
“That’s very true,” my mother said. “That happens in all families.”
Mr. Gahain said, “We want to know who killed him. We want the son of a bitch who did this caught, tried, and executed.”
Mrs. Gahain said, “What’s important is that we want to know what was wrong. We want to know what was in his mind. We can’t ask his ex-wives. We were never close to any of them. Some we met only a few times. We never got more than a week’s notice of when the ceremonies would be. It was almost as if he wasn’t really serious about them. We didn’t usually find out about the divorces until after they were finalized. Tom, you’d be the one, of all the people we can think of, who would know or be able to find out what was going on. You were best friends.”
I wasn’t so sure their knowing what was wrong was a good thing. A lot of the time I think it’s better for parents not to know what their kids are doing. Certainly I’d done things as a kid I’m not prepared to confess to my parents. What’s the point? Total honesty is a myth.
“I don’t think I can help you there,” I said. “We haven’t really talked in the last couple years.” I was not about to say I’d been rejected twice in particularly odious ways. How could I say that kind of thing to a parent who had just lost a child?
She continued, “He told us he was planning to move up here, but first he had to talk to you. He said it was important.”
My mother said, “If Tom knew, he’d tell you.” This was accompanied by the look I remembered from childhood that always meant I want the truth and I want it now. I’d long since built up immunity to blabbing under that fearsome glare. My mother was good. Even though I had nothing to tell, I was not immune to the tendrils of accompanying guilt that followed when I was the recipient of that storied gaze.
I confirmed her statement. “If I knew, I would tell.”
Big sigh from both Gahains.
“We can’t go down to St. Louis to talk to people,” Mrs. Gahain said. “We’ve got to arrange the wake, the funeral. They’re going to be here, where he grew up.” Trembling pause. “Get used to him being gone.” She began to weep. We were all silent. My mother patted her hand. Mr. Gahain put his arm around his wife’s shoulder. Tears coursed down his cheeks. I didn’t have the comfort of tears.
Some minutes later when they were more composed, Mrs. Gahain said, “We’re wondering if there isn’t some clue, some reason. We knew almost nothing about his current life.” She gulped. “I’m almost afraid what we’d find if we went down there.”
Mr. Gahain said, “We want to know why this happened.”
I asked, “Ethan was being secretive about what he wanted to say. Do you have any reason to believe his reluctance might have been because he was involved in something criminal?” I was certainly not going to ask his parents if they knew their son was into making and distributing pornography.
“No,” Mr. Gahain said, “but he was always so distant. We rarely talked.”
Mrs. Gahain began to cry again. “We tried to be good parents.”
My mother said, “You were and are good parents.”
“He loved you,” I said. “That I do know for sure. He told me so.” And he had. Years ago we were sitting in a bar with a crowd of friends the night after he had come back from college graduation. The same night he had also said his parents drove him nuts even faster than his wife did. At the time he was married to wife number one.
Mrs. Gahain turned her teary eyes on me. “We want to find out what happened. Would you go to St. Louis and look in his house? We’re the executors of his estate. We’ll pack it up at some point in the future, but maybe there’ll be a clue there, a hint, a reason.”
And sometimes there weren’t reasons or rational explanations. Sometimes, many times, I found that which is irrational ruled the world. (Think the Taliban, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson.) I wasn’t about to mention that either. This was no time to be less than comforting.
My mother said, “You’ll go, Tom, won’t you?” Her best friends were in pain. I knew she was, too. She’d watched Ethan grow up and genuinely liked him. I wanted to know what happened. I wanted to know who this Michael was that Ethan used his last breath to mention.
I asked, “Had he given out even the smallest hint about what was bothering him?”
Mr. Gahain said, “No. We’ve gone over and over everything we can remember that he said to us since he came home. We can’t think of one thing.” He shrugged.
“He didn’t reveal anything specific, but you suspected?”
“Something was wrong,” Mrs. Gahain said. “We had no idea what or how serious it was. I think he was frightened of something. He should have known he could talk to us. He always could.”
I was glad they believed that.
I asked, “Did he have any enemies that you know of?”
“No,” Mrs. Gahain said, “although we didn’t know a lot of his friends either.”
Mr. Gahain added, “At least one of his ex-wives hated him.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I think there were some alimony and custody issues,” Mr. Gahain said. “We never knew precisely what the problem was.”
Ernie and my sister had sat silently through all this. I turned to them. “Do either of you have a notion about what was bothering him?”
Caroline said, “No,” quickly and emphatically. My sister was always good at being definitive.
Ernie said, “We haven’t been close in a long time. Our age difference was somewhat of a factor, but it was more him than me who put distance between us as we got older.”
“Ernie, please!” Mrs. Gahain said.
I knew Ethan worshiped his older brother when they were kids. According to Caroline, as adults Ernie and Ethan had fought often and loudly, causing no amount of grief at family gatherings. Caroline had informed me that she thought it was both their fault. Ernie refused to give her details about the background to the fights. He never pointed to one specific incident in the past. When she had first told me, I had suggested that maybe it wasn’t one specific thing that had caused the break. Maybe it was just the result of being brothers who rubbed each other the wrong way. Then again, maybe Ethan had done something recently that had made Ernie angry enough to commit fratricide.
Ernie said, “We can’t hide things if we expect the truth to come out. I need to lead a quiet life. Ethan always had to be going and moving and doing, just being more intensely than anyone else. I’m afraid it finally caught up with him. I should be the one to go to St. Louis. I just can’t handle it physically. I figured something was bothering him, but, no, I don’t know what it was.”
I asked, “Have any of you remembered any connection he had with someone named Michael?” I had told them about his last words.
All of them gave various forms of the same puzzled frown. Mrs. Gahain said, “Since you told us that earlier, we’ve tried to figure out who he may have been referring to. We haven’t a clue. I assume he must have known people named Michael, but we aren’t aware of anyone he knew well enough to say he loved him.”
“He wasn’t gay,” Mr. Gahain said. “Why would he say he loved Michael?”
This was delicate. I was not about to discuss their son’s sexuality with them. Not at this point. Not if Ethan hadn’t. “None of his kids were named Mike, were they?” I asked. “Or maybe a nickname for one of his wives like the movie with Pat and Mike that Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn made?”
Mrs. Gahain said, “No. That can’t have been what his last words meant.”
My dad corrected me, “Hepburn was Pat so that comparison doesn’t work.” Then he added, “It sure was an odd thing for him to say.”
I said, “I’ll keep asking about that name especially while we’re down in St. Louis.”
We agreed to go that day. My mother pulled me aside in the hallway. “I know the Gahains think you and Ethan were still close. I know you haven’t been since you broke up when you were kids.”
“You knew about that?”
“That silly grin you had on your face for over a year when you were in high school could only mean one thing. You weren’t dating any girls. You would have told us. Then you went into that heavily morose period that one winter. It wasn’t hard to figure out.”
“Oh. All that agony I went through to come out to you guys …”
“Probably wasn’t necessary. Perhaps you’re a stronger person for it.”
“I’d rather be a stronger person without it. Pain hurts.”
“I understand, dear. It’s over. The Gahains are good friends. I’m glad you agreed to go.”
“They were like a second set of parents to me when I was a kid. Do the Gahains know Ethan and I were lovers as kids?”
“They’ve never mentioned it. I never brought it up. It’s not my secret to tell.” She hugged me and gave me a little kiss on the cheek.
As the rest of the crowd drifted toward the elevator, my sister fell in step beside me. She put a hand on my elbow to slow me down. She gazed carefully at me. “I know you, Thomas. You’re suspicious by nature. Ernie did not kill his brother. We both know they didn’t get along. Ernie is in a wheelchair, for Christ’s sake. He can’t even maneuver that freely.” I knew there were logistical problems to Ernie having been the killer, but the stall in the washroom had been wheelchair accessible. When I didn’t immediately respond, she said, “Ethan was not to be trusted. Look at all those divorces. Ever ask yourself why?”
“I’m not sure I cared enough to think about it much at all.”
“Then think about it now. Every single marriage failed in less than two years. You and he didn’t get along. Ethan and Ernie were estranged. It is not Ernie’s fault that Ethan didn’t get along with people.”
I said, “I don’t think Ernie did it.”
“Good,” she said. We rejoined the others.
After they had left, Scott went to begin preparations for breakfast, and I went to take a shower. He slid back the door as I began to shampoo my hair. I smiled at him. “Did you want to join me?”
He asked, “Why is there a stack of video equipment in the middle of the electronics room?”
“Your nephew was making a pile. I don’t think he came all the way from Georgia to help us rearrange the furniture.” I told Scott what had happened when I’d awakened earlier.