AFTER HE'D LEFT DAVE on the porch, his face and eyes dry again, Jimmy took his second shower of the day. He could feel it in there with him, that need to weep. It welled up inside his chest like a balloon until he grew short of breath.
He'd gone into the shower because he wanted privacy in case it flooded out of him in gushes, as opposed to the few drops that had slid down his cheeks on the porch. He feared he might turn into a trembling puddle, end up weeping like he'd wept in the dark of his bedroom as a little boy, certain his being born had nearly killed his mother and that's why his father hated him.
In the shower, he felt it coming again-that old wave of sadness, the one that felt ancient and had been with him since he could remember, an awareness that tragedy loomed somewhere in his future, tragedy as heavy as limestone blocks. As if an angel had told him his future while he was still in the womb, and Jimmy had emerged from his mother with the angel's words planted somewhere in his mind, but faded from his lips.
Jimmy raised his eyes to the shower spray. He said without speaking: I know in my soul I contributed to my child's death. I can feel it. But I don't know how.
And the calm voice said, You will.
Tell me.
No.
Fuck you.
I wasn't finished.
Oh.
The knowledge will come.
And damn me?
That's your choice.
Jimmy lowered his head and thought of Dave seeing Katie not long before she'd died. Katie alive and drunk and dancing. Dancing and happy.
It was this knowledge-that someone other than Jimmy possessed an image of Katie that postdated Jimmy's own-that had finally allowed him to weep in the first place.
The last time Jimmy had seen her, Katie had been walking out of the store at the end of her Saturday shift. It had been five past four, and Jimmy had been on the phone with his Frito-Lay vendor, placing orders and distracted, as Katie leaned in to kiss his cheek and said, "Later, Daddy."
"Later," he'd said, and watched her walk out of the back room.
But, no. That was bullshit. He hadn't watched her. He'd heard her walk out, but his eyes had been on the order sheet lying in front of him on the desk blotter.
So really, his final visual image of her had been of the side of her face as she'd pulled her lips from his cheek and said, "Later, Daddy."
Later, Daddy.
Jimmy realized it was the "later"-the later part of the evening, the later minutes of her life-that would stab him. If he'd been there, if he'd been able to share a little more time a little later into the evening with his daughter, maybe he'd be able to hold on to a more recent image of her.
But he wouldn't. Dave would. And Eve and Diane. And her killer.
If you had to die, Jimmy thought, if such things really are preordained, then I wish that somehow you could have died looking into my face. It would have hurt me to watch you die, Katie, but at least I would know that you felt a little less alone looking into my eyes.
I love you. I love you so much. I love you, in truth, more than I loved your mother, more than I love your sisters, more than I love Annabeth, so help me God. And I love them deeply, but I love you most because when I came back from prison and sat with you in the kitchen, we were the last two people on earth. Forgotten and unwanted. And we were both so afraid and confused and so utterly fucking forlorn. But we rose from that, didn't we? We built our lives into something good enough so that one day we weren't afraid, we weren't forlorn. And I couldn't have done that without you. I couldn't have. I'm not that strong.
You would have grown into a beautiful woman. A beautiful wife, maybe. A miracle of a mother. You were my friend, Katie. You saw my fear, and you didn't run. I love you more than life. And missing you will be my cancer. It will kill me.
And just for a moment, standing in the shower, Jimmy felt her palm on his back. That's what he'd forgotten of his final moment with her. She'd placed her hand on his back as she'd leaned in to kiss his cheek. She'd placed it flat against the spine, between the shoulder blades, and it had felt warm.
He stood in the shower with the touch of her hand lingering on his beaded flesh, and he felt the need to weep pass. He felt strong in his grief again. He felt loved by his daughter.