Day of Confession - Allan Folsom [25]
Harry had made the burial decision earlier that morning. Danny would be interred in a small cemetery on the west side of Los Angeles. For better or worse, Los Angeles was where Harry lived and where his life was, and despite the emotional ride he was on now he saw little reason to think he would change and move elsewhere. Moreover, the thought of having Danny nearby was comforting. He could go there from time to time, make certain the grave site was cared for, maybe even talk to him. It was a way that neither would be alone or forgotten. And, in some ironic way, the physical closeness might help assuage some of the distance that had been between them for so long.
“Mr. Addison, I beg you”—Father Bardoni’s voice was gentle and filled with compassion—“for your own sake. Let past memories be the lasting ones.”
“I wish I could, Father, but I can’t…”
The thing about opening the casket and seeing him had come only in the last minutes, on the short drive from the hotel to the funeral home. It was the last thing on earth Harry wanted to do, but he knew that if he didn’t do it, he’d regret it for the rest of his life. Especially later on, when he got older and could look back.
Ahead of them, Gasparri stopped and opened a door, ushering them into a small, softly lit room where several rows of straight-backed chairs faced a simple wooden altar. Gasparri said something in Italian, and then left.
“He’s asked us to wait here…” Father Bardoni’s eyes behind his black-rimmed glasses reached out with the same feeling as before, and Harry knew he was going to ask him again to change his mind.
“I know you mean well, Father. But please don’t…” Harry stared at him for a moment to make sure he understood, then turned away to look at the room.
Like the rest of the building, it was old and worn with time. Its plaster walls, cracked and uneven, had been patched and patched again and were the same earthen yellow as the hallway outside. In contrast to the dark wood of the altar and the chairs facing it, the terra-cotta floor seemed almost white, its color faded by years, if not centuries, of people coming to sit and stare and then leave, only to be replaced by others who had come for the same reason. The private viewing of the dead.
Harry moved to one of the chairs and sat down. The grisly process of identifying and then examining the bodies of those killed on the Assisi bus for explosive residue had been managed quickly and pragmatically by a larger-than-usual staff at the request of an Italian government still shaken by the murder of Cardinal Parma. The task completed, the remains had been sent from the morgue—the Istituto di Medicina Legale at the City University of Rome—to various funeral homes nearby, there to be placed in sealed caskets for return to their families for burial. And despite the investigation surrounding him, Danny had been treated no differently. He was here now, somewhere in Gasparri’s building, his mutilated body, like those of the others, sealed away for transport home and final disposition.
Harry could have left it that way, maybe should have left it that way—his casket unopened; just taken him back to California for interment. But he couldn’t. Not after all that had happened. What Danny looked like didn’t matter. He needed to see him one last time, to make one final gesture that said, I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you needed me. I’m sorry we somehow got locked into the years of bitterness and misunderstanding we did. That we never got to talk about it, or work through it, or even try to understand…. To say simply, Goodbye and I love you, and always did, no matter what.
“Mr. Addison”—Father Bardoni had moved up and was standing beside him—“for your own good…. I have seen people as strong and determined as you crumble as they witness the unspeakable…. Accept God’s way. Know your brother would want you to remember him as he was.”
There was a sound as the door behind them opened