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What do you see staring at the ceiling?
What would you dream, if you could get to sleep at all?
Said you can't breathe, a choking fear of feeling,
Begs you to scream, each and every nightfall.
Karen's heart raced. She knew what would happen and she was powerless to stop it. All she could do was watch in horror at what came next.
"Look, I'm sorry. I… Maybe I didn't wanna give you an excuse."
Foggy and Matt reached towards each other, but there was too much space between them to actually make contact. She shut her eyes to block out the anxious, sad look on Matt's face... and when she opened them again, he was gone.
He couldn't know that those were the last words Foggy would ever say to him. Or that he'd missed his last chance to feel the warm touch of his best friend, his brother, ever again.
She wanted to scream, Stop, Matt! Don't go! This is your last chance! But no sound came out.
She watched as Foggy got back on the phone again, trying and failing to make sense of what Benny was telling him... unaware that the words he was hearing meant everything… and nothing.
Run away Foggy! Karen's voice screamed inside her head. Don't you know what's coming! Run!
She wanted to turn and look… to find Poindexter with her eyes. She willed herself to get out her gun. To push Foggy away. To step in front of him when the moment came, but she was powerless to save him, paralyzed inside her own memory... forced to relive Foggy's final moments, as she'd done so many times.
She opened her mouth to scream as the bullet tore into him, his blood splashing onto her face... and her eyes shot open.
. . .
It took her a long moment to get her bearings, utterly exhausted as she was from lack of sleep. She heard someone moving around, the light bang of a cupboard shutting one room over, and finally allowed herself a deep breath out.
She remembered now. She was at Jessica's.
A wave of relief crashed over her, followed immediately by the returning tide of despair over Foggy's death. Over Matt's absence. She bit back a groan and squeezed her eyes tightly shut as tears she hadn't even realized were falling, poured from her in torrents. She felt like she'd wept enough for a lifetime. Would it ever stop? Would she ever feel normal again? Would she ever be whole?
No. The answer resonated in her mind as if a bell had been rung, the realization washing over her like soundwaves moving outward, like waves in water. This was a loss from which she would never recover.
She heard shuffling outside the closed door, then a tentative knock.
"You there?" Jess asked, her usual hardness tempered to account for Karen's fatigue.
She cleared her throat. "I'm here."
"I…" Jessica hesitated for a few seconds. "Let me know when you're ready to talk."
"Be right out," Karen sat up and wiped her face on the front of her t-shirt. She was both desperate to hear what Jessica had found, and terrified in equal measure. Had she found Matt? Did he know she was ready to run?
She pulled her jeans on and threw her hair up in a ponytail, grabbing her phone from the nightstand. Stay or go, Karen. Now's the time. Her stomach tightened at the realization. She allowed herself one last beat. One long breath in, exhaling shakily, before she opened the bedroom door.
One look at Jessica's face gave Karen her answer. Run.
"I'm really sorry Karen." To her credit, she looked genuinely sorry. "He knew I was looking for him… and no amount of PI skills or…" she rolled her eyes at herself, "super-powers are gonna help me find him if he doesn't want to be found."
Karen nodded her head. She knew that was true. There were times she'd felt his presence in the past few weeks… times that she'd wondered, If her vision were strong enough to penetrate the night sky above her, would she see him there, watching over her? But no amount of speaking into the darkness had convinced him to reveal himself… if he'd even been there at all.
Jess had been her last resort.
"I made myself really obvious, just to be sure, but…" she trailed off, her mouth creasing into a scowl. "You sure you wanna go without seeing him?"
Karen laughed humorlessly. "I don't want to. What choice do I have?" She threw her arms out and let them fall back at her sides with a slap. "I can't stay here. He won't answer my calls. I haven't heard from him in weeks. I…" she brought her hand up to her throat as her emotions choked the voice from her. "I can't stay here."
"I get it. Really," Jess assured her. "I'll keep working the angles you gave me. Call if I have any breakthroughs. If I run into him, I'll let you know."
"Thanks Jess. I… I appreciate this. More than you know."
They stood in the living room for a few longs seconds, before Jess shrugged her shoulders and Karen took it as an invitation to gave her a quick hug. Jess gave her the smallest squeeze back, then let go and immediately dropped to the couch, reaching for the bottle of whisky that was on the coffee table.
Karen took her jacket from the back of a chair, turning one more time to face her friend. "Thanks again, Jess. I'll be in touch."
When she shut the door behind her, a sob threatened to bubble up from her chest, so she covered her mouth with her hand and hurried towards the elevator.
When she was alone inside, she brought her hand down to rest at her side. "I'm sorry, Matt," she whispered, tears falling. "I'm sorry."
*
"You're sure you won't stay," Maggie knew her sadness was evident on her face. She reached out and took the envelope that Karen held out to her.
"I can't." She gave Maggie a sad smile. "I… I don't sleep anymore. Not without self-medicating," she admitted quietly. "I lie awake at night and I... It's…" she trailed off, shaking her head. She cleared her throat. "I used to love the night in the city. The familiar sounds. And I didn't feel alone, even on the nights that I was."
Maggie let out a barely audible sigh.
"I just… I can't breathe here. Without Foggy, without… Matt," it took effort to say their names. "I need to be somewhere away from this place… from the city… with all its memories. I need to start taking care of myself, and I can't do that here."
"Grief is a terrible thing to bear alone, as you well know," Maggie's voice was soft, motherly, "but I understand. We all deal with it in our own way."
Karen nodded, lips pressed tightly together. A tear slipped down her cheek and she inhaled deeply through her nose, fighting back the rest. "I'll send word. Let you know where I've settled. Might take a while."
"I understand." Maggie reached out and took Karen's hand, giving it a tight, motherly squeeze. "I know it might feel like it, but God hasn't forsaken you, Karen. Nor Matthew."
Karen bit her lip to keep from responding. She squeezed Maggie's hand in return and then used her sleeve to wipe the tears from her face. "Good-bye, Sister."
Maggie opened her arms and Karen stooped to embrace her. "Good-bye, my dear."
Karen made her way towards the outer door, and when it had shut behind her, Maggie stepped into the nearest pew. She kneeled, setting the envelope on the bench before bringing her clasped hands up.
She prayed in a whisper, for God to protect Karen on her journey, both physical and spiritual; for her to survive her grief and heal from her losses. She prayed for Foggy's soul, for all the people who loved him and felt his loss… and she prayed for Matthew.
"Please, God, help him to wake up from his paralysis of grief. Let him come out of this dark time, alive and in his right mind. Let him find Karen, and let them heal, together." She crossed herself, took a deep breath and sat up.
A deep quiet had just settled around her when she heard a small noise in the choir loft and she whipped around, straining her eyes to see. After a moment, she let out a deep sigh and faced forward again. She mouthed a silent prayer to Mother Seton, the patron saint of grief, and when she opened her eyes, she could see him out of the corner of her eye.
"You heard all of that, I suppose?" She didn't turn to look at him, afraid that if she did he would vanish as quickly as he'd appeared.
He didn't respond, just walked to the edge of the row and sat a few feet from her.
"It's not too late to stop her," Maggie risked a quick glance in his direction. In the ten days since she'd seen him last, she could not have imagined how dark the circles under his eyes could become, or how gaunt his cheeks from his lack of appetite. She inhaled sharply and he wrinkled his brow.
"I can't help her," Matt said, his voice gravelly from disuse. "I can't even help myself."
"But you could help each other," Maggie insisted, her tone coming out more pleading than she meant it to.
"It's my fault," his voice broke, his face wrinkling in an attempt to stop himself from crying. "Everything. All of it." He shuddered a breath, mastering his expression. When he spoke again, Maggie shivered. "Maybe she's better off without me."
"Don't say that," she chastized. "You and Foggy were her whole world, everyone could see. She watched him take his last breath and you think the thing she needs is to be abandoned by you?"
Her voice echoed in the empty church around them.
He clenched his jaw to stop himself from responding, and Maggie felt a sudden terrifying wave of guilt at having left him to grieve Jack's death alone all those years before.
"I'm sorry, Matthew. For Foggy, and Karen… and for your father, too."
She stood up, leaving Karen's envelope on the bench as she did. "She left this for you," she murmured, before slipping out the other side of the pew.
Matt sat in the relative silence for a long time. He did his best to tune out the sounds of the street outside, of the children next door in class, of the nuns working behind the scenes. He didn't have any coherent thoughts, just a dull ache in his skull and a hollow pit in his stomach to remind him that he was still alive… still holding on. But for what? he wondered darkly. What was left without Foggy? Without Karen?
He reached out and felt for the envelope. He could tell immediately that its contents were in braille. His heart felt a stirring at the mental image of Karen using her handheld slate and stylus to write him a message, as she'd often done the past few years.
A memory of Foggy teaching her to use it popped into his head, and the warm feeling abandoned him as quickly as it had appeared. Foggy's dead. He's dead, and you didn't stop it!
He stood up, the ache in his head throbbing as he did, and put the envelope in his jacket pocket. Then he made his way to the back of the church and slipped away, letting the darkness of the night swallow his body, as his own personal darkness clouded his soul.