However, he did shift his posture so that he was sitting cross-legged.
Finally he heard footsteps again. He recognized them as belonging to George Lord. But he didn’t bother to turn around. Then he heard George chuckling softly, and that distracted him. He swiveled his head and regarded his guardian, who was standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame, his arms folded.
“What’s funny?” Asked Dorian.
“You just remind me so much of your father, that’s all.” Said George. “Same serious face. I’ll show you pictures of him, if you want.”
Then Dorian took a deep breath and let it out unsteadily. “My mom isn’t coming back, is she?”
“No, Dorian,” George told him, as gently as he could. “She was killed in a car crash. It was an accident.”
“No,” Dorian said flatly. “It wasn’t.”
“It wasn’t?” Said George curiously.
Dorian shoved his hand into one of the bags and pulled out a stack of comic books.
“My mother and father were secret heroes. Like…monster hunters. And they were helping people, and a monster killed them.” He held up an old issue, spine-rolled and tattered.
George picked it up automatically, flattening it carefully and looked at the cover. He frowned, trying to understand the image. It showed a hulking red man who had to be the devil wielding a cannon for a gun in his gigantic stone hand.
JOHN GRAVAGLIA
• 47 •
“Hellboy. You like these kind of comics?”
Dorian bobbed his head.
“And you think your mom and dad were like that? Why?”
“Because they were special. My dad didn’t run out on me, and my mom was too special to get killed in a stupid car accident.”
“I see,” said George, very seriously. “That’s an interesting possibility you’ve got there, Dorian. I’ll have to think about that one.”
Dorian nodded, and, satisfied that the conversation was over and went back to what he was doing…nothing.
After a while he went to the kitchen and had cookies and milk while Lori insisted that she would attend to putting away all of Dorian’s clothes, just to help him feel more at home. George kept telling Dorian how pleased he was to see Dorian’s mood improve, and how they were going to be great friends and a great family. Dorian’s spirits improved with each bite of cookie and each sip of milk. It was the warmth of the freshly baked cookie versus the chill of the refrigerated milk, and the warmth won out, giving him a pleasant feeling in the pit of his stomach.
DORIAN GRAY
• 48 •
CHAPTER FOUR
Behind every exquisite thing that existed,
there was something tragic.
Oscar Wilde.
Olivia Gray was buried in a cemetery on Long Island. Dorian stood at the back of a small crowd of mourners. The turnout was immense for the funeral of such a prominent woman who was not a politician or a titan of industry.
The funeral procession began at the church, where a scowling minister gave a long and droning speech about how fragile life is and the enduring suffering of the grave. It was far, far worse than the sermon. At least in the church there was someone specific at whom Dorian could direct his frustration and anger, but now it was a slow march to the place where his mother’s body would rest forever.
Rest, and rot, and probably be forgotten in little more than a month.
There were no more Grays except for his father, who no one has ever seen in six years.
Dorian watched the coffin that contained his mother was being lowered into an oblong hole. Some of the mourners were crying softly and a few of them looked at Dorian, as though trying to gauge his feelings. He
JOHN GRAVAGLIA
• 49 •
desperately wanted to cry—he really did—because he realized that tears were expected and, more important, much appreciated. So he bowed his head, but no tears would come. The thing inside him, the thing that filled his body, would not allow crying.
This surprised George. The boy seemed paralyzed by grief, as still and silent as one of the marble angels at a nearby plot.
First his father abandoned him, and now his mother is gone. George thought, trying to imagine what Dorian must be feeling. How is it possible he’s not bawling his eyes out? For a boy his age, he sure is brave on facing this.
Beside the grave the minister spoke again, but this time his remarks were brief and he recited his lines straight from the scriptures; by then Dorian was so set against the deaf old fool that he internally mocked the performance.
And then the words were done and the mourners each dropped a ritual handful of dirt onto the casket, and Lori had scattered roses atop it, and all that was left was the reality that Olivia was going into the ground.
Henry looked up to his father and asked, “Dad, why are they throwing dirt on Aunt Olivia’s casket?”
George took a moment to find the best way to answer. “It means we’re letting go to that one person from our lives.”
Henry looked at him funny, not understanding his father’s reply.
DORIAN GRAY
• 50 •
George saw his son’s puzzled expression, elaborating, “It’s a symbol of us returning to dust. From dust we were created and to dust we will return.”
“You mean, ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust?’”
“That’s exactly where we get that from.”
“Oh.”
It was the end of all things for Dorian’s mother, and as he watched the coffin being lowered into the cold earth he could feel his heart descended to a lower place in his chest. He knew that it would remain there forever, just as his mother would remain here in the soil until the sun itself buried to a cinder in the sky.
Dorian wanted to scream.
He did not.
George took his arm and led him away from the grave, but once, for a fleeting moment, the guardian turned and looked back. Not at the grave, but at Dorian.
Dorian stood there for a long, long time, watching him go.
He wiped his face with his hands as if to cleanse it off more than tears.
A crowd of people, all of whom had spoken condolences to Dorian, began to walk slowly away from the gravesite. Dorian stood
