Aubade

We walked up to the bluff overlooking the river that day, hoping for closure. James had made a cross out of desiccated oak and carved your name on it with the dates. Someone brought flowers, a small bottle of Jameson (your favorite), and a pack of Camels to leave behind for you. We ignored the certainty that teenagers, arriving like clockwork just before sunset to party, would pilfer the alcohol and cigarettes. If you were there, you'd have gladly, freely offered it to them, anyway.

The dirt was too hard-packed for James to dig a decent hole. We made small jokes as we gathered rocks to pile at the base of the cross to hold it up. Tourists there for the view tried not to stare. They carefully kept us out of view of their cameras.

Standing around in silence after planting the cross, no one suggested a prayer or even a few words, although I'm certain we all thought it.

I think the others did get closure. Or at least I hope they did. I didn't hope for any such thing.

The river below was so still it almost looked like a lake. It seemed to hold its breath (now, that was a joke), as if it knew what we came to do, as if it was waiting. The piercing summer sunlight fractured on its surface, and it opened like a door, like a portal. I knew I shouldn't look; you would have told me not to look, but I did anyway.

I know now I was hoping to see you. I wanted to see your ghost. Wanted it to haunt me so I knew you were dead.

And I did see you. Down there. I saw you more clearly than when you were alive. You looked so small in the water, human in a way you never managed in life. I hate that part--how grief drags tenderness out of places we swore were barren.

Your body struggled through the current that was silently raging beneath the still surface. Limbs tumbling into greater darkness, tangled in something you immediately, without shock but probably with no small amount of regret, knew you couldn't get out of--which is to say, I hope you thought of me. Desperately, I want you to know, I never thought you'd actually die.

I certainly didn't know I could miss you.

And now, forgive me, you are dead, and I'm so relieved I'm fucking crying. But the joy is almost stifled by shame. Except how could a child not love the death of its monster?

How can you ask a child to mourn the absence of terror?

I saw you down there, floating in terror, wishing for a familiar face in the weeds as the rock came to kiss you.

Did you see my face? What did you cling to?

Now, after all these years, I wish I could reach out and hold you. Hold you, then let you go into that deepest dark where the water embraced you, contained your malice, while the birds circled overhead.

Can you hear me?

I whisper into that darkest place.

Can you hear me?

I travel back in my mind to that bluff and peer down into the portal. I shout down into it. To you, lost forever. The water does not answer, only folds itself tighter around you, around me. The birds scatter from the oak trees, and somewhere, deep in my ribs, something clenches and something else tightens. Grief and freedom coiling around together, strangling each other.

Can you hear me?

I hear the birds and panic.