Remembrance

An extraordinary crimson sunrise illuminated the forests south of what used to be Portland, Oregon, high in the Cascade Mountain range. The light crept through the blinds of the second-floor window of a young woman whose eyes fluttered awake at the touch of the morning sun. Rolling to her side, she sighed before pushing herself up to face the day, her sixteenth birthday. Her room was plain with white walls, a sturdy oak door, a vanity from before the collapse, and her bed, another relic of the recent past. The only real point of interest was the window that she marveled at every morning. Pulling up the blinds revealed the sprawling forested mountains that the cabin nestled itself in with. A large garden sat between the house and the edge of the forest ripe with the spoils of fall.

After her morning viewing, she moved to the vanity, still groggy from her slumber. Looking in the mirror, she brushed her hand through her long black hair then rubbed the sleep from her vibrant hazel eyes. Then a familiar but rare scent worked its way into the room from downstairs, freshly brewed coffee. Smiling, she bounded around for the oak door opening it, and speed walking down the narrow cabin stairs. At the bottom, she saw what she had smelled upstairs. A cup of freshly brewed coffee alongside a small cardboard box and a piece of paper folded like a tent that read "Emilia" sat on the kitchen table.

Stepping forward, she pulled out a chair, then sat at the mahogany table her grandfather had crafted in his old carpentry shop and looked around. Both her grandparents were usually here at this time of the morning reminiscing about their time in Portland or her grandfather reading. Usually, one of the hundreds of old newspapers that sat in the first floor's closet, an archive of what life used to be like, the newest one labeled with a day four years ago. Lifting the folded paper, she began to read the note from her grandparents to herself.

"Happy Birthday Emilia," It began. "Your grandfather and I will be back this afternoon. We wanted to make you something special for your birthday, so we are going down the mountain to the Mitchel's. Their son got a deer last week. I made you a cup of coffee, I know we don't make it as much as you would like, but we only have so much. Your grandfather and I also left you a gift to have while we're gone. We love you so much, and we'll see you later tonight. With Love, Grandma Marie."

Emilia's eyes immediately shot to the present on the table. In the six years living with her grandparents, she had never gotten one, not since the collapse had they given her a gift. Reaching out, she tore at the ribbon bow on top, flinging it to the side as she opened the box. Inside, she found another box coated in black felt like her mother’s ring boxes had been. Just the thought of her parents made her eyes begin to mist. Cautiously, she undid the clasp holding it closed, then tilted the hinged lid up, and her formerly misty eyes erupted in a torrent of tears. Inside was a silver heart locket with a smaller sapphire heart inlaid on it, and the memories flooded her mind. Her mother’s warm smile, the scar on her upper lip she had had since a childhood bike accident, and those dark brown eyes that felt like a hug whenever they looked at her. Then her father, his perpetually concerned face, the one that made her know he was always looking out for her, the lisp in his voice that had somehow refused to leave her memory even now. Even the thick-rimmed glasses that she would always steal and run away with a child.

Beneath the locket was another note, folded neatly into a small square that she delicately undid to reveal a paper shaped like a heart. Through tears, she began to read.

“Emilia, your grandmother and I have thought long and hard about when to give this to you. I am sure you recognize it as your mother’s locket, the one she grasped until the end. To be honest, we still are not sure, but you're sixteen today, and we know your parents would have been proud of the young woman you have become. It’s been six years since Cascadia, six years since the collapse, and you have handled it with more dignity and grace than anyone. We do not know when the world will go back to how it was or if the outside world is even how we remember it. Honestly, though, you will not only survive, you will thrive; your grandmother and I love you with all our hearts. With love, Grandpa George.”

Clearing the tears from her eyes with the backs of her hand. Emilia slipped the box into her pocket and raced for the door. Skipping past her shoes, she grabbed her mother's old hiking boots that she had grown into, where she was going, she would need them. Running through the clearing to the storage shed beside the path up the mountain, she swung the door open with such force the hinges shook. The back of the shed was filled with junk, old electronics like the coffee maker, or the TV that had once been in the living room, or her childhood tablet all made useless when the electric grid had gone down a year after the collapse. However, Closer to the door was a small shovel that she grabbed before starting up the mountain path.

After thirty minutes of hiking, Emilia regretted her hasty decision to not drink the coffee her grandmother had made her. The impromptu journey was starting to take a toll. That coupled with the emotional shock of her mother's locket was almost too much to handle. As many good memories as she could muster, her final thoughts continuously flickered back to what she had seen after the water had receded and the earth had stopped shaking. Her mother lifeless, holding onto the locket with all her strength. After almost an hour and a half on the trail, she finally reached it, what her grandparents called lover's bluff. Emilia had been here once before, six years ago when she had come to live with her grandparents. She had somehow forgotten the view in that time, one that somehow put her window view into the mountain to shame.

Spreading out below the sheer cliff of the bluff was another forest, one that seemed much younger and yet somehow less tamed. To the north was a sight unlike any other, nature reclaimed ruins of Portland, Oregon, a city that Emilia and her parents had once called home. Watching over all of it, though, were two carved stone crosses angled toward one another, the place where her parents had been buried. Steeling herself, Emilia dug a two-foot hole between the grave markers then knelt with the box in her hand. Slowly she opened it again, taking the locket out this time into her tear-soaked hands and pressed the button on the top.

Emilia had been crying since she had seen the locket the first time. Still, now she openly wept at the sight of her mother and father, lovingly staring back at her from the inside of the locket. The bits and pieces of her memory flooded back to her about the collapse: Her being awoken by the first earthquake and hearing her family scrambling in the rest of the house. She had forgotten entirely why her grandparents were there, but they were that morning. Soon all four, her parents and grandparents, flooded into her room, grabbing clothes and supplies. All the while, they were reassuring her everything was fine, and that they had just decided the family was going to go up to grandma and grandpa's cabin for a few days.

Emilia and her family had started into the Cascades when her father stopped the car outside of a house that she did not recognize. Her father had told everyone that the house was not high enough, that the people inside were not safe, so he got out to help along with her mother. Protesting the whole way, her grandfather drove them half a mile further along the road before they sat and waited. Eventually, a family arrived, the one from the house, the Mitchels, a young boy a little older than her and his parents. They told them that Emilia’s parents had stopped to help another family on the way and should not be far behind. But they would not see them again alive, roaring in from the ocean. A massive tsunami hit the coastline, swallowing whole swaths of Portland.

Eventually, when the water receded, they trekked down and found the home they had stopped at, the place they had been trapped in when the wave hit. The image flashed again, her mother holding the locket for dear life as she lay separated from her father only feet away. The next thing she could remember was the funeral, her grandparents and the Mitchels saying kind words and burying them on lover’s bluff. Since then, the electric grid fell apart, the local newspaper stopped printing, and no one has come to help. The last papers talked about martial law and discontent to the east, but Emilia was too young to understand what all that meant for her or the country she grew up in. All she knew was that her parents were gone, and the life she had once known in Portland was gone along with them.

As her memories finally concluded, Emilia spoke, "Mom, Dad, I miss you, I miss you so much." By now, she had run out of tears to shed as she continued. "I love you both, and I’m happy I got to see the locket and your faces again, but I’ll never forget you. I can’t forget you. No matter how the world changes, you'll always be there for me no matter what the future brings. But this, this isn't mine. It's yours, and I, I think it should be with you." With that, Emilia placed the locket gently into the box and set the box softly into the hole. With several tearless sobs, she filled the whole back up and stood up.

“They would be so proud of you today,” the gruff voice of her grandfather announced from behind her. Turning, she quietly walked over and gave her grandmother and grandfather a hug, still shaking from the sadness.

“Let’s get you home, dear," Her grandmother softly suggested. With their support, Emilia started back down the trail glancing back only to imagine her parents once again standing there holding one another close. They may be gone, Emilia thought, but no matter what happens, they will not be forgotten, at least by me.