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I sit cross-legged on the edge and pull out a handwritten letter from my mom. She wrote one for each of us, to help us cope after she died. To remind us that she loved us. I reread her words.
Grieve me together. Support each other. When you three are ready, I’d like you to scatter my ashes in the foothills of our Arizona residence–make that a special, sacred place you can commune with me. The land and light always felt magical to me there. Let it be the place you can find me when you need to connect. But know that no matter where you are, I’ll always be with you. Never doubt it.
I do fucking doubt it.
I don’t even know if I believe in the afterlife.
And if I did, would I even be worthy of my mom’s promise? A daughter who couldn’t even cry at her funeral?
I reread her letter, trying to bring something up.
I squeeze my eyes closed. Somewhere, deep beneath the surface, I feel something. A disquiet.
I scrunch up my face as if I’m crying, hoping to bring it to the surface. Like maybe if I fake-cry it will come out.
Nothing.
Fuck.
I’m the worst daughter ever.
It sucks to suck, as Lincoln would say.
I stand and peer over the edge of the cliff. This should scare me.
There’s no biological response to the threat of death. No uptick in the rate of my pulse or breath. No clammy hands.
I lean over the edge.
Still nothing.
For fuck’s sake, what is wrong with me?
I take one foot off the ledge and hold it forward like I’m going to step off a diving board.
In my periphery, I catch a flash of silver. I whirl to find an enormous wolf–the wolf–leaping through the air at me.
I scream as he lands on silent paws in front of me.
My arms pinwheel, but it’s too late, the balance of my weight is tipping over the side of the cliff. I’m falling–
Falling–
The wolf’s mighty jaws snap and catch on the knot of my shirt.
Great. Instead of smashing to my death below, I’m going to be eaten by a wolf.
But no–my shirt tears.
I buckle in half, reaching for the cliff’s edge as my ass plunges below it.
Apparently, I choose being eaten by a wolf over plummeting because my flailing hand reaches for the wolf’s nape, fingers closing on fur.
Fingers closing on…
My feet dangle in the air, but I’m not falling.
I’m suspended over the edge of the cliff, hanging by my arm which is held in a vise-like grip by…
