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The greenery overhead casts shadows from the setting sun. A log threatens to knock me down, but I find my footing and move ahead. Somewhere beyond my sightline, a bird caws, the sound an accompaniment to my mood.
“How did I end up here?” I speak to the crawling shadows and waning sun, but I think the rhetorical question is for Eric. He used to give the best advice, though I realize now he was very safe. Our love was beautiful and true and deep, but I’m not sure it was crazy and filled with passion. Eric was my warm blanket I could curl up under during a scary thunderstorm. But is it erroneous to believe in other types of attraction out there?
Gravel rolls beneath my sneakers as I hike, nearing the top. A gush of anguish threatens to yank me under. Am I really considering this? Thoughts of Ophelia’s future once again fill my head. The way she responds to us as a family unit is a piece of beauty I never allowed myself to imagine. Dane stepped into his father role without hesitation, and I can picture the potential. The three of us together.
It doesn’t hurt that he lights me up with a single touch.
I felt weak for falling into bed with him years ago, not extremely long after my husband passed. But once I found out about Ophelia, I couldn’t regret our night together. Wearing his shirt became a ritual that replaced the nights of tears. Still, I never let myself daydream about a possible future together. Coming here was about keeping Ophelia safe and nothing else.
Because picturing a future with someone else means I have to let Eric go.
The brush clears at the top of the trail. I stop near a slanting tree, the bark rough against my exposed skin, and catch my breath. Twilight is breathtaking from these heights. Jutting black cliffs surround an inky river below as the first stars of the night glitter in the periwinkle sky. I stroll to the edge and seat myself close, tucking myself tight. Picking up a pebble, I throw it into the sprawling darkness.
An ache seizes my chest, unlike the one I felt that first day in Arrow Creek. This one isn’t devastating. I trap the vial between my hand and body, curling into myself, as the past few years of grief for my husband leech out of me. Reaching behind my neck, I unclasp the chain and wrap it around my hand. The vial dangles in the soft evening breeze.
“I miss you,” I speak through a clogged throat into the darkness. “You were once the best thing that ever happened to me.”
I rest my chin on bent knees. “Not a day goes by when I don’t hear your laughter in my head. You had the best laugh, Eric.”
The words spilling out are past tense and once was and wishes. Because that’s how it is when someone dies. The future doesn’t exist. The what could be becomes what could have been. There’s nothing I can do to change it.
But suffering for the rest of my life because he was taken early doesn’t seem like what he’d want for me.
“Don’t hate me for staying here because I really want to stay.”
The idea of returning to Colorado makes me nauseous the longer I spend in Arrow Creek. “My parents cut ties with me. I’m sure you wouldn’t be surprised. You never liked them much anyway.” A watery laugh bursts free. “Tate met some girl and moved out West not long after you…you…after you died,” I force myself to say. “Some best friend. I’m glad he didn’t have time to make promises to care for me on your deathbed,” I say with sarcasm he could read so easily.
“I loved you, Eric, with my whole heart. But now that you’re gone, I think it’s okay for me to share a piece with someone else. Whoever that may be.”
I wipe a tear from my cheek. “Look down on me from time to time, and if you don’t mind, keep an eye on Ophelia for me. If she’s going to be anything like I was as a teen, I’ll need all the help I can get.”
A rush of emotion overcomes me. “I love you so much, Eric.” Bringing the vial to my lips, I kiss the glass holding his remaining ashes. “Thank you for always loving me. It’s been an enormous privilege being your wife.”
I sit a while, not bothering to touch the soft tears drifting occasionally down my cheeks. My heart still hurts but feels lighter somehow. I allow time to adjust to the feeling. When the ache in my back becomes persistent from sitting still on the rock, I stand and brush my hands over my backside. I situate the chain back around my neck before embarking down the darkening trail.
A text brightens my phone as I near the parking lot, Dane’s name a welcome intrusion.
Dane: It’s getting late. Where are you?
I type back, I’m coming soon.
Not even thirty seconds later, his reply follows.
Dane: I’ll wait up for you.
Tears fall harder from his thoughtfulness. As I drive back to his loft, I forget everything else. I forget about the future. I forget to be afraid of driving and panic. The only thought I cling to is reaching Dane before I fall completely apart.
From the street, I can tell most of the lights in the loft are off. A yellowed, dim glow shines from the living room window. It’s after ten, and I pray Ophelia’s asleep. Ignoring the incessant rumble in my stomach from a missed meal, I climb the steps with heavy feet.
The door flies open before I hit the landing. Dane greets me with concerned eyes and tilted lips, the cut I created a dark line through his lower one. His broad, muscular chest looks like the perfect landing pad, and I rush for the center. He wraps me in a strong embrace. The warmth from his body seeps into my chilled bones. The thud of the door shutting behind me times perfectly with my buckling knees as the sobs I’ve held back wrack my body.
Dane secures me as we sink together to the floor. If I could crawl inside him, I would. Pain rips through the jagged pieces of my heart. My fingers scramble for purchase on the back of his shirt. A guttural sob ricochets around the small apartment, and Dane buries my face deeper into his chest.
“Shhh.” His hand soothingly strokes the length of my tangled strands. For minutes or hours, he holds me and lets me cry.
When the sobs retreat to hiccups, I sit back on my heels, spent and wrung dry. He loosens his hold but keeps close with comforting touches.
"I feel like I'm losing him all over again, except this time it’s my choice to let him go."
“Oh, Mama,” Dane breathes. He reaches out and brushes a stream of tears from my cheek with his thumb. “If I’ve pushed you in any way…”
“You haven’t.”
