What Is

The sun is a chilly light on my face as I step from the truck. Fall has taken its warmth, sucked the life and energy from its perpetual glow. I stand swaying in the breeze, awash in the memories held at bay for so long.

�Go on,� she murmurs softly.

�I don�t want to.�

�I know.�

The iron gate swings inward on silent hinges and glides over the crackle of withered grass. I pause for a second time at the head of the path. The flat brown ribbon that winds up between the stones and around a knoll to his hidden marker.

My mind is caught in a whirl and as the recollections settle into their respective pockets I reach into the deepest, darkest one. I touch his face and feel the soft contours of cheek and chin. My nostrils flare, detecting the scent of innocence on the stiffening breeze. Taking a deep breath, I start up the path. Pebbles and dirt slide beneath my weary steps and I wince as a slip wrenches pain through my knees.

I don�t want to, but I do it anyway.

Her warmth outshines the weak sunlight. Caressing my shoulders, firm against my back. She waits in silence, but I can hear the quickening of her breath above the sigh of the wind. Anxious, afraid, proud? I straighten my back and square my shoulders as I round the bend and confront the granite sentinel.

I�m here.

The stone is rectangular. Gleaming, gray marble shot through with streaks of black and a brown that�s almost gold beneath the glare of the sun. I reach out and touch this rock that shields his remains. A cold, unfeeling sentry marking the boundary between what was and what is.

I kneel and pick idly at the dying flowers and stalks gathered at the base. Sara has been here. Tending the grave, nurturing life in spite of death. I try to smile as I reach out to touch the picture embedded above the words.

I hate myself.

In this one instant I loathe the old man crouched upon the grass. All the stupidity of that single moment rises up. The pockets inside my head collapse, expelling their cargo of memories in a suffocating rush. The breath rattles harshly in my clenched chest and I bow my head. Leaning heavily against the stone, the picture.

His picture.

I want to cry, but for reasons that escape I cannot. The sobs that clog my throat are dry, the air that escapes my lips is the last breath of the dying. I release that part of my soul into the frigid air and hear it flutter forth on leaden wings. A wretched, blackened mass of torn feathers and shattered bones. Without grace or beauty, the antithesis of his purity.

Air floods my shriveled lungs and I look up into the azure glory of a Sunday afternoon. She who waits below is an undeniable part of the life that began with the placing of this stone. I hate her for that sometimes. An irrational resentment I cannot name or control. But I love her more for caring despite the ghosts. For waiting and hoping through the pain that so often clouds my heart.

I sit back and run my hands over the letters of his name. Knowing full well that I sit before the judgment of my dead child because of her. There can be no future if the past looms large. I cannot ask, cannot expect her to lay down before the spirits forever.

She did not force me here. The road wound up before us hours ago; an endless gleaming track that promised the frivolity of fresh discoveries and the warmth of burgeoning love. I drove and we laughed. Conversations filled with nothing and everything flowed easily between us. For the first time in ten years I was able to forget the pain of this day. The wretched hours spent pacing the floor as the chord of life unraveled and frayed to its wispy ends.

She knew the moment memory resurfaced.

There were no words just a gentle touch on my forearm and a slight nod. I guided the truck in a vicious U-turn on the washboard road we drove across. Gunning the motor with the fervor of smoldering rage and irredeemable guilt. Discussion died to necessary stutters from me pertaining to direction and location. She did not speak until we pulled up in front of the cemetery and I stood hesitantly before the gate.

�Go on.�

�I don�t want to.�

�I know.�

I press my fingers into the impressions of years. Trace the numerals and feel the ponderous beat of my heart rattling hard against my ribs.

What would you say? Do you know how hard I fought to hang onto you long after the light faded from your eyes? Wise, well deep orbs that glittered with wit and intelligence; gone flat and dull. Lost beneath a haze of tears that refused to fall from my burning lids. What would you say to me and to her, now, here in this time?

The trees tremble above my head and leaves fall down. A shower of blood red and burnt umber tinged with gold. I look up, blinking rapidly against the irrepressible gleam of the lowering sun. The answer lies somewhere beyond the darkening canopy that swathes the earth. Touching, caressing, the rise and fall of the mountains and the swirl of the oceans.

I love you Charlie, but I must go on. I�m sorry for all you did not see and for the pain that ripples out from that horrible flash and continues to color the world. In spite of the beauty there is always a pocket of sorrow, a reminder of who you were and what I lost in that fragile moment. I will never forget.

The stone beneath my fingers feels warm now. An illusion? The touch of the sun embraced by the porous rock? Perhaps more figment than reality to my fractured soul? I stand erect and run my hand over the top of the market. Pausing to grip the corner for a long moment before letting go. My fingers flex, grasping at the empty air. I know what I seek and I know where it lies. A long, shaky sigh squeezes out between my lips. In all the ways that used to matter he remains beyond my touch. I cannot change what fate chose and I cannot live with regret any longer.

He has forgiven me and now I forgive myself. With a wrench and a thick cough that hides unshed tears, I turn away. I put his memory back in its pocket and I seal the flap. Somehow the weight is lighter, the depths not so black.

I walk back around the bend and catch her soft gaze.

She is sitting at an angle, her right hand idly fiddling with the rearview mirror. Apparently watching, anxiously waiting for the man who would appear at the top of the slight rise. She had no idea who would return to her. A friend, a lover, the ghost of the man she has come to know.

I am all and I am neither.

As I close the distance I feel her tension and I try to smile. It is little more than the quirk of a lip, but it is enough. She sighs and reaches out to take my hand.