Letting Go

by Carrie Lange

  Anne took the bottle and turned it up to her mouth, realized it was empty and reached for the pitcher of GHB laced Kool-Aid. She took a gulp straight from the pitcher and turned to Chris.

  He smiled and wiped the red Kool-Aid mustache from her upper lip with his thumb. “You are cute, though.” He got a far-away look in his eye and blinked slowly. “In another time…in another place…” His eyes closed and he leaned back on the sofa, his head gently bobbing up and down.

  Anne took another gulp from the pitcher, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and shook Chris hard. “Hey! Chris, wake up!”

  His eyes shot open and he sat up. “Jesus fucking Christ, I’m awake! What?”

  “Have you ever thought about…you know…murdering someone?”

  “What the hell are you talking about now?”

  “You know, murder. Have you ever wanted to do it. To see what it’s like?”

  Chris rubbed his face and stretched his eyes wide open and closed a few times. “Well, I guess so, but of course––” He turned to Anne. “Why are you asking?”

  “Well, you know…you could kill me…if you wanted.”

  Chris blinked at her several times, closed his mouth, and smiled. “You know, the sad part is, that I know you mean it.”

  “Well, will you do it, or not?”

  He got up and picked up a bottle of rum from the kitchen table. It was empty, so he pulled a new one out of the brown paper bag and cracked the top open. “Of course not, don’t be crazy. I couldn’t kill you.”

  “Why not? You could kill me, and then kill yourself. Murder/suicide, happens all the time.”

  “I may be a worthless son of a bitch…” he said as he lit a cigarette. He took a long drag, exhaled the smoke through his nose, and looked at her through narrowed eyes. “…but I’m not a murderer. Besides, I got kids to think of. I’m not going to leave this world with them thinking of me as a psycho killer.”

  Okay, that was a good point. She hadn’t thought of that angle. He was a lot older than her, forty-six. She envied him his age because he would die much sooner than she would. He had two children from a previous marriage, a fourteen year old daughter, and a twenty-two year old son. It would be quite a stigma for them to learn their father had killed someone before killing himself.

  “Well, I could write a note. Tell them it was my idea. Then it wouldn’t really be mur–– “

  “Fuck it, Anne.” Chris took a long swig from the bottle and sat back down beside her. “If you really want to die, then let’s just off ourselves together. I’m game. I’m not going to kill you, but I’ll kill myself with you.”

  Chris held the bottle out, and Anne took it. “Fuck it,” she said, raising the bottle toward him in a toast, “together, then.”

  And she drank until her throat caught fire.

  ~~~~~

  At first, Chris and Anne disagreed on how they would kill themselves. Anne thought they should shoot themselves in the head. But Chris knew a man who had tried this and lived. He was left disfigured and brain damaged. Chris had written a song about it called ‘Peace Doesn’t Come that Easily’. He was not willing to take the chance.

  Chris thought they should hang themselves. But Anne doubted that they could pull it off so their necks would break, and she had always had a fear of suffocation.

  In the end they agreed to use the method from the book ‘Final Exit’, although Chris did not like the idea of being found with a bag over his head. True, in the end, they would suffocate, after all. But by the time that happened, they would be fast asleep and not feel a thing.

  What could be more beautiful?

  Chris needed some time to get his affairs in order. His daughter lived in Arizona with her mother, and his son lived on his own in Seattle.

  A graphic designer at Boeing, Chris had a sizable life insurance policy, which was still in Kim’s name. He also was in the middle of a music project with his band and he needed to transfer his copy rights over to his children. Anne showed him how to set up a Children’s Trust Fund and gave him her will making computer software program.

  They agreed to die in Indianapolis. “I plan to be cremated anyway,” Chris said. “So, they can mail me to Seattle, if my parents want me. If not, they can stick me in your coffin.”

  Anne amended her Will to state that if nobody wanted Chris’s ashes, he was to be buried with her.

  “Do you really think your parents would bury me with you?” he asked.

  Anne shrugged. “Do you really think your parents wouldn’t want your ashes?”

  Chris would return to Indy when everything was taken care of. In four weeks, they would be dead.

  They both smiled a lot more after that.

  Chapter 49

  Sean looked at Anne with his mouth open. “You’re doing what?”

  “I’m going to Seattle for a few days. Chris’s going to take me to Mount Saint Helens and the Pacific Ocean.”

  Sean shook his head as his mouth opened and closed a few more times. “See-attle? What the hell are you talking about? Have you lost your mind?”

  Anne rolled her eyes and groaned. “It’s just for a few days. I need to get away and have some fun. It’s no big deal.”

  His frozen brain finally clicked and the gears started moving again. “Anne.”

  Walking over to her, he took her hands. “I agree that you need to have some fun. But traipsing off thousands of miles away to meet some stranger you met on the internet is not what you need.”

  “He’s not a stranger!” Anne flung Sean’s hands away and took a few steps back. She scowled, but lowered her voice. “Chris’s the only person who understands, because he’s going through the same thing I am. Dan and Kim brought us together for a reason.”

  Thoughts zipped through Sean’s head.

  A reason? Oh my God, has she lost it? He wasn’t exactly sure how to handle this situation. She wasn’t standing on the ledge of a twenty story building, but that’s how it usually felt with her. Always afraid that at any moment she would jump.

  It had been almost four months since Dan killed himself. Sean had thought Anne had turned a corner. She relaxed more. She smiled more. It had never crossed his mind that she smiled because she was involved with another man.

  Well, Dan, I guess the unbearable agony of losing you didn’t last long, eh?

  Anger seared his cheeks. “So, that’s it then? Four months of “I can’t live without him”, and now you’ve gone off and found someone else? Forgive me for now doubting your paralyzing grief.”

  Anne froze, her turn to stand speechless with her mouth open. Her eyebrows collided together and she shook her head. “Is that what you think? You think I’m having some kind of sexual relationship with Chris?”

  “What else am I supposed to think, Anne? Flying off to Seattle…I mean, obviously, you haven’t had sex with him yet, but…” Sean’s voice trailed off and he looked at the floor. His hands rose up to his hips and he smirked as he shook his head. “Jesus Christ…he’s been out here, hasn’t he? That’s why you wanted all those damned drugs and kept making all those excuses for not coming over, isn’t it?”

  Anne held her breath for a moment, and then releasing it in a ragged sigh, she flopped down on the couch. “It’s not what you think.”

  Sean looked at her silently for a moment before his hands flew up in the air and he walked away. “Un-fucking-believable!”

  He had been so relieved these past few days. To see the sparkle returning to her eyes. To see her eating. She didn’t ask for drugs first thing when she walked in his door. He had allowed himself to believe that maybe he had saved her.

  Two weeks ago she had asked for drugs and privacy. He had been worried, but she assured him she just needed some time alone. He had called her every day to check on her.

  The creep had probably been right there, listening. Had they been lying in bed together? Had he been running his hands over her––

  “Un-fucking-believable!” Sean shouted again from
the kitchen.

  Anne hopped up from the couch and followed him, a scowl still etched across her face. “I told you, it’s not like that, damn it! There is nothing going on between me and Chris! He lost his fiancée just like I did, for Christ’s sake!”

  Sean tried to remain calm, but the volume of his voice kept rising in a most annoyingly unrestrained way. “You expect me to believe that a grown man would fly thousands of miles to just hang out with a ‘friend’?”

  He made one of those quotation mark gestures with his fingers when he said the word ‘friend’. It always annoyed him when other people did this, so of course, he became even more annoyed with himself. “Gah! Anne, no freakin’ way! Yeah, and you guys just took drugs all week and talked about the weather?”

  Anne’s face turned bright red and she screamed. “No! As a matter of fact we didn’t talk about the weather! We spent the whole time talking about––”

  Her voice stopped abruptly. The red color faded away, and her face relaxed. “You know what? Fuck you. It’s none of your damn business what I do, anyway. Can I have the shit, or not?”

  He looked at her a moment longer and sighed. “Yeah, Anne, sure. You can have it.”

  As he gathered the drugs for her, a sense of foreboding crept through his mind. A nagging sensation of unease. Something about this wasn’t right, but he couldn’t quite place it. It had been too easy. Her grief had been real. A person can’t lie when they’re rolling on Ecstasy. No, those had been her true emotions, and they had been devastating.

  What Anne had experienced had been more than emotions. There had been a withering of her spirit which had a physical effect on her body and, he suspected, her brain. The rapid weight loss anyone could see. The distant look in her eyes was probably something those who knew her well could see. Her irrational logic and disjointed thought patterns were something only he could see, and only when she was rolling.

  A person can’t hide the truth when they’re on Ecstasy. Except, she did hide something. He could tell. Sometimes, her sentences ended abruptly. Just like a moment ago.

  No, her pain had been real. A romp in the sack couldn’t erase that kind of pain … could it?

  Sean put her drugs in a brown paper bag and by the time he handed it to her, he had calmed down. “Anne, I’m sorry. I’m just worried about you. Do you understand that? Do you understand how terrified I am at the thought of you going out there? Anything could happen to you.”

  Anne smiled. “I know you’re worried. It’s okay. Believe me, nothing is going to happen to me. And no matter what you think, I’m not romantically involved with him. Not in any way. We…we need each other. I think Dan and Kim brought us together, so we could…help each other.”

  “You’re both traumatized, Anne. You can’t help each other. I understand why it feels like Dan and Kim brought you together, but you gotta ask yourself, why would they do that? Would Dan really think that another severely depressed and heart-broken person would be the best one to help you? I mean, right now, you’re both drowning. You don’t need to cling to each other. You’ll drown together if you do that. You both need someone on dry land to throw you a lifeline.”

  Her smile faded. “Who’s gonna throw me a lifeline…”

  He was losing her. She was slipping away from him. No, he realized, she hadn’t been his in so long. He reached out and grabbed her by both shoulders and shook her gently. “Me, Anne. I’m trying to throw you a lifeline, but you just keep pushing it away.”

  Anne had that distant look in her eyes that he had become all too familiar with these past weeks. She blinked her eyes a few times and seemed to focus on him again. “Sean, I…I push you away because I don’t want to give you the wrong idea about me. You know, I don’t want it to seem like I’m…taking advantage of you or leading you on. Does it seem like I am?”

  “No, of course not. You aren’t taking advantage of me, and you definitely aren’t leading me on. I know you still love Dan, and you’re still grieving. But I still care about you, and I want to help you get through all this. I’m moving up north in two weeks. I know you told me not to, but I went ahead and got that two bedroom place instead of the studio. If you ever need a place to stay, you and Alexandra will have your own bedroom. I can take care of you. You don’t need this guy from Seattle.”

  Anne hugged the brown bag. The paper crinkled and echoed through the air as they watched each other. Anne’s eyes flicked away and she sighed. “I have to go, Sean. Don’t worry about me, please. Just move on with your life and forget about me.”

  As she turned and headed for the door, Sean took her hand. “Anne. Don’t go, I’m begging you.” He got down on his knees and her image blurred behind the tears in his eyes. “I love you. If something happened to you, I would die. Do you know that?”

  She reached out and wiped away the tear from his cheek. “You wouldn’t die. Believe me, I know. You’re better off without me.”

  And she walked out the door and left him on his knees, with tears falling from his eyes.

  Chapter 50

  Kim had gone home with Chris when he returned to Seattle, and Dan was left alone with Anne. He hadn’t seen Tar since their last confrontation, and feared he might be gone for good this time.

  He sat beside Anne as she wrote her goodbye letters.

  It would be a lie if he said he had never felt a glimmer of anticipation. A secret longing that she join him.

  Even so, he did not want that now. He wanted her to live.

  He had believed that he would save her. Believed in the story book ending. He realized now, that if story book endings were real, he never would have killed himself. Her love would have saved him, and they would have lived happily ever after.

  Endings did not matter now. His turn was over, and there was no longer a place for him on Earth.

  She was writing her own story now. It included his name, but not his presence.

  As he watched her pen dance across the paper, his vision blurred. The image of Anne began to fall away, and a whisper of a familiar voice floated across the air.

  “Daniel. Let go.”

  Dan turned to find the source of the voice. The apartment faded, and he was blinded by a golden light. He held his hand up in front of his face and squinted his eyes.

  “Daniel. Let her go.”

  Dan shook his head and swatted at the air in front of him. “No! I won’t let her go! I’m not ready!”

  The light dimmed, and when Dan turned back around to find Anne, Tar stood in front of him.

  Dan jumped. “Jesus Christ, Tar! What happened to knocking?”

  Tar smiled a tiny little smile.

  Dan felt a change, a shift. Something important was happening, and he was afraid. “Tar, what just happened? Did you see that light? Did you hear that voice? Was that you?”

  “It wasn’t me, Dan.”

  “Well, who the hell was it, then?”

  Tar gave him one of those half-expectant, half-knowing looks. The kind of look that is given to little children who are adorable in their ignorance.

  “Don’t you know?”

  Dan opened his mouth, but then closed it again quickly and shook his head.

  Tar smiled a great big radiant smile. And although it was radiant, it was also sad.

  “That was the voice of God, Dan. It’s calling your name, calling you home.”

  Dan’s throat tightened, and tears sprang suddenly from his eyes as the truth of Tar’s words became reality. “God?”

  Tar remained silent.

  Tears streamed down Dan’s face, and he shook his head violently back and forth. “No, Tar. I’m not ready. I-I’m not good enough… Wha-What I did… I-I don’t deserve it.”

  As much as he had been holding onto her, he had been holding onto his own guilt. His shame had bound him to her, his shackles forged in the fires of his sin. And he could not let go of it. He could not forgive himself.

  Tar sighed. “Do you remember when you shared a memory with me?”

&nb
sp; Dan’s body trembled and his thoughts raced. He tried to focus on Tar’s words. The Vulcan Mind Meld. “Yes, I remember.”

  Tar wrapped his hands around Dan’s forehead.

  “I want to share a memory with you. I want to show you how I died.”

  Chapter 51

  Nestled in a green valley at the foot of the Italian Alps lived a winegrower. His land and his vines had been passed down through his family for many generations, and would continue to be passed down for many generations to come.

  The winegrower’s hands were rough and his face weathered, but not careworn. He toiled under the sun, and the wind, and the rain, and his vines were strong, and his wine was good.

  His wife was a beautiful woman and when she looked out over her husband’s rolling green vineyard, she smiled and knew the simple joy of a hard life, well lived.

  The winegrower and his wife had two sons. The eldest son was named Desiderio, which means Yearning or Sorrow. One day the vineyard would be passed down to him. He had his father’s passion for the vine. He was strong and driven and he worked hard every day at his father’s side.

  The youngest son was named Amadeo, which means God’s Love. He also worked at his father’s side every day, but he had a gentle spirit and liked to chase butterflies and save worms from being trampled in the fresh turned earth. One day, when the vineyard belonged to his brother, he might work alongside him, or he might wander off down a new path, and find his heart on the other side of the mountain.

  When Desiderio was four years old, a baby was placed on his lap. “She will be your wife one day, Desi,” his mother said, with a smile on her face. “Her name is Angelica.”

  Desiderio cocked his head to one side and looked at Angelica. Angelica cocked her head to the other side and looked at Desiderio. He wrinkled his nose at her and shook his head, putting her on the ground and running away.

  Amadeo was three. When he saw Angelica for the first time, she stood with her back to him, pointing away toward Desiderio, crying. He ran to her as fast as his little legs would carry him and he put his arms around her and he said to her, “It’s okay. Desi will come back.”