by Sarah Daltry
“Evelyn? That’s a pretty name,” Lily says.
“They spelled it wrong. Her name was Eveline.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
I take her hand. “It’s okay. It’s just a stone. She doesn’t care what some person carving a memorial calls her. She’s long gone.”
Lily squeezes my hand and I step closer. I let go of her and bend down by my mom’s grave.
“Hey, Mom,” I say.
Lily kneels down next to me and puts her hand on my back. It’s weird. No one has ever been here with me when I’ve talked with my mom – and I’ve never wanted anyone here. Alana always keeps her distance, but with Lily, it feels good. Because Lily is my moving on.
“Mom, do you remember the craft fair? I’ve been thinking about that lately. You told me it was okay to ask for help. Do you remember? Last time I was here, I did. I asked for your help, but nothing happened. I thought you’d left me. I thought you didn’t care.” I take a deep breath, trying not to let the hurt interfere with what I want to say. “But you know what? It took a little longer than I’d hoped, but there’s this girl, Mom. Lily. She’s right here. Do you see her?”
“Hi Eveline,” Lily whispers. Her voice disappears on the wind.
“I needed you, Mom. I needed you so many times growing up. You were never there. After you died, I needed you even more. Sometimes I was angry, but mostly I just wanted to know why. I wanted to know why I wasn’t important enough to you. Why you wanted to be high more than you wanted to be my mom. It really hurt.”
The weakness and the darkness are both crushing me, but I focus on Lily’s hand on my back and the words I need to say. Tears land in the snow and sizzle as I speak.
“I came here every weekend. Every holiday. Just wanting an answer. Why didn’t I matter? Would I ever matter? And I know you can’t tell me, but I believe you regret it, Mom. I do. I believe you would do it differently this time around. Because I have to believe that. I have to think it so I can get up every day, so I can put one foot in front of the other.
‘I asked you for help. I don’t know if you had anything to do with Lily coming back. But she did. And she told me something earlier today. She said sometimes the things we hang onto are the things that hold us back.
‘I’m tired, Mom. I am so fucking tired. I’m tired of the anger and the resentment and the doubt and the fear. I love you. I can’t help loving you and I’ll always love you. But I’m going away. I know you’re not really here anymore anyway, but I wanted to tell you. Just in case. I’ll still come by when I can, but I’m looking ahead of me now. I’m going to live my life. I hope it’s a life you’d be proud of, but even if it isn’t, it will be mine.”
I stand up and brush myself off. Lily joins me; she’s crying, but she hasn’t spoken or moved. I look at my mother’s tombstone one more time and breathe in the night. I’ve never been an active participant in a goodbye. People usually just leave me and it feels surreal to be doing the leaving. It also feels liberating.
Reaching into my pocket, I find what I took out of my desk. I bend down one more time and place the cotton ball snowman on the grave. It’s worn after more than a decade. I never got rid of it, always keeping that memory as the one thing my mom did for me and the one thing she taught me. But now, I realize she taught me plenty and the snowman is just a thing. Besides, I’d rather give it to her, to show her that, regardless of what that teacher said, she’s still my mom. And no matter how much she fucked things up, I will always love her just the same.
“I love you, Mom. Goodbye.”
****
After the cemetery, there’s just one last thing I want to share with Lily. She’s been far more than I ever expected and I can’t believe how much I love her. Still, it’s frightening to me, because she can’t be this right. Nothing has ever been this easy and this right – and I just keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. But until it does, I want to savor everything about her.
“Hey. Would you mind doing one more thing?” I ask.
“Sure. What is it?”
“It’s just something I want to show you. I’m not sure I can explain it.”
“Lead on. Anything that matters to you matters to me.”
From the cemetery, it’s a short drive to where I want to take her. On the edge of town, by the old railroad tracks, there’s a small cliff edge that hides behind a group of trees. Growing up, I came out here a lot, because it was the one place that was all mine. I never shared it with anyone. Not Alana, not my grandmother. I needed a place for me alone. It’s strange that I’ve never seen another person here, but I’m glad I haven’t. Maybe the trees deter them, although when they’re bare in winter as they are now, the cliffside is more evident. Whatever the reason, though, it’s a small piece of the world that belongs only to me and I love it.
The snowstorm we had a few days ago has blanketed the ground in a soft white. There are only a few inches, but it muffles our footsteps. As we get out of the car, Lily looks around, but doesn’t ask any questions. I take her mittened hand, the rough yarn between her soft skin and my own. Something about her mittens, blue and old fashioned, makes me fall more in love with her. She’s such a perfect girl, but she’s so happy to be a part of my life. I can’t get it over it, but I’ll fight to keep her in it.
I lead her through the trees. A small clump of snow falls from a branch overhead and hits her in the face. She brushes it off.
“Sorry,” I say.
“Why?”
“I’m sure that was unpleasant.”
I clear the remnants of snow from her face and she smiles at me.
“It was fine. Woke me up a little.”
We keep walking and, when we break through the trees, I stop. There is little room to move, but the view still stuns me. In the valley under the cliff, the river runs cold, but the soft sounds of it echo up here. I look up and the moon is glowing, a giant orb of light shining over the snowy landscape. Dark clouds swirl around it, making it look like something fresh off an oil painting, but the moon is too bright to be swayed by a few wisps of cloud cover. Breathing deep, I can smell the freshness of the fallen snow along with the old pine that permeates the forest.
I say nothing as I sit down, knowing the snow is going to soak through my jeans, but I don’t mind. Lily doesn’t react – she just sits beside me. She pulls her knees up to her chest, hugging them close to her with her mittened hands.
Nearly twenty minutes pass in silence. It’s a beautiful silence, the kind of silence that you only share with someone who knows you and who gets you. At one point, Lily takes off one of her mittens and holds my hand between her knees. She doesn’t look at me, she doesn’t speak, and she doesn’t move otherwise. Instead, we just sit, listening to the river and looking at the moon. I feel so much love for her in this moment, although as we approach the twenty minute mark, I’m worried about what she’ll say, what she’ll think. What if she says the wrong thing? Will it break the power this place has over me? Will I feel disappointed that she doesn’t understand empathically why it’s important? Should I have told her something about it before I brought her here?
I squeeze her hand and break the silence by kissing her. She lowers her knees and wraps her arms around my neck. She grows more passionate in the kiss and pulls me down on top of her. I don’t want anything more from her. Not here. This isn’t the place. She seems to get that and her hands don’t move from my neck. I imagine the ground must be cold and I break away from the kiss, lifting her to me, so her back won’t get cold.
“The ground is freezing,” I say.
“And wet,” she replies.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s beautiful. Thank you so much for bringing me here.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. This secretive little part of the world, tucked away here, undiscovered? It’s like our own little square of the universe, a square reserved for no one else. I’m honored you felt I was worthy of it.”
; She gets it.
“I love it here. I first found it in a fit of depression, thinking I would throw myself into the river, let it wash me away and no one would ever find me. But the silence and the beauty of it just seemed too pure to be corrupted like that.”
“Was that before or after-”
“Before. Usually, this place was enough to stop me, but I can’t deny that sometimes, the darkness is too much to bear.”
She takes my hand again. “Jack, promise me something?”
“I promise.”
“You don’t even know what it is.”
I look at her, meeting those stunning eyes. Everything about her is beautiful. “I will do anything for you, princess. I love you. Truly.”
“Fine, but promise me that if the darkness comes back-”
“It won’t.” I’m lying, but I still feel ashamed of it and I don’t want her to feel obligated to love me.
“Okay, but if it does, remember this moment? Remember the moon. Remember the whisper of the river. Remember the way that the snow felt against your skin and how there is so much hope in this place. Remember that – and come back if you must. But remember how beautiful life can be – and remember that I love you and I want to experience life with you, in all its beauty and darkness equally.”
“You’re perfect, you know.”
She shakes her head. “No. I’m not. But you make me feel like I am. And I love you for it.”
“You really love it here?” I ask.
She nods. “I really love it here. It’s the perfect place for you. And for us.”
I kiss her again, because she knows exactly what to say. We begin getting a little more energetic in our embrace and I worry about sleeping with her here. I don’t want to change this place and what it means, and I don’t want to change tonight for her. If, someday, things fall apart between us, I would hate for a night like this to have a heavy sadness over it.
“It’s so hard not to touch you,” I tell her.
She stands and brushes herself off. “I know.”
Lily walks to the edge of the cliff and looks down. “The river is speaking.”
I walk over to her and wrap my arms around her. “Yeah? What’s it saying?”
“That I’m the luckiest girl alive.”
I lean down and breathe her in. She still smells like strawberries and, after all this time, it still both breaks my heart and makes me believe in a future. I want her bad, but I want to leave here first. I want this place to remain pure like this. I whisper in her ear, “Want to head back? I need all of you.”
She turns around. “I’m happy to give it,” she says and smiles. She slips her mitten back on and takes my hand. We walk to the tree line, but she stops before we leave the cliff for good. She doesn’t say anything, just closes her eyes and breathes deep for a few seconds. Then, without a word, she steps forward into the trees and the magic slowly fades. Soon, we’re back at the car.
Lily gives me the keys and climbs into the passenger seat. I get in and wait for the heat to kick on. She shivers, her breath fogging the windows. She takes off her mitten again and draws a giant heart in the glazed glass.
“I love you,” I say, mostly to myself.
She writes in the heart. I love you, Jack. For always. Then she puts on the mitten, puts her hand on my knee, and faces me.
“Now show me,” she says.
I start the car and we head back to my house, still quiet and remembering the evening. Something stands out and, in the driveway, I turn again to Lily.
“You didn’t even take a picture,” I say.
“Did you think I should?”
“No. I mean, it’s just … everyone always takes pictures. Of everything.”
“Why do you always assume I’ll do whatever everyone else does?” She’s not mad, just curious.
“I don’t know, honestly. You haven’t yet. You surprise me every single time.”
“So stop doubting me, okay? I trust you. I trust you fully and I have complete faith in us. You should, too.”
I look down and think about it. She’s right. I’ve been looking for a problem, wanting her to be wrong somehow, because the month I spent without her was harder than anything since losing my mom. It’s like I’ve been attempting to insulate myself in case it happens again, but there is no us if I can’t let it go. And I want there to be an us with every ounce of myself.
“Okay,” I tell her, “but if you want to take a picture next time we go, I won’t judge you.”
“I don’t take pictures very often. They don’t mean anything, really. They’re just more things.”
“They can be mementos,” I say.
“Sure, but memories work just as well.”
“I’m glad, but sometimes people like to remember.”
“I’ll remember tonight for the rest of my life. Fondly. And no picture could ever do it justice. Besides, taking a photo would have removed me from the moment – and I wanted to be as present as I could. Is that weird?”
I hug her and kiss the top of her head. I cannot believe, even still, just how much she gets of me. “No. It isn’t weird. It’s like everything else with you. Perfect.”
“You put a lot of pressure on me, you know,” she says. “It’s not possible to be perfect.”
I see it in her. There’s fear. This girl is the world for me and she’s afraid she won’t be enough. It’s amazing to see that doubt in her eyes, not because I want her to doubt herself or us, but because she is so incredible – and yet she makes me feel normal. Right.
“Perfect to me?” I correct. “Because I can’t lie to you, Lily. Everything about you is everything I could ever want. I know we’ll change, grow up, learn new things about each other. But you make me want to share it all with you.”
She leans in to me and puts her mittened hand in mine. “I love you, Jack.” I kiss the top of her head, which smells, of course, like strawberries. Hell. This beautiful, perfect girl. I will never have enough of her.
Tonight, I want to make love to her in a way I haven’t yet. Because now she has all of me – and the fact that I trust her with it is something both new and thrilling. The anger I feel, the hatred of my father, the misery at many of the things that have happened in my life? Well, they aren’t gone. Life isn’t that simple. But with Lily, the road ahead arcs toward the horizon and, at the end of it, I see myself growing older, being a man, being someone I can feel proud of being. I don’t want to pretend that there won’t be nights when I won’t be able to break free of the sudden onsets of depression that don’t fade just because you fall in love. However, I look to them now no longer as a guarantee that life is nothing but darkness, but instead as small obstacles in the way.
I hold Lily close to me in the car and the heater whirs as we embrace. It’s not salvation to love her, but it’s pretty damn close.
The End