Love Letters to the Dead

I brought the book into my room with the bookmark still in it. I read that poem again and again, and I knew somehow you’d marked it for me to see. I knew I was supposed to find it. May, I carry you in me.

Still, it doesn’t change how much I miss you. Every time something happens, any little thing, I wish that I could tell you about it. Sky and I got back together. Sometimes my mind races, and I worry about what will happen after next year, when he leaves for college. But I try to take a deep breath and stay where I am. I have my first job this summer, at the city pool snack bar. My friends Natalie and Hannah come to meet me sometimes when I get off late in the afternoon. Hannah reads magazines and Natalie draws and we all drink Cokes and eat Goldfish. They don’t ever get in, but I love to swim like I always did. I love how you can push water away and it always comes back. I run into Janey there sometimes, too. You’d be surprised if you could see her now. She comes with her boyfriend and wears a pink and white polka-dot bikini. It was awkward at first, because she was mad at me for disappearing on her after you died. But it’s getting better. Now she’ll sometimes come over and sit with me and Natalie and Hannah. Today, we were talking about the time when you taught us to flip off the diving board. We were both terrified until you made it look so easy.

I wrote all of these letters for school this year, and it helped me a lot. When I finally gave them to my teacher (I left them in her mailbox at school), she called me to say she was proud of me for handing them in. I thanked her for reading them. Then she said that I needed to get help to deal with all of it. But I told her Mom and Dad already started making me see this therapist. The therapist is actually nice, and she talks to me like I am smart. I’d told Mom what happened when she got back from California, and after that Mom told Dad. “I’m sorry we let you down, Laurel,” he said. “I’m sorry we let your sister down, too.” He looked like someone had shot him in the heart. I just hugged him. I didn’t know what else to do.

May, I realize this now—it’s not that I shouldn’t have tried to tell you about Billy. It’s that I should have told you sooner, and maybe then you could have told me things, too, and neither of us would have ever had to go back there. I think that if you were still here, we could have helped each other. I think that you would have walked away from the ledge you were on, and everything bright in you would have kept glowing. I can’t bring you back now. But I forgive myself. And I forgive you. May, I love you with everything I am. For so long, I just wanted to be like you. But I had to figure out that I am someone, too, and now I can carry you, your heart with mine, everywhere I go.

Today I decided I had to do something. I knew it was time. After I went through your room, I went to find Dad, who was listening to baseball like usual. He turned down the volume right away when I walked in.

I asked, “How are the Cubs doing?”

“Three games out of first. Cross your fingers for us.”

I smiled and showed him that my fingers were actually crossed. Then I said, “Dad?”

“Laurel?” he teased.

“I want to scatter May’s ashes.”

He was not expecting this. He swallowed. “Oh.” And then he tried to recover. “Well. What were you thinking?”

“I think in the river.”

I know I could have saved your ashes to put into the ocean, but I wanted you to have the journey, all the way with the currents, to the open sea. And I know that when I finally get to see the waves washing on the shore, to hear them, I will feel you there.

Dad said, “Okay. I think that’s a nice idea.”

“Can we go?” I asked.

“Right now?” His voice jumped.

I nodded. “And we have to go get Mom.”

Dad swallowed. “Okay,” he said, and he got up, the baseball game still murmuring in the background.

I called Mom at Aunt Amy’s house, where she’s still staying. When I told her we were coming, she didn’t argue, or ask any questions even. She just said, “Okay.” Aunt Amy was out for the afternoon with this guy Fred who she met at her church. He’s really nice, much better than the Jesus Man. I nicknamed him Mister Ed in my mind, because he has long white hair that he wears in a dignified ponytail and a horse nose.