CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Angelique:
In my mind Ia€?m walking through a foreign city, following a lifeline that drifts through thick, choking clouds, each step leading me closer to some new understanding. Sometimes I unconsciously go too fast, and everything begins to spin out of control. Too much information tries to process at the same time.
Then, in the midst of it all, I suddenly realize that the missing pieces have been erased by me. On purpose. Apparently ita€?s all part of the picking and choosing of our afterlife memories.
But I got rid of the wrong things.
One image flashes before me, beautiful and fleeting and incomplete.
My son, Joshua.
Ita€?s immediately followed by an emptiness that I cana€?t quite grasp. Pain settles in my bones like a long-forgotten war wound, something that causes me to limp when the weather gets cold. But I can no longer distinguish it from the myriad shards of shrapnel still buried somewhere, waiting to be discovered like a carefully planned minefield.
Maybe I did something wrong, made him angry. Maybe we disagreed about something important, and he stormed away to a far corner of the universe. Ia€?ll never know because I tried to wipe it away.
Isabelle reminds me of him. I didna€?t realize it until now. I cana€?t quite figure out if ita€?s her eyes or her smile, maybe ita€?s everything put together. But right now I can see his face superimposed on top of hers. His life taped to hers like a paper-doll cutout.
I lie on the bed and wish I could sleep. The morning will come too quickly. The world will tip on its side, daylight will pour in the window and all my past sins will be revealed, like evidence beneath a microscope.
My body forces me to rest. But it is the uneasy rest of a convict, waiting for the verdict. Waiting for the moment when the executioner is going to walk through the door and demand payment.