Love Letters to the Dead

The night May died was after a movie night. Things were different with Billy that time. “You’re getting to be a big girl,” he had said. “Let’s try what big girls do.” It used to be that he would just want to touch me places. And then he’d want me to watch while he did something. But this night, he wanted me to do it. He said I couldn’t stop until it was done. I kept waiting for it to be done, but it seemed like it never would be. I couldn’t go anywhere else in my mind. All I could see was that, waiting for it to be over.

After, I was waiting outside the theater. Paul’s car pulled up, and May got out. Her breath smelled like liquor, and she looked like she had been crying. But when we got in the Camry, she tried her best to smile and turned up the music. She said let’s not go home yet. She said let’s go to our spot. And when I reached out to touch her arm, she stopped singing and turned to me.

She said, “Laurel, don’t ever let anything bad happen to you, okay?” She looked back at the road and said, “Don’t be like me. I want you to be better, okay?”

I swallowed and nodded. I didn’t know what to say. When we got to the bridge and crawled out into the middle, I looked at her. “May?” I said. “I’m scared.” I wanted her back.

“What are you scared of?” she asked.

“I—I don’t know.”

“Here,” May said. “Do you want to make a spell? Go get one of those flowers.”

I crawled across the bridge, and pulled one of the little blue flowers out of its crack, and brought it back to her. May pulled its petals off, one by one, and held them in her hand. “Beem-am-boom-am-witches-be-gone!” her voice slurred as she flicked her fingers, scattering the petals to the wind. She laughed a little and looked at me like she was searching for something.

I tried to smile back. But then I blurted out, “Billy says that I am going to be pretty like you.”

“What do you mean? When does he say that?”

“Just, just when you leave sometimes. When he—he takes me in his car with him.”

I could see her face change. She was scared. It made me even more terrified. She started crying. She grabbed on to me and held me too tight. “What happened, Laurel?” she whispered. “What did he do?”

“No. Never mind,” I said, desperate to push it away. “It’s okay.” I was grasping for anything to make her stop crying. I just wanted her to be magical again and protect me from everything. “May, remember? Remember when you could fly?”

She looked at me with a little smile. “Yeah,” she said softly. And then she stood up. She started to walk across the track, her arms out like make-believe wings. I kept looking for my voice. I wanted to call her name, but I was somewhere else. Not there, not all the way. And then—it’s like the wind blew her away from me. When I screamed, “May!” it was too late. She didn’t hear me. She was gone. She was gone already. “May! May!” I screamed her name over and over, but my voice was drowned out by the river.

When she went somewhere I couldn’t follow, I sat frozen. Waiting for her to come back. To come and get me. I heard the river like the sound of distant traffic, like the sound of the far-off ocean, same as ever. But no cars came. The road was as empty as a night sky without starlight.




Dear Kurt,

Aunt Amy is snoring now in the next room. After I got off the phone with Mom, she came in, and I was crying and crying. When I finally calmed down, she made me tea and tried to talk to me. I told her that I was just sad tonight and asked if I could go to bed. But I couldn’t actually sleep, so I wrote you letters. And then I didn’t know what else to do. The spring air was coming in through the window. It smelled just like it did the night she died, blossoms in the dark, new weather trying to break through the cold. I couldn’t be alone.

I picked up my phone and saw that I’d missed a call from Sky. I kept almost pressing the button to call back and then taking my finger away. But finally, I let it ring. I told myself there was nothing left to ruin.

It was late, midnight, but he picked up. “Hey,” he answered.

“Hi.”

“I was worried about you.”

“I kind of have to … I’m at my aunt’s and I just … I can’t be here right now. Could you come and get me?”

He paused a moment. “All right.”

So I crawled out the window, shivering in my sweatshirt, and waited for his truck to pull up. When I got in, Sky didn’t really look at me. He was staring straight through the windshield.

“Where do you want to go?”

“The old highway.” Right then, I knew I had to.

“Are you sure?” Sky asked.

I nodded yes.

So we turned onto the road, which I hadn’t been on since, except in my mind. I was breathing way too fast.

When we got by the bridge, I said, “Stop here.” I forced the door handle open and stepped out. I walked toward the edge of the bridge. I kept walking forward. I put one foot on the ledge. I held my arms out. The night was still. No wind. Nothing to push me one way or the other.