Sophie looked up, rushing into my arms, but my gaze was locked on Wade across the room.
He stood, tall, strong, his uniform crisp and neat, dark and somber. He looked bigger, larger than life, invading every corner of the room with his jaw sharp, lips flat, eyes that cut through me, leaving me shaken. Sadie's arms were wound around his waist, her face buried in his chest, which was covered in medals, but he looked at me for a long moment, our souls tethered.
Sophie pulled away, and the tether snapped. "You're here," she breathed.
"I'm here. I'm always here."
His eyes hadn't left me — I could feel them on me like a flood light, exposing me, illuminating my pain. Sadie broke away from Wade and moved to hug me. I closed my eyes and held her, and he watched me still. I couldn't meet his eyes again, couldn't feel the weight of them, didn't want it. Didn't want to know what he wanted, what he thought. Not right now. I was resigned to never know.
I pulled back and looked her over, smiling gently as I opened my clutch and found my handkerchiefs, touching up her makeup with one. I pressed it into her palm when I was finished and gave another to Sophie.
"We'll survive today," I said, cupping Sadie's cheek, trying to convince myself just as much as them. "Today, this will be hard, to share our grief with everyone. But we will survive, and we'll survive whatever comes next."
The funeral director ducked quietly into the room. "It's time."
I nodded and straightened Sadie a little more, adjusting her blazer, moving to Sophie to smooth her hair and press a kiss to her cheek, and then only Wade was left. His Adam's apple bobbed, betraying the hardness of his face, his eyes burning with things left unsaid.
I looked away and ushered the girls out.
They sat next to their aunt, and I kept walking, planning to sit with my family, but he grasped my hand, sending a shock up my arm and to my heart, pulling me to a stop. His eyes told me he needed me, told me he was sorry, begged me as he sat and tugged my hand, and still, against all that I wanted, I took the seat next to him, my heart hammering and soul aching. Because I loved him, and that love destroyed me.
The warmth of his body transferred to mine as a friend of the family stood in at the podium and sang "The Only Living Boy In New York," one of Rick's favorites. But I wasn't relieved to have Wade there next to me. I wasn't comforted. I was confused about everything and nothing, the injustice of it all stifling me through the stiff collar of my dress, which suddenly felt too small, too tight.
Rick was gone, and he'd never come back.
Wade was back, but he may as well have been gone.
He took liberties, doing what he liked, taking what he liked when he liked it, rejecting me over and over again in between, and I let him.
I was a slave to my hope.
But I couldn't hang on any longer. I watched as it slipped through my fingers, fading to a pinpoint of light.
The singer finished and sat, marking my turn. The poem was in my purse, then between my fingers, then resting on a podium stand as I stood before the people who loved Rick, their eyes on me for words of comfort. But the eyes I felt the most were Wade's, like a stone tied around my ankle, dragging me down, down into the dark.
I looked down at the poem, took a breath, and willed myself not to cry.
* * *
Life is a walk,
A very long walk
That begins with a crawl,
A toddle and tumble.
But we walk on,
Sometimes to trip or fall,
Sometimes to run and laugh
Throwing our faces up to the sky
And our voices to the wind.
* * *
Friends come and go
Through the very long walk,
Our paths meeting,
Sometimes parting,
Sometimes meeting again,
Sometimes not.
But we weather the days we have
Finding comfort and joy
In togetherness.
* * *
When we meet the one,
The one to walk with us,
The one to hold our hand,
The one whose arms we fill
When the nights are cold,
The one to comfort
When their tears fall,
Trail of diamonds
On a porcelain cheek.
This is when we feel
The value of our lives.
* * *
We walk through the spring,
Our eyes on the long blades of grass
Reaching for the sun
The smell of life and beginnings
Filling up our souls;
* * *
We walk through the summer,
Lazy in the heat
Warmed by that sun
Which coaxed the blossoms from buds
Opening their petals to offer themselves
Freely, gladly;
* * *
We walk through the fall,
And the green leaves breathe their last
In a riot of color as they languish
The tree yawns and stretches bare branches
To sleep, just for a while;
* * *
We walk through the winter,
And the cold is bitter
The days of spring and life gone
The quiet deafening, a fog with no edges
But still we hold hands: it vanquishes our fear.
* * *
And when our walk is done,
The miles behind us,
A trail of footprints
Converging, parting;
When we look behind us
At all that has passed,
The ones we love,
What we leave behind,
What we cherish,
Is what makes our lives
Worth living.
Wade
Elliot didn't meet my eyes again, only folded up her paper and walked off the stage with her head down, though I willed her to look up, waiting for her to sit next to me so I could hold her, take her pain and press it against mine until they were the same. But as my fingertips tingled, imagining themselves against her skin, she kept walking, passing me by to sit in the pew behind me.
My body went rigid, every muscle tense from my jaw to my thighs, leaving my lungs empty. A professor from Columbia made his way to the podium to read an Emerson poem, my eyes on my father's coffin, more alone than I'd ever been in my life.
She didn't want me, didn't even want to be near me. I'd broken her, just as I feared, and now … now …
Nothing made sense. Not the things I wanted. Not the things I'd lost. Not the moment I found myself in or the moments to come. Not my uniform, scratching at my neck like a noose, and not the hard pew under me where hundreds of people had sat, saying goodbye to someone they loved for the last time.
I could feel the letter in the inside pocket of my jacket, resting against the backs of the medals I didn't feel like I'd earned pinned to my chest. That paper reminded me that I had one job left to do before I could find peace for a moment. And I needed peace before I succumbed to the war inside of me.
"Catch the Wind" was sung as my sisters sobbed silently beside me, but nothing could reach me through the veil. And when the song was through, it was my turn. I stood, walking up to the podium, keeping my eyes down as I teetered on the precipice of my anguish.