‘Will someone please turn off that beeping?’ I mentally plead as I slowly come into consciousness.
I try to move, but every joint in my body objects. I groan and lift my chin off my chest. My head weighs a ton.
Please, make the beeping stop.
I open my eyes. The bookcase fills my field of view.
Oh no.
I fell asleep in my office chair, waiting for that stupid sound. My back is in agony and there’s a wonderful spot of drool on my shirt. The beeping is coming from the living room. It’s the alarm on my phone.
Please, don’t tell me I’ve overslept! Not on Caitlyn’s first day of school. I’m going to have to drive her in, which will look great after meeting her teacher and her principal, yesterday.
I drag myself out of the chair and into the living room. I snatch my phone off the end table.
Thank God. I’ve only overslept by twenty minutes. It’s not the end of the world, but I need to wake up Caitlyn and get her ready.
I climb the stairs, trying to rub out the drool stain on my shirt.
As I stand outside her door, instead of her customary snoring, I hear her quietly talking.
“… Okay, now it’s my turn … What’s it like in there …? How cold …? Okay, your turn … No … No, I told you. I don’t know Rebecca …”
I’m tempted to sit here and listen because I want to know what she’s up to, but we need to get moving. I knock on the door and push it open.
“Caitlyn?”
She’s sitting at the vanity, in front of the mirror. She turns to me with startled eyes, like I’ve caught her red-handed, but I have no idea what she’s guilty of.
“Hey.” I look around the room. “Who you talking to?”
She continues to stare.
“You okay?” I ask through a stifled yawn.
“Yes.”
“Great. Let’s go. First day of school. I’m making pancakes.”
She shoots up, and runs past me into the hall. Her footsteps make a rapid-fire drumroll down the stairs.
There are dirty clothes hanging off the back of the chair of the vanity she just vacated.
“Caitlyn?” I call in exasperation, but she’s gone.
I walk over and collect the clothes from the chair. In the mirror, I can see the slightly open closet door on the other side of the room, directly behind me.
“Come on, Caitlyn,” I groan. “The basket is right in there.”
I carry the clothes halfway across the room and stop.
Hold on.
I turn, walk back to the vanity, and stand in front of the mirror.
I can still see the open closet door. I shouldn’t be able to, because I’m standing right in front of the mirror. There’s no reflection of me. It’s like I’m not here.
A ringing begins to build in my ears. My head starts to hurt and my eyes strain. The ringing grows deafening. Every other sound fades until all I hear is the high-pitched tone. I’m not there. In the mirror, the door to the closet begins to slowly swing open—
“Dad?”
I turn around. Caitlyn is standing in the doorway. The door to the closet is only slightly open, as before. The ringing has stopped.
“Am I getting pancakes or not?” she asks.
I look back at the mirror. There I am, my mouth open, holding the dirty clothes in my arms. I step to the side so that I can see the closet in the reflection. The door is only slightly open and there’s Caitlyn in the doorway, waiting for pancakes.
God, I’m tired. I look like I’m nursing a once-in-a-lifetime hangover.
“Sure,” I say, holding up the dirty clothes. “Just as soon as you figure out where these go.”
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” she says. She sheepishly takes the clothes from my arms, opens the door to the closet, and deposits them in the laundry basket.
“There. Now, can I have pancakes?”
“I don’t know. I think you’ve earned oatmeal.”
“I said I was sorry.”
“Oatmeal with raisins.”
Caitlyn rolls her eyes and makes mock puking sounds as she goes out into the hall and down the stairs.
I start to follow, but can’t help taking one more look in the vanity mirror from across the room.
My reflection is still there, wearing that stupid, puzzled stare.
*
Two helpings of pancakes later, I wave goodbye as the yellow bus rumbles away with Caitlyn onboard.
I was right to be worried last night. This is all hitting me harder than I thought it would. Between the lack of sleep, my mind seeing Nicole, and having to send Caitlyn off for her first day of school by myself, there’s no more denying that I’m not coping very well. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, but this is how it is. I can’t let Caitlyn see it. She’s going to have enough to worry about. I want her focusing on school and making new friends—not on her father, who is slightly losing it.
I’ll be fine.
The most important thing I can do now is try to establish a routine. It’s time to get to something normal. It’s time to write.
I go to the kitchen, pour myself another cup of coffee, and then, filled with equal parts excitement and anxiety, I head to the Writing Room.
Seconds later, I’m sitting at my desk, surrounded by the works of authors who have inspired me. There’s a beautiful view of Willow Lake outside the window and the endless possibilities of a blank page lie before me. My particular method is to write everything out longhand in notebooks. It makes editing a lot easier. I already know the plot. I know all the twists and turns that are going to keep the reader up late into the night. I’m about to begin. I crack my knuckles and take a breath. This is a moment to relish.
“Here we go …”
I sit there, gaping at the blank page …
… and I can’t write a damn word.
I use every trick in the book to get the juices flowing. I try starting in the middle of the chapter. That doesn’t work. I try stream of consciousness writing. Nothing gets me in the groove.
Eventually, I try to force it. For an hour, I clunk along like a car on square wheels. After another hour, I stop to read what I’ve written … What is this garbage? It’s all over the place. I kept mistakenly calling one of the main characters ‘Rebecca’, even though her name is Kristen. The prose is disjointed and confusing. It’s five pages of absolute drivel.
I curse and roll my neck, releasing a series of loud cracks. I really needed that sleep I never got last night. I get up, walk around, jump up and down, shake out my hands, sit back down, and try again. After another half an hour, I stop, go over what I’ve written … and drop the notebook on the desk.
“Okay. I guess it’s not happening today.”
I push myself away from the desk. I hate giving up like this, but I’ve got to take it easy on myself. It’s been months since I’ve tried to write. Of course, I’m rusty. These are new surroundings, a new book, and no Nicole. I’ll try again tomorrow.
This means that my day has now become regrettably open. If I’m not going to write, the only way to feel better is to take advantage of this beautiful morning.
*
Accompanied by my cup of coffee, I step barefoot off the deck onto the cool grass and walk down to the pier.
The wooden slats have been warmed by the sun. The surface of the pond is a sheet of murky glass.
I can’t have many more days like this. I need to crank out the book. No one knows that more than me, but for now, I’m going to stand here and sip my coffee.
As I stare out at the lake, standing at the end of the pier, my hand distractedly reaches inside the neck of my shirt and pulls out Nicole’s ring.
This day should have been hers. It was taken from her. It was taken from us. At the funeral, one of her friend’s husbands said that her death was part of God’s plan. If Caitlyn hadn’t been there, I would have hit him. Instead, I told him, ‘Well then, I guess God’s an asshole.’ Thankfully, Caitlyn didn’t hear that. Before Nicole’s death, I believed that there was a God, some sort of benevolent hand, watching over the world, guiding things, intervening with small miracles here and there but afterwards? No way. There’s no justification for what happened. None.
As I run my finger around the edges of Nicole’s ring, my eyes fall on the water below me off the end of the pier.
My finger stops.
What is that?
It … It has to be some kind of weed that’s floating to the surface.
I peer closer.
It’s not possible, and I know I’m really tired, but my first thought is, That looks like hair.
The tendrils continue to slowly rise.
It has to be a weed, right? But I swear to God, it looks like a blond hair is rising up out of the depth and any second, I’ll see a head …
Okay. I need to know what this is.
I lie down on my stomach and reach off the pier towards whatever is rising from the darkness below. I grunt as I strain. It’s only inches from my outstretched fingers.
I’m about to touch it when suddenly, it sinks, as if violently pulled back under by some unseen hand.
I’m so startled that I quickly pull my hand back and stand up to get away from it. There’s a light pressure on the back of my neck and a faint snap. I take deep breaths and instinctively put my hand onto my chest. I can feel my heart racing—wait … I can feel my heart. What I can’t feel is Nicole’s ring.
“No …”
I look down. Nicole’s ring and the chain are gone.
“No!”
Through my panic, I know what had to have happened.
As I was lying on the pier, the ring was dangling over the water. At some point, it must have slid between the wooden slats. When I stood, the ring couldn’t fit. The chain snapped, and now, Nicole’s ring is at the bottom of the lake.
Staring down at the cloudy water, I drop to my knees, bury my face in my hands, and begin weeping, uncontrollably.