I had known Michael for three weeks and in those short weeks, I had kissed him, joked with him and then rejected him. Was it my fault he drowned? Nobody would ever know. In my heart, however, I would always feel the guilt of causing that young man so much despair that he went out into a storm to find peace of mind, but instead he found his death.
His family was inconsolable, understandingly so. Irma and Fred did everything they could to try to ease their pain. Irma had even called Father Williams to come out to the house to give them some spiritual guidance, to deal with their tremendous loss.
We never saw Michael’s broken body, but his mother did reveal to us that Michael had been in a fragile emotional state. He had lost his steady girlfriend in a car accident three months before their arrival in Virginia.
Personally, I was not surprised to hear about that because it was odd, in my opinion, that he had reached out to me in such a hurried fashion, with such passion and desperation. He was on a rebound from a relationship that was ended by fate. He was frantically searching for the love he had lost. I had temporarily fit into that role for him, subconsciously, and now I had to absolve myself from the guilt I felt for having fallen prey to his damaged soul.
I knew deep inside that Michael’s drowning was not an accident. I was the last one to see him alive and I understood his pain better than even I had wanted to admit. He had succumbed to his desperate need to be loved and he went to join his beloved, whom death had stolen from him without warning.
The Roberts family had to cut short their time with us, for obvious reasons. Following Michael’s tragic passing, they stayed long enough to make the arrangements with the local authorities and to pack up their RV. We didn’t see much of them, only at meals and only during the last few remaining days.
Fred had driven David and Bob to Hampton, to the coroner’s office, to finalize the papers and to arrange for Michael’s body to be sent back to Maryland, where they lived. We gave our words of sympathy to all of them and expressed our sincere condolences. I tried to stay clear of them as much as was possible. My guilt was difficult to hide.
They drove away on a bleak day, December 20th, two days before Larry and René were scheduled to come back into our lives.