The wind stopped all of a sudden. If I remember right, Benedict said that sometimes happens in the middle of a blizzard. Everything goes calm for a minute and that’s actually more dangerous than the storm because you drop your guard, you don’t keep your wits about you anymore.
I’m in front of Thomas’s house. It’s almost as clear now as on a sunny day. Just a few steps up, and then maybe my search will be over. I’ll find the kid bundled up under a blanket and everything’ll be nice and quiet in my head again. I’m scared to walk up. Better to stay in this exact moment, right before I know, while anything could still be possible, even if that’s just an illusion.
I know perfectly well that nothing’s the same anymore at this point—that he’ll be there or he won’t—and that’s got my head swimming. I know that feeling all too well. It’s like being on a tiny bike at the top of a hill that’s steeper than anything you’ve ever seen. It’s a drop that just keeps going down and down and down. You think that maybe you can stop but it’s too late already: there’s no stopping. And once you’ve fallen, you’ll remember everything, down to the last detail, for once you’ll have photographic memory. Every single thing in the background: snap, the mossy tree; snap, the calm sky; snap, the dog that’s come out barking.
I can remember it like yesterday: the blue gate the neighbors had at the end of the lane leading to the subdivision, so that it would feel like it was ours alone, even if all that held it shut was a cheap latch. I remember the paint peeling off and the bit of wood Mr. Gillis had knocked loose when he overshot his parking spot and his old Chevy jumped the curb. I remember walking down the lane, which was more of a dirt path, going past the Douglasses’ and my classmate Marisa Esposito’s front yard. I remember smiling when I saw her mother’s old dog dozing on the lawn and opening just one eye as I walked by. I also remember seeing that light pink Converse with a bit of the American flag across it. Lying flat, in the middle of the path, like a toy boat washed up on a beach. I remember wondering what that shoe was doing there all by itself and thinking that it looked like one of her shoes but without giving it much more thought, the sky was so blue and I felt so happy. But, at the back of my mind, the gears were already turning, trying to find an explanation for that abandoned thing. As I got closer to our yard, I realized that it wasn’t really all by itself—that, a bit farther off, against the side of the porch, there was the other shoe, still on its owner’s foot. A smooth child’s calf, a bit more tanned than the thigh, which looked awfully pale, and then, farther up, white shorts and a Pink Floyd T-shirt, her favorite band, like she always said. I remember wondering why she was lying there, on the ground, with her eyes staring off somewhere I couldn’t pinpoint.
You can push things away, but they’ll always come back to you, just like that. When I finally connected the dots, I was terrified, a sort of electric shock ran through me, from the bottom of my spine to the nape of my neck, and all it left behind was a void. I ran over to her body, I picked up her head, her soft blond hair like silk in my hands, I yelled her name to bring her back from the depths of hell, but it was too late.
I’ll open this door and it’ll still be too late. I’m only ever able to come after, when the worst has already happened.