The bridge looks at least a hundred years old, probably more. Does the Department of Transportation even inspect unused bridges? I wonder. I probably should have checked that before climbing out onto the crumbling old death trap. But I want to walk across it. I want to conquer my fear. I stand at the edge of the bridge. The wood planks of the tracks and the bricks beneath them appear solid. And the iron handrails seem sturdy. But, as always, my radar is up and running, looking for faults.
The river rushes below, green and frothing and murky, but not as deep as the mighty Mississippi, the river Dad’s bridge collapsed into on that horrible day. I have to remind myself that this is not that river. The periphery of my vision closes in until it’s all a blur and little dots appear. I grasp the iron bar with my slick palm and close my eyes.
I can do this, I say to myself. I can just hurry across and back and then I’ll have conquered my fear. Kasey will be so proud of me.
The tracks run down the middle of the bridge. I take one tentative step on the worn, gray planks, then another.
A bird squawks from its perch in a tree on the river bank. My legs ignore my brain’s directions and go limp; I collapse into a squat. “Go away, bird!” I say into my palms.
I practice my box breathing: four counts in, hold for four, four counts out, hold for four. The problem is that I know too much. This railroad bridge could have a design flaw similar to the one that led to Dad’s bridge collapse. The bricks could be too old or so worn that they might crumble when too much weight is on the bridge and drop everything above it into the river. When Dad died, the reports said the additional weight of construction vehicles on the bridge “contributed to the collapse, creating a catastrophic failure.” Catastrophic was right, but why did it have to be Dad? It was my fault after all: I could have asked for a ride home from practice from someone else, and then he wouldn’t have been on the bridge when it collapsed.
Lucia, don’t go there. Stop thinking about that, I chide myself. Refocusing my attention to this bridge, I let out a long breath. Can I do this? Almost immediately, my mind circles back to Dad’s bridge, with its piers and longitudinal deck stringers and reinforced concrete pavement and transverse expansion joints. I put my hands over my ears. After the collapse the city brought in Navy divers and used sonar to find the submerged cars. The governor showed up, and it took thirteen hours to find the thirteen people who died. One was Dad.
That bridge is gone, just like Dad.
I need to move on because the rest of my life is not in the past, it is ahead of me. I take a breath and slowly stand. The hazy sky, riverbanks, and iron supports whirl around me. A whimper makes its way up my throat, and tears well up in my eyes.
Not today, bridge, not today.
Carefully I put my hand on the bridge’s iron handrail. Mist rises from the river. If my legs would just stop shaking I could get back over the barrier, back to solid land and safety. A creak sounds behind me and a chill passes like a cold hand on my neck. I sense something behind me.
My heart pounds. It’s only the mist, I remind myself. I’ve been on this bridge more than long enough. My feet stumble on top of each other as I race back to the edge of the bridge. Before I know it I’m back to the barrier. I throw myself over it onto solid ground.
I need to sit somewhere and chill before I head home. I walk around the barrier and down the grassy embankment to a large stone a few feet from the water. The river’s not scary when you’re just next to it, on solid land.
The stone is still warm from the sun. Under the bridge, someone has written something on a faded patch of bricks.
Annie + Alex 2gether 4ever.
How cute. I roll my eyes and lean forward. There are more names.
Isobel & Henry = love is written in red.
And there, to the right, in white spray paint: Kasey-n-Drew r tru.
Kasey! I picture her coming here with Drew, spraying their names on the bridge.
My eyes lose focus as I stare at each of the names. I shift my gaze to the river, hoping to steady my vision. All of a sudden the water seems to reflect something—a face. A skull.
I pull my glasses off my face and try to rub the image of the skull out of my eyes. Wow, I have really freaked myself out this time.
Above me, someone is climbing over the barrier. I slide my glasses back on.
“Hey!” I call. “Patricia!”
“Lucia?” she says. “What are you doing here?”
“Me?” I say as I scramble up the grassy slope. “Just checking out this cool old bridge.” I try to sound upbeat, like it doesn’t scare the color right out of my face.
“Some say it’s haunted,” Patricia says.
“Haunted?” I keep my voice level.
“By Billy Jones.”
“Billy Joel, the singer?”
Patricia sighs. “Funny. Obviously not, as it happened in 1880. His girlfriend dumped him, so he jumped, and now his ghost haunts the bridge.”
My slippery hand rests casually on the barrier. “There’s an actual ghost?”
Patricia nods.
“You really believe that?” Should I tell her about the skull?
“Yeah, people have seen it. Not only that, but Billy also supposedly cursed the place when he jumped. Don’t ever come out here at night.”
“And here I was planning a midnight picnic.” We turn to head back to the house together. “Wait, I thought you were going to work.”
“The store was dead, no big coupons this week, so I left a little early and had Tony pick me up.”
“Is something wrong with your car?”
“Yeah, but it’s just the fuel pump. Tony will fix it; he’s good with cars.”
Walking alongside her down the road, I think of the names under the bridge. Annie + Alex 2gether 4ever. I picture the tall girl with the turquoise hair from my art class, a junior who did a watercolor of a bunch of hearts. “Is Annie still dating Alex?” I ask.
“Yeah,” Patricia says. “They say they’ll be together forever, even though they’ve only been together for two months.” When we get to the porch she says, “See on you on the flip flop,” and goes into her side of the duplex.
It isn’t until I am boiling water for another chai that it occurs to me: if the bridge is so creepy and haunted, what was Patricia doing there?