Not panicking, not yelling for help yet, not attempting to find a pulse. I can’t bring myself to touch skin that may have already blistered and loosened, blisters that may have already burst, flies that may have already laid hundreds of eggs apiece in open sores, and if the eggs have hatched, thousands of maggots already feeding.

Is this something that’s mapped on my time line now? An irrevocable, unwanted No?

His legs are bare. The side of his neck is exposed too. It’s all gray. Violet gray. His neck is contorted. All wrong. The contortion and the color and the smell assure me there’s no point in attempting revival. Contortion and stench: more than enough. His arms and face are obscured by fat leaves and broken branches, by soil acidic enough to turn hydrangeas baby blue. Violet petals hover above and beside Nick’s remains. Perfect blooms, having peaked, are already dying. Soon, they will be decay too.

(“How did you know it was him, Bobby?”)

I recognize that gray sweatshirt, those shorts. Ankle socks stretched tight by bloat and stained by putrid fluids. One sneaker knotted to one foot. I glance up, knowing what to look for now, and I see the reflector strip, the loose lace: the shoe stuck in my gutter.

(“I stood there for two seconds that felt like ten minutes. Time stood still.”)

What happened here? Everyone will want to know. How did this happen? they’ll ask about my house, my yard, my watch. This isn’t my fault. I didn’t even want him here, as a matter of fact. I wanted him out of my life forever.

“Shit,” I hear myself say out loud. Shit.

Believing he was facing his mother’s fate, he chose his father’s fate instead.

He jumped.

This doesn’t have a thing to do with me, nothing to do with me. He was depressed. He was a train wreck, this kid. (“Lost cause. Hole in his soul.”) We did our best, and really, I tried to help him. Whatever conversations we may have had only confirmed what he already knew—that he’s genetically predisposed to a malady, that’s all—and anyway, the conversation was between us, so it’s irrelevant. If he told someone, if he made me sound bad somehow, I’ll lie. His word against mine. There’s no paper trail.

Shit.