Municipally-owned land, never cleared and developed for building, a sprawling rectangle that encompasses several acres. Behind houses on Black Rock Street above the river, a narrow strip of land between private property and the river; at the dead end a wooded area crisscrossed with dirt paths, overgrown with brambles and wild rose, poison ivy and sumac. In underbrush near the street there are litter, debris, a filigree of rotted newspaper, leaves. Skeletal remains of once-living things like squirrels, birds. You smile to see familiar dirt paths through the underbrush, unchanged since the last time you were here.

Following one of the paths toward the river. Steep dizzy drop to the river below.

It’s a clear-sky day, the Niagara River is slate-blue. Dark rushing water churning as if alive.

On the farther shore the cliff is exposed shale. Appearing wet, glistening. Staring from the window of the room you’d shared with your sister thinking there’d been rain, a recent shower, but no, just sunlight on sharp-edged rock.

Bramble bushes catch at your legs, clothes. More litter on the ground than you recall. Partially burnt logs, scorched grass. Discarded beer cans, bottles. Lionel tosses down an emptied can for why not?—already so many.

Fascinating how this path remains, maintained by generations of children, teenagers. Anonymous. Adults know nothing of such places hidden from (adult) view: vacant lots, tumbled-down trees, storm debris, ancient litter, rot.

Broken plastic, Styrofoam, mangled and rusted remains of a bicycle—some of this trash might have been here when you were a girl. For who would remove it?

If you were to move back to South Niagara, you think. To live with your mother. Take care of your mother who needs you. Take care of your brother who needs you. Early evenings when you’d drift to the dead end on Black Rock Street. Needing to be alone. In love with loneliness, melancholy.

Happiness is not reliable. Melancholy is reliable.

Below, a steep drop to the riverbank. Mostly rubble, sharp-looking rocks, construction debris—chunks of cement, rusted cables. If suddenly you need to escape, you are thinking. This is the only route.

Dangerous, treacherous. You have not climbed down the (partly eroded) path in fifteen years.

High above the river hawks are rising on drafts of invisible air. Gliding downward on fantastically widespread wings. Such grace, beauty. Sparrow hawks with scaly clawed feet, stabbing predator beaks.

Is it possible that Lionel has already finished the second can of beer. He is drinking compulsively, with an air of impatience, anger. Cracks open the third without, this time, thinking of offering even a sip to his sister-companion.

Saying suddenly, with an air of wonder as if the sight of the languid hawks has stirred him: “It wasn’t Jerr. People wondered. They thought it had to be him but it wasn’t. It was me.”

“What do you mean?”—you have to ask. Though a chill has passed over you, you know exactly what Lionel means.