I met her gaze with such earnestness that she knew I meant it. I didn’t say anything else. She nodded eagerly. I slipped the ring on her ring finger.

It was nearing the end of our first summer in the cabin, and we were both seventeen.

The End of Me

The smell of coffee lingers in the house, and besides that there is only silence. Tom left early to go meet with his friends, and in the massive emptiness of the house, I never heard him stir. I walk through the stillness. It feels so strange to be here, to be waking in a place that is not our home, and even more strange not to know how long we will stay or what the end will be. I should talk to Tom about that. I should tell him my diagnosis, go over how long he’s okay with us staying here.

I reach up and touch the knot on my head, and it feels as though it has grown overnight. Tom, in his kindness, still has not asked about it, but I’m sure he has noticed it. How could he not? And even you still have not asked, which is a relief to me, because I don’t know how much to tell you, if anything. I feel weary, although I don’t know if it’s from the illness or from the long night or from yesterday’s drive. It could be anything, I suppose, though it is hard not to see the end of me in all these small changes.

I walk the winding hallways in search of your room, and at first I can’t find it. I somehow end up on the second floor, in a room with large picture windows that face the lake. There is a large couch and a few plants in the room. Who waters the plants? Who cares for the home? Tom must have help, maybe a maid, some cleaners. I walk over to the large window and look out at the water. The far side of the lake isn’t visible, even from the second level, and a stiff autumn breeze rustles up narrow whitecaps all across the blue-green skin of the water.

She Went Under

Did I grab Shirley by the shoulders after passing John to her? Did I shout my questions at her, or did they come out in desperate whispers? Some memories are forever lost to us.

“Mary? Where is Mary?”

Shirley shook her head, tears falling, so I asked, “Where were you?”

“By The Point,” she whispered.

“Did she jump?”

But Shirley was crying into Johnny’s neck, and his little arms were flailing.

“Shirley,” I said again.

“No, she didn’t jump. She . . . fell in.”

Even in the chaos of that moment, I recognized the unnatural pause between “she” and “fell.”

“Where is she?” I asked, feeling the edge of something frantic beating in my chest, throbbing its way up the veins in my throat.

“We don’t know,” she sobbed. I could barely understand her. “We don’t know. She went under.”