Page 6 of Haunt Me

I press my ear near her mouth.

Nothing.

I press my hand against her chest, careful at first, then firmer, searching for movement, for rhythm, for anything I can recognize.

Nothing.

“No, no, no.”

I don’t know when I start rocking her. I just am. Holding her against me, rocking in the snow beside the creek with my mouth pressed to her temple and my hand tangled in her hair.

“Come back,” I whisper. “Come back to me. Please. Please, Raven.”

There’s no answer.

Not from her.

Not from God.

Only the water moving beside us as if nothing happened.

Like my whole life didn’t just end in my arms.

I pull her closer, too close maybe, but I can’t stop. I need her against me. I need the shape of her there. I need one more second where I can pretend holding her is the same thing as keeping her.

Snow gathers on my shoulders. On the blanket. On her hair. I brush it away because she hates being cold. Because some part of me still thinks that matters. Because I don’t know what the hell else to do.

My chest heaves, but the air doesn’t reach anything useful. It only goes in and out of me because my body’s too stupid to understand there’s no point.

Her body’s still warm. Her face is still soft. She still smells like vanilla.

And she’s gone.

The thought doesn’t fit inside me. It hits and slides off, hits again, slips somewhere deeper, comes back worse.

Gone.

“No,” I roar as I bend over her, and the sound that comes out of me does not feel human. It tears up from somewhere low, from some place grief has been waiting with its mouth open, and once it starts, I can’t stop it.

I say her name. Over and Over. Like if I say it enough, she’ll get tired of hearing me and open her eyes.

But she doesn’t.

The creek keeps moving. The snow keeps falling. The world goes on around us, cruel and quiet and unchanged as I hold my wife in my arms and understand, slowly, horribly, that this is the first moment of a life I don’t want.

The first breath after hers.

The first second after Raven.

I don’t move.

I can’t.

Because the second I stand, the second I carry her back, the second I let anyone else touch her, this becomes real in a way I’ll never be able to undo.

So, I stay there with her at the edge of the creek. With my arms wrapped around her, her hand over my heart.

Samuel