Birthday(63)
Morgan,
Happy eighteenth birthday, my love.
I’ve been a bit selfish, leaving you these little time bombs. The thing is, the scariest part of dying isn’t what might happen to me when I’m gone—I don’t know what I believe, except that the universe is fundamentally good under all the hurt and misunderstanding, and there must be more to all of us than our flesh and blood. No.
What keeps me up at night, and what has pushed me to leave you these yearly reminders, is a simple fear of being left behind. Imagine those nights, as I’m sure you’ve had by now, when you find out your friends have gone out without you, or kept some important part of their life from you. Now multiply that as much as you care to. It hurts, the idea that life can go on without you, that all the private mysteries will keep growing like gardens behind an iron wall, especially when the lives in question are the people most important to you. Not that you or your father would ever forget me, of course! I don’t doubt that for a second. But … I don’t know. I’m at a loss for words. You must remember how rare that is for me.
Listen. No more presents or surprises. You’ve grown too far past the child I know for me to guess what you might want. All I have is this, and these will be my last words to you:
Wherever I am, whatever else I’m doing, you’re in my thoughts. Always. Whatever seeds you plant will have my eye on them. Whatever plans you make I’ll cheer for you. Whatever kind of person you become, no matter how different from my daydreams, I will treasure you. No matter how lonely you ever have felt, I’ve been there, and no matter how dark things may get as you grow older, I’ll be there as well. You are my favorite person in the world and the thing I am proudest of.
Love you forever,
Mom
I hold the letter to my chest and lean against the window. Far below us Nashville disappears, until all I can see are suburbs and then the rolling green mountains. Then we’re in the clouds and I wonder if she’s watching me right now, if it really is that cliché and heaven is an invisible kingdom in the sky.
I press a hand to the window and imagine Mom’s hand pressed to the other side, her in a white robe with wings and a halo giving me a corny thumbs-up, wishing me luck and whispering her approval of Eric. It’s stupid but it’s also comforting.
More likely, and more complicated, is the thought that she’s just gone, and that this letter is the last part of her I’ll ever see or touch, and the only afterlife she or anyone ever gets is the ripples their lives make in the world around them—heaven in the hearts of those who live on, love branching out like roots in an old-growth forest.
The ground finally disappears completely behind the clouds. I close my eyes and count down the hours until I can tell all of this to the boy I love, the boy who’s waiting for me in paradise.
ERIC
I stop playing guitar for a moment to jot down lyrics and tabs in my pocket notebook, and I’m so absorbed in making sure everything’s just right that I barely register the sound of brakes squeaking at the edge of the yard.
It’s a busy neighborhood, with neighbors constantly changing, so at least once a week some new person drops by to see if an old friend or relative still lives at this address. I swing in the breeze and scribble away, tongue poking from the side of my mouth.
But then a familiar voice hits me. I sit up so fast the hammock shoots out from under me and I tumble onto the porch, just barely managing not to smash my guitar.
“Here,” she says, and I’m certain it’s her voice, but is it? It’s changed so much from how it was, and I’ve only heard it through phones and computer speakers.
I clamber to my feet and just make out a taxi rumbling at the edge of the driveway. Two silhouettes rummage in the open trunk. They pull out a suitcase and a backpack and the smaller of the two figures takes both. I try to remember to breathe.
“Okay. Yeah, I’ve got it from here. Thanks again.”
She grunts as she lifts the suitcase and in a few small steps she’s within the light cast from our porch, this girl from the taxi.
And it’s her.
She’s here.
No satellites pulling her into pixels, but here in the fluttering light, her dark hair spilling over her shoulders, her eyes glittering midnight lakes, her body in a Brides of Dracula tank top and denim jean shorts. She’s transformed completely through a million subtle softenings and yet she’s still herself, more herself than she ever was before.
She looks up. She smiles.
“Hi,” she says in that voice. Its newness mingles with its familiarity, and it’s like Romeo falling for Juliet all at once and, all the same, like Odysseus finally hearing his wife again after years and miles apart. In a second, I’m vaulting over the porch railing, stumbling, and then running for her with none of the grace or skill football ever taught me.
She drops her bags just in time for me to sweep her into my arms, and for a moment I’m holding her so tight she can’t even move her arms to hold me back. “Breathe. Can’t breathe.”
I unwind my arms and she laughs. My hands cup her chin and tilt her face up to mine, and I think I might ask how she got here, or how she hid this from me, but then she rises to her toes and all I can do is kiss her.
She hops up and wraps her legs around my waist, hooks her arms around my neck, and I hold the girl I love suspended in the air. I take in her smell through the humid air and run my hands over as much of her back as I can reach. This could go on forever and I’d certainly die happy, but eventually she lolls her head back, her black hair blending into the night as a breeze from the ocean kicks it into motion. I let her down and she leans against me, looking up through her eyelashes, her fingers curling against my chest as we catch our breath.