Chapter lxvi
lxvi
SO HERE WE ARE, GABE. TEN YEARS LATER. THE ANNIVERSARY of your death. And I finally made it to your grave in Arizona. I told Dax I was coming, told the kids. I’m not keeping secrets anymore. And there didn’t seem to be any other way to spend today, any other person I wanted to spend it with.
It’s not lost on me that sitting here like this, sitting here talking and talking while you can’t, wondering if the words I’m saying are making their way to you, is how things ended for us the last time. Ended for you. A decade ago—time is so elastic. Sometimes I look in the mirror and feel ancient. Like I’ve experienced a whole lifetime in my forty-four years—love, loss, birth, death, marriage, divorce, success, failure. I feel like I’ve earned every wrinkle, every stretch mark, the stripe of white hair I keep covering with hair dye. But sometimes I run down the promenade in Brooklyn Heights, my sneakers pounding on the pavement, my breath strong and steady, and I don’t feel any different than I did when we met at twenty-one. Sometimes my time with you feels like it was just yesterday.
Is there time where you are? And if there is, does it feel elastic, too?
I’VE brOUGHT YOU A COPY OF YOUR BOOK— THE NEW version. I wish it had the photos from the gallery show in it, but I still think it’s beautiful.
Your headstone is beautiful, too. When the undertaker asked me what you would like ten years ago, I was in such a fog. I didn’t want to decide. I couldn’t decide. Instead, I said he should match the one you chose for your mom. I hadn’t known what you’d chosen; I figured it didn’t matter, really. But now that I see it, it does feel like it matters. Can you see it from where you are? I love that it’s a sunrise carved in white on black marble—and that your mom’s is the same image, but opposite, black on white. Hers looks like a sunset. And since you’re next to each other, together, your headstones show a story, a story of hope, of the sun rising again after darkness.
When I got here, in the desert heat, I sat down next to your stone. It’s under a tree—you’re under a tree, a big, old tree—and I laid my head against the marble. It’s the closest we’ve been physically in a decade. Just as I sat down, I felt a breeze blow. I could swear it was you, reassuring me, telling me you’re still here, that you see me, that you understand I need to move on, to be free, to go forward.
I can only hope that my words reach you. I can only hope that you knew then and still know now how much I loved you and will always love you. And I can only hope you know how much I love our son. He is the best of us, Gabe.
He is light, he is beauty.
He is our love.
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