A Life
I remember when she first asked me. We were sitting by the water of the lake, waiting for her boyfriend. It was cold. She made me promise we would go together, get on a plane together and fly away to Norway.
She said, “Baby.” She said, “Please, let me go soon.” And all I could say was, “Okay.”
Even now, when I think of her, I think of the muddy water, the small rocks beneath our feet, the old wooden bench behind our backs. I remember that boy, her boyfriend, who didn’t know better than to promise her the world.
There are ink spots on my fingers and they remind me of her hair like pine pitch. I can still smell it. She was a burning fire in shades of pink; she had a cotton-candied mind. I should be kind to her, now that she’s gone, but I forget. I wake up thinking she is still here and I am so angry with her. Then I remember.
I remember her talking about creeping to the glacier edge to feel the dizzying height and I remember her saying, “Please, I need to leave here.” I said, “Soon.” I should have said no, I should have talked her out of it. But I had promised, I had promised her we would go together. I was too lonely to change my mind, not wise enough to realize that either way she would leave me. So I just held her hand.
She used to press kisses to my forehead like fallen flakes of snow. It made me wish I was in love with her. Mostly, though, I do not remember her sweetness, mostly I only remember her fear. She was so afraid of going by herself, she was so afraid to be alone. That, at least, I can understand.
We read news reports about the tree line changing, and she prayed for a new avalanche every day, for something to come crashing through and break all the icicles. But I couldn’t keep her, and I couldn’t save her. I should have tried harder, though, I should have laid myself out in front of the plane to stop her leaving. But she had bound herself to the north, she asked only that I come along.
She said, “I want to go out tonight like lights over the mountains.” I said, “Just wait a moment longer.”
In the end, I could not stall her long enough. In the end it was me who drove her to the airport and it was me who let her get on the plane alone. I stood with her in line, helped her through TSA, made sure her papers were in order, helped her write the note to her family. And then, I did not go with her. I still don’t know what she found when she got there. I just hope she is happy, there.
She is a wound in my ribs. She is a scab I keep tearing off. There is nothing I can do, now. There is nothing left for me to do. But still I cannot get her out of my mind.
We should have been some paperback romance, we should have been some metaphor about stars in orbit around each other; at least I should have been her moon. But if she was a star she has collapsed out of existence. I do not know how I have managed to go on, how I have balanced my life with such gravity lost.
In another eternity, we are together. In another eternity, I do not let her leave alone.
I tell myself that there is nothing special about Norway, just dirty city streets like everywhere else. But the longer I stay away from the airport, the more I dream of fjords.