Before I Let Go

by Marieke Nijkamp

I want Kyra to run out to greet me, to tackle-hug me. But she doesn’t. She isn’t…

  I am at Kyra’s house, and Kyra’s not here. I am home, and Kyra’s not. The weight of grief crashes over me like an avalanche.

  The Hendersons’ door opens. Mrs. Henderson steps onto the porch and folds her hands in front of her. Her black dress makes her face gaunt. A bewildered look haunts her eyes.

  I launch myself at her, and she pulls me close. When she disentangles, she puts her hands on my arms and peers up at me. “Look at you, you’ve grown taller. We missed you. Joe is at a business meeting, but he’ll be along shortly. Come, it’s cold today and you must be hungry.”

  She steps aside to let me in. “You can stay in the guest room, if you want. Kyra’s room is still there too, of course, but it’s locked. We’d rather no one disturb it.”

  “I understand,” I say. “Thank you for having me.”

  Mrs. Henderson keeps talking. Kyra used to ramble whenever she was upset too. “If you’d prefer to stay somewhere else, I’m sure we can arrange that. The Mordens have a spare bedroom. And Mrs. Robinson would accommodate you too, I’m sure.”

  “Don’t worry, Mrs. H. I’m fine.”

  It’s a lie. I’m not fine. I want to turn and run, but I stand in the foyer. The house is silent. It feels wrong. I drop my bag near the coatrack and shrug off my coat. Mrs. H is already heading toward the living room, but I linger in the hallway.

  The Hendersons never had pictures on their walls, and growing up surrounded by Mom’s photo albums, that was always odd to me. But now, pictures of Kyra hang everywhere. I wrap my arms around my waist and take in each one. Pictures of her as a small girl, of her growing up. Pictures of her drawing with charcoal, swimming in the hot springs, running around in costume. I remember each of those days.

  I remember them. I was there. I was here.

  But I’m not in any of the photos. They’re all of Kyra. One frame draws my attention. A young Kyra in oversize fishing gear. It was the spring we both turned ten, and school had given us a work-experience assignment. We had to shadow someone at their day job, and Kyra decided we’d go fishing. We borrowed gear from the tourist center and joined Piper’s father along the lakeshore. Five minutes in, Kyra decided that she hated sitting around waiting for fish to bite, but I loved it, so she stuck around. She caught a fish big enough for a meal and then some, and she was so proud that she posed with her catch. This isn’t that photo, though. This is the one where we were sitting side by side, arms around each other’s shoulders.

  Except, I’m nowhere to be seen. Kyra is smiling alone.

  Did Mrs. Henderson edit this? Do I just not remember this photo?

  I take a step closer and reach for the frame when someone tuts. I turn toward the sound, but the hall is empty.

  I back into the living room, but that has changed in a thousand small ways too. There’s a new couch. A lamp has been moved to a table on the other side of the room. But most glaring are the half-dozen bouquets of wildflowers with condolence cards. Kyra abhorred grief. When her grandfather died, she walked out of the service, and she talked me into doing the same. She didn’t want to mourn him; she wanted to celebrate him. But Lost didn’t share that sentiment. They wanted their traditional, somber service.

  Mrs. Henderson carries in a plate of her specialty sourdough muffins from the kitchen. They smell of sugar and comfort, potent reminders of all the times Kyra and I snuck freshly baked cookies and tablespoons of icing. My hands tingle as I remember the playful swat of Mrs. Henderson’s spatula across our knuckles when she tried to scare us away. Suddenly my eyes burn, and I can’t swallow back a sob.

  Mrs. H sets the plate on the coffee table and pulls me into another hug. “Oh, Corey.”

  “I’m so sorry, Mrs. H,” I whisper. “I wish I had come sooner.” I can’t articulate what I really want to say. That I left Kyra. That I should’ve paid more attention to her letters. That because of my absence and silence, her death is partially my fault. “I should have been here for her.”

  “It wasn’t your choice, sweetheart,” Mrs. H says as we sit down on the couch. “I’m sure Kyra understood. She was happy, you know. Near the end.”

  “How could she have possibly been happy?” That’s something you say about someone old who has died, someone who lived a century. Not about a seventeen-year-old girl whose body was found floating under the ice after she cut her own life short. She didn’t sound happy.

  Mrs. Henderson gives a fragile smile. “She came home to us. I wish you could’ve seen how much she’d changed these last few months. She found her place here.”

  I blink. “She did?” She never wrote about that to me. She still seemed to be struggling. Did I misunderstand? How much did she leave out? “Oh. So they helped her in Fairbanks?”

  “Oh no, she never went. We decided it would be better for her here.”

  Rowanne, Kyra’s therapist, traveled between patients in various towns, just like Mom did as a physiotherapist. “But I thought Rowanne recom—”

  “Rowanne stopped coming to Lost Creek shortly after your family left,” Mrs. Henderson snaps. Her mouth thins and her eyes flash. I scoot back a little on the couch. “She abandoned Kyra.”

  I wince. “Then what changed? Did you find her another therapist? Better medication?”

  Mrs. H looks at me as if I’ve grown two heads or started speaking in tongues. “Corey, after you left, Kyra finally understood that the community loved her too, that she belonged here. That was what made her happy. You can see it in her recent paintings, in her art. Lost gave her purpose. It set her heart and mind alight.”

  Alight. A shiver runs down my spine when I hear that word again.

  “Lost Creek never accepted her like that.”

  Like Piper, Mrs. H’s smile slips and she withdraws. “The town embraced her.”

  This was what Kyra wanted—to be accepted. “I didn’t think she’d find that in Lost,” I say very carefully.

  “Well, she did, Corey. You weren’t here.”

  I pick up one of the cups of tea Mrs. H set out for us. I let it warm my hands before I ask, “Then why did she leave? If she was so happy, why didn’t she wait for me? She knew I was coming.”

  “No star can burn forever, Corey. You’ve always had a head for science, you must know that. It was Kyra’s time to let go,” she says, with almost religious reverence. Then she nods behind me. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

  I shift to see a painting resting on the floor behind the couch. The canvas is surrounded by bouquets, candles, and ribbons. Blood roars in my ears. The teacup tumbles from my hands.

  I recognize it as one of Kyra’s. The painting is so detailed, it’s like looking at a photograph. A circle of blossoms is spread out over snow and ice. The flowers look so real it’s as if they’ve been placed on top of the canvas itself.

  The constellation of Orion reflects in the surface. The brightest red star—Betelgeuse—shines like the supernova it’s turning into, and it lights up the painting. It lights up the ice.

  It lights up the body beneath it.

  Kyra had painted herself floating under the translucent ice. Her brown hair is spread out around her, and her hazel eyes are opened wide. Even as she sinks into the dark abyss of the lake, she smiles.

  And I’m numb.

  Loss

  Mrs. H helps me clean up my spilled tea with a forced smile. She won’t comment on the painting, beyond the quality of the art, and I can’t find the words to ask her when Kyra made this canvas—how long she knew this was coming, and why the Hendersons didn’t think to question their daughter about her painting. It makes no sense. How can Mrs. Henderson stare at this image wistfully, talking about color and shadow, when I want to cover it up and never see it again?

  Instead, I focus on Mrs. H. The timbre of her voice used to soothe me. Kyra and I would spend hours a
t her house or in her bakery, listening to her gossip while she worked. But now, her voice chafes. I don’t want to hear about how this year’s catch is terrible, or how the Halwoods’ marriage ended with Anna hitching a ride out of town in the mail plane, or even about the potential opportunities for Mr. H’s mine and the buzz of hope that brings to the mining families in town. I just want to know what happened to my best friend.

  Her chatter is interrupted when Mr. H walks in with company. Kyra was lanky like her father and shared his intelligent eyes, but now Mr. H has grown pale and gray. He pulls me into a hug. The smell of his cologne is so familiar, I feel like I never left.

  “I’m so sorry, Mr. H.” My voice catches. “I wish I could have been here.”

  “Corey. Kyra would’ve appreciated you being here now,” he says.

  “What happened?” I blurt out.

  “I lost my daughter,” Mr. H says. He exhales. “It was her time.”

  His words are spoken with so much pain, such finality, that I know there’s no reopening the conversation, despite all the questions I carry with me. The only soft words that Mr. H ever had were for Kyra. I wonder what he’ll do with them now.

  I turn to the middle-aged, brown-skinned man standing behind Mr. H. He’s wearing a fancy suit that makes him looks like he got sidetracked on his way to one of the cities. Mr. H’s associates rarely make it out to Lost. But I guess if Mr. H can’t leave to do business, his business comes to him.

  “You must be young Kyra’s friend,” the man says. His words are measured, careful but pleasant. “My name is Mr. Sarin.”

  “Corey. Corey Johnson.”

  “I’m sorry for the loss of your friend, Ms. Johnson. It is a tragedy to lose one so young, especially a girl who was liked and respected by all.”

  The Lost Creek I knew never respected Kyra. They didn’t care about her art, and they didn’t care about her. But I don’t tell him that. Raw emotions make the memories too harsh, make the truth hurt too much. “She deserved so much more.”

  “Death is a thief,” Mr. Sarin says after a moment. His expression is filled with kind concern. “It slips into our lives and steals what we care about most. It breaks us, and even when we piece ourselves together again, the pain remains. My son knows that feeling and so do I, but…” He hesitates. “I believe that even death is not beyond hope. Kyra cared deeply for you. Perhaps you will believe that she still watches out for Lost Creek. Perhaps you’ll believe that she still watches out for you.”

  “She is,” I whisper. Because I’m here now, I kept my promise to return to Lost, to her. And despite everything that has changed, part of me believes that somewhere, somehow, Kyra is still waiting for me.

  Saints and Sourdough

  A Year and a Half Before

  If it were up to Lost, they would have forgotten that Kyra existed. Long gone were the memories of the young girl they used to know, before she started showing symptoms in her early teens. The girl who laughed at the right jokes and behaved appropriately, as they expected. Not the girl who wandered through town for nights on end and threatened their way of being by sharing their secrets with an outsider—even if that outsider was her therapist.

  And when Kyra’s highs dimmed and she fell into darkness, when she locked herself in her room and slept through the long nights, Lost went about its days as if nothing were wrong. The only difference was that those were the days when I belonged again because I wasn’t marred by her presence. Those were the days I had other friends too.

  I never told Kyra that, and she never asked.

  It was a particularly cold spring day, after the ice broke up, when the entire school congregated in Claja, the small pub at the edge of Lost. Restless energy buzzed around me. By night, this pub was the gathering place for Lost’s fishermen and workers. By day, it doubled as a café for high school students. It was where everyone went after school was out and before our parents needed us. We would gather and gossip and play games and drink hot chocolate.

  I wasn’t supposed to be there. Kyra and I had planned to hole up in the old spa to do our homework. But she went home before school ended and when I swung by her house, she didn’t want to see me—or anyone. So I was left with what Lost considered a “normal” weekday afternoon.

  The only open seat was at a table with Piper and Sam Flynn, the sheriff’s son. They’d both always been kind to me, in school and out. They beckoned me over.

  Neither of them had spoken a word to Kyra since her diagnosis, as far as I could tell. It was amazing how you could be invisible in Lost Creek, even if you didn’t want to be. But I knew from experience that everyone loved to talk about Kyra. Treatment options. Scary stories about people who “snapped” and became violent. Some speculated about whether she was lying to get attention, not that it would make her any more popular.

  Piper usually kept her cool, but that day, she too declared Kyra an outsider.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I spat at her. “Her family’s been part of Lost Creek for generations. She’s lived here all her life. She’s no outsider.”

  Piper shrugged. “Maybe not by blood, but you can’t deny that she’s a freak. She’s not one of us.”

  “She always has been,” I shot back. Heat flushed through me.

  “Not anymore.”

  Not anymore. Not since Kyra first started having episodes. Not since the diagnosis. I didn’t think two simple words could have such an impact. I shook my head. “No. She’s still the same Kyra, and if you can’t accept that, it says a whole lot more about you than it does about her.”

  I would’ve moved to another table, but there was nowhere else to go. After a long silence, Piper pushed a plate with chocolate chip cookies from Mrs. H’s bakery toward me. “I’m sorry. I really am. I know it must be difficult being her friend.”

  I’d heard that before. A thousand times, and a thousand times too many.

  On the other side of the table, Sam winced and looked away. He rarely spoke and he never smiled, but he was never purposely cruel either.

  Anger boiled within me, churning through my body, from my stomach to my fingertips. I was tired. Of their assumptions. Of having to defend our friendship. I looked out the window. The snow distorted the people outside, bundled up in their warmest clothes. “It’s no harder to be Kyra’s friend than it is to be yours or anyone else’s.”

  “I think you’re a saint for putting up with her,” she said. She smiled and nudged the plate a little farther. She didn’t want me to be offended. And I was a coward, not telling her how much her words hurt. Instead, I accepted a cookie, as a peace offering, and told her what I knew to be true.

  “She’s one of us, Piper. We’ve lived through the same winters. She’s one of us. And she always will be.”

  Doorways

  Mr. H and Mr. Sarin both stay for a cup of tea and a sourdough muffin. Afterward, Mr. H leads me to the outbuilding that stands a little ways from the main house. The cabin is almost as old as the house itself. It’s had a lot of purposes over the years. Originally, it was used for wood storage and after that, I think, as a garage. When Kyra’s grandfather couldn’t live in his small apartment on Main on his own anymore, Mr. H had the outbuilding completely refurbished into a small, two-room residential space with a kitchenette and bathroom. Kyra’s grandfather lived there for the last years of his life, and after that, Kyra claimed it. She wanted a larger room for her books, magazines, comics, and notebooks, and studio space to paint whenever her manic episodes left her restless and eager to create. It became a hideout for the two of us.

  More than anywhere else, this was our home.

  As Mr. H unlocks the door, I notice more salmonberry flowers on the windowsill. Kyra mentioned these flowers in her last letter, but that seems to be the only detail that fits with what she wrote about the town and what everyone here is saying.

  Inside, I set down my bag in the room tha
t used to be Kyra’s studio and her grandfather’s library before that. Now, it’s as sterile and uncomfortable as a new school uniform. Kyra’s paints and crafts have been removed, and the room has been stripped. Only the old desk and a guest bed remain.

  But Kyra’s bedroom door is exactly the way I remember it: painted in bright colors with superheroes sketched all over it. The design changed often, depending on what series she liked best. Last summer, the night before we moved, she painted over a sketch of the Young Avengers and added the Congress of Worlds. Thor stands front and center, and her eyes follow me.

  I cross the room and trace the lines on the door. I used to tease Kyra about her fascination with comics, but she took it in stride.

  “People have used art and graphics to tell stories for centuries,” she said once. “We could all do with more heroes and tricksters and storytellers.”

  I told her, “I’d rather have stars than heroes.”

  She laughed. “That’s why we have constellations. To preserve our stories and our heroes in the stars.”

  Now I’ll never hear her laugh again. And it hurts. It hurts.

  “We’re keeping the door locked,” Mr. H says. “At least until we decide what to do with Kyra’s room.”

  With that, he leaves me. I’m glad to be alone and don’t want to be alone at the same time. A chill passes over me.

  I take a shower in the tiny bathroom to warm up and wash the travel off of me. Under the hot water, I try to rub away the dark shadows under my eyes, to no avail. Grief cloaks me like a shroud.

  As I’m pulling on a turtleneck sweater, a floorboard creaks in Kyra’s room, and I sob-laugh at the moods of this old house.

  Kyra’s bedroom was mine as much as it was hers. Even though my family used to live a few blocks away, even though this little cabin squeaked and groaned around us, Kyra hosted all of our sleepovers. We had everything here. A place for our adventures. An easy route to sneak out. Privacy. Freedom.