Before I Let Go

by Marieke Nijkamp

  “No?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “In my experience, words and beliefs kill people all the time.”

  “Oh. I never thought—”

  “You never needed to.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “No. It hurts to be here, E. I miss her. I keep waiting for her to run around the corner and tell me that she was hiding. Everything feels wrong.”

  “That’s not just because of Kyra. You don’t feel at home anymore.”

  “I should.”

  “Lost changed. You changed.”

  “I didn’t want it to. I didn’t want to.”

  “Didn’t you? You like life at St. James.”

  “But I always thought that Lost would still be home. If this isn’t my home, then where is? Lost was everything I ever knew, but they look at me like I’m a trespasser. Like I don’t matter anymore.”

  “You’re at home here. You matter to us.”

  “It’s not the same though.”

  “I know.”

  Fear Her

  I slip into Mrs. H’s bakery an hour before the memorial. She’s preparing food and she’s still, as she called it the day I arrived, grief baking. When she sees me, she rushes toward the door. The pain in her eyes is as visible as the relief. She’s gone pale. She grabs my arms as though I might otherwise disappear. “Corey. You left hours ago. We didn’t know where you’d gone.”

  Those few words are enough to make me feel small and selfish.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. H, I—” I stop myself. What can I tell her? “I went to the spa and lost track of time.”

  “I should be used to that, shouldn’t I? The two of you always did.”

  “I’m sorry,” I repeat. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  She shakes her head, and I wait for her to say more. To acknowledge why she’s worried, or how Kyra simply walked out of our lives and she keeps waiting for her to come back too.

  Instead, Mrs. H returns to her dough. She kneads with determination, but her methodic pounding doesn’t mask the way her shoulders shake. Or the way tears drip from her cheeks, one at a time.

  The bakery smells of yeast, cinnamon, and sugar. The heat from the ovens makes the space cozy. But it’s not comfortable. Comfort implies an ease I don’t feel. I’m stifled—and I want to get out. I want to leave Lost after the memorial.

  Most of the bakery is used for actual baking, and Mrs. H has an impressive workspace that’s open to the front. A few stools stand at the counter, for those visitors who drop by for a baked good and coffee and want to stay. I grab one. I hook my feet around the legs and balance on the edge of the seat.

  “Mrs. H?” My voice sounds small, even to my ears, and maybe she picks up on it. She sets the dough aside and meets my gaze. “Mrs. H, I’ve seen the garden. I’ve seen the paintings.”

  “Oh.”

  I want to ask, How could you let this happen? What I ask instead is, “What happened?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I’m here to listen.”

  She pauses, and I can see that she’s weighing how much to tell me. I want the truth, but apparently, that’s not a simple request.

  “Fear,” she says, eventually. “The people of Lost Creek were afraid of Kyra because she was so different. I can’t tell you how much that hurt. Especially because, at times, I was afraid of her myself. I didn’t always understand her, but I wanted her to be happy.” She shakes her head when I start to interrupt. “I only began to understand Kyra when I began to understand her art. She painted that.”

  Mrs. H points to a small canvas of Kyra and her sitting on a rickety bench outside the hot springs. The spa was our special place, but I knew that Kyra wanted to share the hot springs with her parents. She wanted to tell them about her stories. She wanted to talk them into letting her travel and go to college.

  In the painting, Kyra shows her mother a book. The two of them are surrounded by salmonberry flowers.

  “The same held true for most everyone in Lost Creek. Once they understood—”

  “She was a person with hopes and dreams.” Try as I might, I can’t keep the anger out of my voice.

  “She helped the community, and they learned to stop fearing her. She was different, yes, but we finally understood that that was good. Until then, we hadn’t understood that we could help her too, better than any outsider could.”

  “Rowanne? She was a therapist. Kyra needed therapy and medication.”

  “Even when they didn’t work?” Mrs. H counters. Kyra struggled with medication from the time she first got her diagnosis. She responded to drugs, but marginally. They dimmed her mania for a while, but it would only come back stronger. “She was my daughter. All I wanted was for the therapy and medication to work. It broke my heart when they didn’t. It was only then that Joe realized—that we realized—that we’d been wrong all along.”

  “But when I left—”

  “We tried everything,” Mrs. H interrupts me quietly. “I wish you would believe me.”

  When I left, Kyra was talking about therapy regimens. Other options. When I left, she still had hope. But if the state of the spa is anything to go by, at the end, she had nothing left but her paintings to draw out her restless energy.

  It takes me a moment to register Mrs. H’s earlier words. “What do you mean you’d been wrong?”

  “All of the medications she’d tried only suppressed her creativity.”

  I blink. Something clicks.

  Kyra never mentioned that. And Rowanne would never have left of her own volition. And the depths of Kyra’s mania… I push off the stool and it clatters to the floor. “You withheld her medication?”

  “We didn’t give up without a fight.” I turn to find Mr. H standing in the doorway. He clings to his briefcase like a lifeline, his shoulders still sagging. “The medication didn’t work, Corey,” he says. “You know that. She would feel better for brief increments of time, but she’d inevitably get worse again. It was cruel to make her go through those ups and downs.”

  I ball my fists and I honest-to-God see red. “But the medication did work. Maybe not perfectly. Maybe not as much as she wanted it to, but she wanted to keep exploring other options. And between the medication and her sessions with Rowanne, she wanted to be better.”

  “She couldn’t paint,” Mr. H says.

  “She didn’t want to!” Kyra wasn’t happy when she was painting. She was coping.

  “But we did,” he says softly. He walks over to Mrs. H, who keeps her head down. “You don’t understand, Corey. We needed the light that she brought.”

  His words join the refrain of Lost Creek. You don’t belong here. Outsider. Stranger.

  I want to pound the wall in frustration. “She was deeply unhappy.”

  Mr. H merely shakes his head. “There’s no way for you to know that. We understood our daughter. We did what was best for her, and for all of us.”

  “You didn’t understand her. You didn’t listen to her. And you aren’t listening to me now.” I’m not sure how much of this I think and how much of it I actually speak aloud, but Mr. H blanches.

  I take a step back, but he pulls himself together. “The memorial is starting soon. Make sure you’re ready. We will remember her the way she deserved—with respect.”

  I keep hearing those words: understand, respect, ours. But repetition doesn’t give them meaning. I don’t care how they want to remember her. “Do you really think…” I bite my tongue.

  “Speak your mind, Corey,” Mr. H says, his voice carefully pleasant.

  “Do you really think she cared about a memorial? Don’t you think she’d rather still be here?”

  He flushes, and I expect him to yell at me. But after another heartbeat, his mouth thins and he nods. “Yes, I do th
ink my daughter cared. She and I talked about this memorial, and I know she wanted you to be present. But you are not a necessity. We leave in thirty minutes.”

  I should feel badly for speaking to him so harshly, but I don’t. I’m cycling through anger and grief and guilt and heartbreak. I’m homesick for a person, homesick for Kyra.

  As I turn on my heels and head for the door, I overhear Mr. Henderson soothing his wife. “You know this was meant to be, don’t you, Lynda? It’s better this way. She’s at peace.”

  Mrs. H’s voice sounds tiny. “I know.”

  I close the door behind me, but I can’t shut the conversation from my mind.

  • • •

  In the small cabin, I stare at myself in the mirror. The strapless black tunic I wear is the only piece of clothing I own that even remotely resembles a dress, and combined with a pair of dark jeans and a gray blazer, I hope it looks appropriate. Kyra wouldn’t care, but Lost and I are mourning different people. The Kyra who died a week ago isn’t the friend I left behind. Still, I lost them both.

  I pick up my makeup bag and put on some foundation and mascara—just enough to not feel like a ghost myself. Then I dig around until I find the small jewelry purse I packed. My hands tremble, and the bracelet slips through my fingers the first two times, but I finally grab hold of it.

  Kyra gave it to me before I left. It takes some messing with the clasp before it dangles around my wrist, but when it does, I feel calmer. I could tell you stories about this, she’d said when she gave it to me.

  She never did.

  Lost Creek insists on wearing pink, so I do the same. I put on a tourmaline petal charm Kyra made for me.

  This new Lost doesn’t seem real, but at least this piece of jewelry, this reminder of our friendship, isn’t fake.

  I look back into the mirror, and a sudden breeze plays with my hair, disheveling it. I don’t know where it came from—not from an open window or the heating vent.

  Kyra?

  A chill runs down my spine as my heart aches. I grab my coat. It’s time to leave for the memorial.

  Of the Dead, Nothing but Good

  There is ice between Mr. H and me when we leave for Lost School. Maybe I should apologize. Except, I don’t feel sorry. I stand by what I said. Kyra deserved more than this. She deserved more than these people claiming her, instead of accepting her. Now they mourn her without ever really having cared for her. And even if they had—or thought they had—seven months cannot undo years of scars.

  The memorial service is held inside the gym of the school, and it’s the first time I’ve been back inside this building that used to feel gigantic to me. It isn’t. The space is hardly larger than the library at St. James, but it’s big enough for everyone in Lost Creek.

  From the moment we arrive, the Hendersons are the center of attention, and I’m surrounded by everyone I once knew. The people who, for sixteen years, had been more like family to me than my distant relatives who lived outside the borders of Lost. Mrs. Morden stands near the front of the room talking to Piper. Sheriff Flynn is present with his wife and Sam. In the corner, Jan, who runs the grocery store, is hovering around Mrs. Robinson, carefully keeping an eye on the old lady. Close by is Dr. Stevens, who cured more ills than cabin fever.

  Even Aaron has shuffled into the building.

  When I’d imagined what coming home would be like, it was this—familiar faces and, despite everything, smiles. It would be like that now, except that when I pass, people retreat. And I miss the two people who are obviously not here. Rowanne, who always came back for Kyra and always had a kind word for me.

  And Kyra.

  Then Mr. Sarin and Roshan walk in, filling the two empty spaces.

  Everyone speaks in hushed tones. Beneath the cacophony of voices lies a more dangerous note. Someone hums the same tuneless song I heard when I first arrived, and it settles itself in my bones.

  Occasionally, I pick up fragments of conversation. “It’s a shame the family left town. I thought they knew better. Look at her now. She doesn’t belong here anymore. She doesn’t fit in.”

  “She left. She shouldn’t have come back.”

  “She doesn’t understand us. She doesn’t understand who Kyra was.”

  “Kyra was extraordinary.”

  “She doesn’t understand who we are.”

  “I liked the boy, Luke. He respected our traditions. He didn’t try to stand out like his sister. And at least with Kyra… Well, that was a whole different story, wasn’t it?”

  They glare at me, and I stare right back. Their words hurt me, but I won’t let them see the bruises.

  All I want is to see Kyra’s smile. I slowly work my way toward the front of the gym, where I know I’ll find flowers, and hopefully pictures too. But when the masses part before me, I wish I’d stayed put.

  Kyra is here. Not in the flesh, of course, but in her art. Paintings, sketches, photographs of paintings that hang in the homes around town all decorate the inset stage. A colorful rendition of Lost Creek, brighter and happier than I’ve ever seen it. An image of the spa covered in flowers. The mine up north in production, apparently taken as a good thing despite the waste around it. A blazing star shooting through the night sky. I can’t help but stare at this last piece. It doesn’t fit with the collection. A supernova would be more apt. Or a black hole.

  But the centerpiece is the painting that has been standing in the Hendersons’ living room. The painting where Kyra foresaw her own death.

  She’s at peace. It was her time. The voices around me echo in my ears.

  White-hot rage courses through me. At peace? She was seventeen. She spent most of her life fighting to belong. And she couldn’t find that peace. Not even in Lost, a town that prides itself on being a home to the forgotten. It wasn’t her time to die. It was her time to live.

  Someone should have stopped her after she painted herself under the ice. They should have prevented this.

  Someone rests a hand on my shoulder and I startle.

  “It makes her look like she’s dancing between the stars, doesn’t it?” Piper says.

  “It’s a mockery. It’s terrifying.”

  “She was happy, you know. At the end.”

  “Why does everyone keep saying that?” I hiss. I keep my voice low. “Why would anyone who’s happy kill herself?”

  “Because she found her purpose and served it. Don’t you remember how she always wanted to change the world? She made a difference. She made Lost a better place to live.” Piper’s eyes flick to the crowd. “Isn’t that all any of us can ask for?”

  “She needed help, not a purpose. She needed friends.”

  “And yet you left her.”

  I slap her before I even realize what I’m doing. Gasps from somewhere behind me tell me it hasn’t gone unnoticed, but I keep my stare trained on Piper, who merely shakes her head. She seems disappointed.

  “I was part of her life for sixteen years,” I seethe.

  “But we were here when it mattered most.”

  “Don’t tell me about friendship,” I snap at her. “I was her friend.”

  “You were,” she acknowledges. “Once upon another time.”

  • • •

  At the microphone, Sheriff Flynn clears his throat and starts the memorial by directing us all to our seats. Mr. and Mrs. Henderson sit in a place of pride in the front row, directly in front of Mr. Sarin and Roshan, who are apparently guests of honor in Lost. The Flynns sit next to them, and on the other side of a small aisle sits Mrs. Morden, her son, and her grandchildren, Piper and Tobias. Everyone else finds seats among the rows of chairs, which make the space look like a small church.

  I stay in the back, where I lean against a paneled wall. I’m too overwhelmed to sit. I think about what I’d said to Piper and Roshan at Claja. I’d honestly thought that Lost had taken the idea o
f not speaking ill of the dead to a whole new level. Now I know that it’s more than politeness; it’s a belief.

  Sheriff Flynn talks us through the proceedings. There will be speakers, with the Hendersons last in line. After the formal part of the memorial, we’ll have time to come together and remember Kyra’s life. Mrs. Henderson baked a cake specially.

  Mrs. Morden steps up onto a small stage and takes to the microphone, and everyone sits up straight.

  “We never found God here in Lost,” she begins, “but we did find Kyra.”

  No Need to Say Goodbye

  INT. LOST SCHOOL—GYM—DAY

  A gymnasium, set with rows of chairs. Two hundred people or more are in attendance. The entire town, if some people are to be believed.

  Mrs. Morden, owner of the town’s post office, notable widow, and purveyor of fine gossip, stands at the microphone. She touches the magenta flower she’s wearing, almost reverently.

  Mrs. Morden

  “Tell me a story.” That’s how our Kyra always started her observations. “Tell me a story about Lost, about the people you knew, about the endless snow around us. Tell me a story, and I will paint it for you.” She gave us a past we’d forgotten and futures we couldn’t yet see. She saw both at the same time.

  “Tell me a story,” she said, and we told her—

  Crowd

  We will obey.

  The crowd collectively pauses to let their words reverberate through the gym as they touch the magenta flowers they all wear.

  Mrs. Morden

  For the longest time, we didn’t understand Kyra. We all know how hard it could be to connect and to truly hear what she was saying. But once we came to understand her art, we came to know her and to hear her messages. We came to understand her love for this home we’ve built.

  Corey bites her tongue.

  Mrs. Morden

  Sometimes I wonder, and I know I’m not alone in this, what would have happened if we’d heard her sooner. Her art gave her purpose, but she was with us for such a short time, a bright star that burned out.