Free Between the Stars and Sky by David James

understands.
    “Jackson.” His voice is rough, like he just woke up. Like he’s been waiting to say my name since the day I left. “How are you?”
    “I’m okay. You?”
    “Okay.”
    Silence.
    He asks, “Good summer?”
    I nod even though he can’t see. “It’s been good. Miles is doing great. He and Sean are living together now.”
    “Good,” he says. “Always liked that kid.”
    “Yeah.”
    And then-
    “She would be proud of you,” he says.
    I can’t speak.
    Words stick.
    My throat is filled with them.
    And he knows, Dad knows because he sniffs into the phone and says, “Until next time, kid.”
    He’s gone.
    But he’s not.
    It’s not perfect, but neither are we. We never will be, but that’s okay. In so many ways, it will always be okay with him. He tried. I tried. And in the end, as I fall asleep thinking of what was said and what was not, I know we’ll be together again. Not like we were, not like what once was.
    Different. Not better or worse.
    Still, together.

Chapter Twelve
     
    THE SWEET EVIL OF morning is that it is no longer night; and there is something so wonderfully horrible about knowing hours have come and gone and left you with nothing but a new day.
    I am awake.
    I am dreaming.
    I am everything and nothing at once in this early mist of morning filled with faded darkness and too-bright sunshine. The world is awake, or beginning to be. And I am in between it all, on the edge of the world. Waiting.
    Rolling out of bed, I run my hands through my hair, pushing the long, shaggy parts of it back and away. As I make my way to the kitchen to put the coffee on, I think about my conversation with Dad. It haunts me as the smell of coffee fills the house, and I relive it as I open the door to the deck and step outside.
    I miss Mom.
    So much.
    But I will go on. I have to. And in this morning filled with memories of Mom and Dad and me, I am filled with the sense that my life is just beginning again. Truly.
    I think I will miss Mom forever.
    So, so much every single day.
    But in my memories, she lives. In my new life, she will always have a place. Even now I still remember Mom on the beach during my sixth summer, waving at me from the sand as I kicked and played in the water near my Lost City. She smiled and yelled, “Don’t go far, Jackson! I’m waiting for you right here.”
    I remember because today I feel exactly like I did back then in that moment. Alive and nervous and happy and scared. I feel like I could lose this moment in an instant like I lost Mom if I blink too fast or kick too hard or get pulled under by the unforgiving tide.
    By Sarah.
    Everything - the world and Sarah in it - is so unbelievably beautiful that I don’t believe it for a moment. I can’t lose it, I can’t. I won’t.
    Suddenly-
    I am made of fear.
    Of panic.
    Of what if -
    I
    am
    a
    stain
    on her life dripping
    down
    down
    down
    like her paintings
    like her thoughts
    like her wants and needs and secrets she puts in every piece of art she creates?
    What if I am nothing-
    more than a stain of ink
    in a dark piece of art
    she
    is
    about
    to
    destroy?
    Once, and one thousand times in my mind, I have lived this moment: A time between what is right and what is wrong, real and not. And I can’t bring myself to understand that between this, between Sarah and everything I want, is something I can never have.
    A life free of memories.
    I want to live without having lost Mom or lied to my Dad. Love without having dated Natalie, breathe without having run from Miles, from Huntington.
    But I am my memories-
    we all are -
    memories.
     
    *   *   *
     
    Her smile rips me open, heals me. It’s as though she’s waiting for something, someone to come save her even though she doesn’t need to be saved. Like she’s waiting for direction, a way to run.
    Run to me , I think.
    I want.
    To her and the darkness she sits in, I ask, “Do you ever think about what life would be like if we could control the outcome?”
    Sarah