Sublime

COLIN SLEEPS FOR WHAT FEELS like days. His eyelids are like sandpaper when they finally open. The room is too bright: Daylight streams in through an opening in familiar curtains, washing the foot of the bed in blinding yellow sun. There’s a vase of flowers on a table, his duffel bag and a haphazard stack of schoolbooks on the couch.

“There you are,” Dot says, standing from a chair by the door. She tucks a well-worn paperback into her bag and crosses the room toward him. She seems lighter, happy, and for a single, oblivious moment, Colin almost forgets why. “I guess you really needed your sleep, didn’t you?” Her smooth hand touches his cheek and tries to make some sense of his hair, like she’s done a hundred times in his life.

“What time is it?” he asks, wincing at the feel of words in his throat. It takes some effort, but he manages to sit up a little. Dot brings a green bendy straw to his lips and he drinks. His empty stomach revolts, clenching tightly. The room shifts and weaves around him.

“Around eleven. Now, lie back down,” she tells him.

“Eleven a.m.?” he asks, wide-eyed.

She smiles. “Yes, eleven a.m., Friday, February eighteenth.”

Colin tries to remember what day it should be, feeling sick when he finally does. He’s been asleep for two days. “Where’s Lucy?” he asks, heart racing, the color of dread bleeding into the edges of everything around him.

“I don’t know, honey,” Dot answers, the relief slipping from her face. “I haven’t seen her since the night they brought you in.”

• • •

Colin is released from the hospital the next day. Joe and Dot don’t talk much to him or each other on the drive back to campus, and for a long while there’s only the sound of tires on asphalt to break the silence. It’s a strange tension and one that Colin has no idea how to reframe, even with his side of the story. Joe and Dot couldn’t understand what he has been through even if they tried. Colin’s pretty sure they both think he has some sort of a death wish by now, that he was trying to hurt himself on purpose. He’s glad Joe doesn’t ask, though; it’s almost impossible for most people to understand how much space there is between craving danger and craving death.

When Joe finally does speak, their conversation is short. Joe asks how he’s feeling, lets Colin know that he won’t be returning to school for a few days and that he’ll be staying with him until further notice. Colin grunts something resembling a response in the appropriate places. He’s disappointed, but not surprised.

He hasn’t seen Lucy since he was pulled from the ice and doesn’t hold much hope that she’s waiting for him in his room, even less that she’s at school or the shed. Somehow he knows she’s disappeared again. It’s almost like he can feel her absence in every particle of everything that they pass. The trees look emptier; the air looks bleak.

He closes his eyes and imagines her in the blackness just before she breaks the surface. He can see her on the trail beneath the mirror sky and wonders if she managed to get through the gate without him.

At first Colin tells himself that he needs to be patient and wait. She wouldn’t stay away, not now. So he does as he’s told: He goes to class and comes home right after. He spends an entire afternoon talking to a counselor because Dot says it’s important to her. He stays away from any trouble. He waits.

But the storm is always there, gathering. He feels it spread like the wind that creeps across the lake, like icy fingers that close around his lungs until he can barely breathe—until he’s nearly frantic with the need to find her.

Days turn into weeks, and the ice begins to thin, and though it sounds cliché, he feels like he’s drowning—melting into the lake right along with it. He does his best not to let his growing frustration show, not to take it out on Dot or Joe, both of whom now watch him like a hawk. Colin wonders what they’ve said to Jay, who seems to have been scared straight, immediately shooting down any discussion of going to the lake.

Three weeks after he woke up to find Lucy gone, Colin knows he can’t sit still anymore. He makes a show of cleaning his room, studying at Joe’s kitchen table, and volunteering to help Dot finish up dessert prep.

The sky has grown dark, and Joe raises an eyebrow when Colin settles into the couch beside him. A few distant shouts carry in from outside, as students start making their way across campus.

“It’s good to see you busy,” Joe says. He drinks from a steaming mug before setting it carefully on the table at his side.

“If feels good,” Colin answers, and they’re silent for a few minutes, Joe’s eyes on the evening paper and Colin’s on the TV. “I was actually wondering if I could get a suspended sentence tomorrow, maybe get off campus for a few hours.” There’s hope in his voice, something he knows has been noticeably absent the last few weeks.

Joe eyes him skeptically. “And what exactly would you be doing?”

“Nothing,” he says, easing off a bit and trying to sound nonchalant. “See a movie, maybe stop by one of the bike shops in town.” He shrugs for added effect. “It’d be nice to get away.”

Joe considers him. Colin can almost see the release of tension in Joe’s shoulders, his relief at hearing him talk about things that are so normal.

“Actually, I think that sounds like a great idea,” Joe says, surprising him. “Your grades are good. You haven’t been in any trouble.” He glances at Colin over the top of his paper, expression serious now. “But back here by dark. No exceptions.”

“Yes, sir,” he says, smiling. Joe shakes his head, but Colin doesn’t miss the way his lips twitch at the corners.

“I’ll get you your keys in the morning.”

Colin leans back, happy, his eyes on the game but his thoughts somewhere else completely.

• • •

Slush covers the walkway leading to the door of the infirmary, and Colin laughs quietly, realizing this is the first time he’s climbed these steps without A) the aid of someone else, or B) blood gushing from some part of his body.

He lets the door close softly behind him and wipes his feet on the rug, walking toward the sound of movement at the end of the hall. It’s too quiet, and his sneakers squeak on the linoleum, the sound bouncing off the walls around him. Colin’s been here so many times he knows exactly where he’s going, knows what each piece of equipment is for and which room has the bed with the spring that pokes you in the back. He also knows Maggie won’t be thrilled to see him and that his footprints are probably mucking up her clean floor.

Right on cue, she peeks her head out of an open doorway, scowling in his direction. “You better be bleeding,” she says, looking behind him.

He smiles. “I’m not.”

“What’re you doing here?”

He follows her into the room where she’s changing out one set of sheets for another. A kid he’s never seen before sleeps in a bed on the other side. “I need to ask you about Lucy,” he whispers.

She glances to the sleeping boy and back to him. “I don’t think so.”

Maggie picks up the basket of sheets and walks into the next room. He follows again.

“Please.” His voice cracks, begging. She won’t look at him. There’s a hardness in her expression, something that tells him she’s building a wall to keep tears from leaking out. “Please.”

After a long pause, she finally meets his eyes. “Why today?”

“Because I can’t find her.”

She watches him, eyes narrowed. “Heard you did something pretty stupid. Stupid enough it landed you in the hospital. Stupid enough you’re lucky to even be here.”

Colin tries to laugh it off. “What’s new, right?”

Maggie clearly doesn’t find it funny. “This is . . . You’ve done some stupid stuff, but this . . .”

He nods, guilt and shame warring with the unrelenting need to find Lucy. “You heard the details, huh?”

“Ain’t nobody around here who didn’t hear.”

“Maggie, you knew about Lucy. When will you tell me how?”

She keeps working, and Colin rounds the bed, taking the other side of the new sheet and fitting it over the mattress.

“Almost died and didn’t learn a damn thing. Fool-headed child,” she mutters.

Colin waits; it’s not exactly like he can argue with her.

“There’s only one way this can end, Colin. You know that, right?”

“I can’t believe that, Maggie. I don’t.”

“Of course you don’t.” She sighs, defeat written in the slump of her shoulders. Maggie straightens, looking out into the hall before closing the wide door. “You’re lucky I don’t kick your skinny butt out of here.”

Colin tastes salt water and the thick, choking tide of sobs, but pushes it down. “Thanks.”

Perched on the edge of the bed, she swallows and says, “I met Alan here when I was nineteen. I wasn’t always the person I should have been, Colin. I was young and stupid and did a lot of stuff I’m not proud of. I was on my own, trying to keep up with nursing school and homework and a full-time job. Right before I started here, a friend noticed I was having a hard time and gave me something to get me through it all.” She pulls a pillowcase into her lap, tugs on a loose thread. “Not long after, I was walking from the dorm to my car, and he was there. He was sweeping the sidewalk, and he looked up, smiled like I was a rainbow after the storm. I saw him like no one else did. Saw those crazy eyes and felt something I’d never felt before. He was mine; you know what I mean?”

Colin nods, knowing exactly the feeling she describes.

“He found me for a reason,” she continues. “I was alone at this big school and needed someone. He was so lonely. No family, no friends, practically invisible to everyone here. He took care of me, saw me stressed and understood why I needed something to get me through the day.”

Colin nods and isn’t even embarrassed to realize he’s crying.

“And when I realized what he was”—she laughs, shaking her head—“when I found out that he’d died? Here? That he haunted this place? I could handle that. But the disappearing? That’s what broke me,” she whispers. “How long has your Lucy been gone?”

“Twenty-four days.”

She pushes a skeptical exhale through her lips, shaking her head. “Twenty-four days you get used to. Twenty-four days you can live with.”

Bile rises in Colin’s throat at the idea of even one more day. “Did he disappear because you were unhappy?” he asks.

“Don’t know why he left. I went to rehab, and he didn’t visit me once. I started using again and he was back. Telling me it was okay, that I needed it. Almost encouraging. First time he was gone for six days. Second time, I didn’t see him for forty-three. And that wasn’t even the longest.”

Colin wants to move somehow, to release this discomfort that’s burrowed into his stomach. He paces to the other side of the room, pushing his hands into his gut, hoping something inside him untangles. “How long?”

“Two years. I had two years with him and then he was gone for two. I’d been clean for a while but going through a rough patch.” Maggie pinches her eyes closed, takes a deep breath. “I took some pills from the infirmary. When I got back to my room, there he was, sitting at the kitchen table like he didn’t have a care in the world. Like I’d gone out for a cup of coffee and he’d been waiting for me to come back. But it’d been too long, Colin. I couldn’t do it.”

“Two years?” Terror wraps a cold fist around his lungs, pulling down, and the sensation of caving in on himself takes over. He would chase Lucy anywhere. He doesn’t know how to function without her anymore. Maggie stays put in front of him, but she weaves, his vision blurry.

“He still felt the memory of the night before. Meanwhile, I’d lived two years—going to school, coming home, looking for him, trying to stay clean. Going to school, coming home, looking for him again. Every day, for two years. And there he was. My life was falling apart and he looked like he’d won the lottery. So, I left him. I wish I’d told him to stay away long before that. I wish I’d told him to leave me alone the first time he came back.”

Colin doesn’t know if he could do that. He doesn’t think he could ever give Lucy up.

He doesn’t realize he’s said it out loud until Maggie responds, her voice deep with sadness. “You’ll get there. You’ll find that point. Maybe it will be the first time she’s gone for more than a month. Maybe it will be that time she comes home for an hour and then is gone again for days. Or maybe she’ll get her way and you’ll do her dirty work for her.”

He can hardly process what she’s saying, but forces himself to speak anyway. “Did he disappear for good?”

Her eyes close, and a few tears escape. “I don’t know.”

“But when did you last see him?”

“Pretty soon after he came back. There were stories, always have been. I didn’t figure out till later that the dead around here are bound by the gates. I . . . stopped looking.” She straightens, shaking her head and reaching for a tissue in the front pocket of her scrubs. “I don’t know what takes more strength. Staying through it or letting him go. I don’t know. I just don’t.”

A phone rings somewhere and the bubble pops; the bleak light seems to give way again to bright fluorescent and echoing silence.

She walks past him, returning to nurse mode and telling him to take care, but he stops her with a hug, thanking her, squeezing her tight.

• • •

The entire way to Hillcrest Cemetery, Colin reminds himself that seeing Lucy’s tombstone is not the same thing as seeing Lucy. But he’s got a lot to talk out, and right now, she’s the only one he knows will understand it all.

He parks and steps onto a trail that leads through stretches of manicured lawn, which, in the coming months, will shift from sleeping brown to vibrant and green. He looks down a familiar narrow path through a thatch of bare, spindly trees. The graves that way lie under an enormous oak tree; the earth is covered with acorns in the fall and dappled sunshine in the summer. Even when the sun is shining and the grass is brilliant and alive, Colin feels a strange vacuum there. He hasn’t been down that trail—the one that leads to his parents’ and sister’s graves—in more than two years.

But the pull to find Lucy is different; it’s a hot urgency in his chest. Following the map, he continues straight and turns at a fork, to a plot sectioned off from the others and surrounded by an iron fence. He’s not sure what he’s expecting to find, but his heart beats heavier in his chest with each step, his boots making squelching sounds in the soggy ground.

He matches the markers to the map as he goes:

Mary Jorgey Stevenson, loving wife, mother, sister. 1923–1984

Jeremiah Hansen, our father. 1901–1976

Harry Hawkins, cherished son. 1975–1987

Names, words, dates. Entire lives summed up in a few lines.

And then, in a wide plot encircled with a crooked ornate gate, is a single headstone. It seems strange to see her alone, set away from the other graves. But he realizes the spaces next to her must be empty, waiting for her parents.

He stands, hands clenched into fists at his sides, eyes moving over the simple script, the delicate flowers etched deep into polished granite. His fingers itch to touch the letters of her name, to see if they feel as real as she did, to see if there’s any of her left here at all.

“Hey,” he says to the slab of stone. “ ‘Lucia Rain Gray. 1981 to 1998. Beloved daughter and friend.’ ” He feels irrationally angry at the generic memorial on her tombstone, letting out a few choice curse words before glancing behind him. Still alone, though he’s sure he could be heard from clear across the hillside. “Seriously? I think they could have done better than that.”

He shoves his frozen hands deep into his pockets and looks out over the other graves. The cemetery seems to stretch on for miles. There are no trees, no buildings, nothing to stop the wind from tearing through this side, blowing dried flowers down the hillside and away from the intended recipients. It’s brutal and cold but eerily silent. Colin sits down on the damp, scratchy grass covering her grave.

“There was a dance last night,” he says. “Jay took Amanda.” He smiles, knowing exactly how Lucy would react. “I’d been planning on asking you, but . . .” He picks up a stone and turns it over in his hand. The bottom is wet and looks like shiny onyx, but the top is dry and almost white in the light. It’s strange how water can make a simple rock look like a gem on one side and like a slab of concrete on the other. Just like the lake.

“This is my first time on this side of the cemetery, and yeah, it’s creepy. You know my parents are right over there? How weird is that? I had a family plot already waiting for me when they buried you.” Colin shakes his head, and a chill makes its way beneath the layers of his clothes. “They weren’t kidding about cemeteries being creepy. You’d think they’d feel full of ghosts and death, but they just feel empty. That’s the weirdest part, to be in a place that feels completely hollow and deserted. Why would anyone stick around here? What’s there to see? No wonder you decided to come back on a trail with trees and water and . . .” He trails off again, eyes lifting to the ominous white sky. There’s a patch right above where the clouds have drifted apart, and it seems like a vortex where he can imagine souls are sucked up and away.

“Is it strange that I’m glad I was the one who saw him . . . ? I mean, I don’t remember any of it, and I know this sounds all kinds of wrong, but I like that I saw him take you. I want to feel like him getting caught that night made a difference. The universe owes you, Lucy. You deserve to come back.”

He clears his throat, taking a much-needed breath to soothe the knot in his stomach. “So, I realize I’m talking to myself. You’re not here, in the dust and the grass and the air, because if you were, you would have figured out how to create a body from all of that. I know where you are, though. Is it weird that I think these people in this cemetery are really gone but can’t accept that you are? Like, I’ve never said a word at my mom’s grave, because what’s the point? She left a long time ago. You know I hardly remember her face?” He shrugs, tossing the rock to the ground. “But not you. I remember every one of your smiles, and I spent probably a half hour last night trying to picture the expression you make when you’re braiding your hair. I know how you grip a pencil and that you cross your right leg over your left and almost never the other way around. And I know where you are, Lucy. I’ve never felt like anyone was waiting for me before, not my sister or my mom or my dad. It’s only ever been you.”

He stares down at the dead grass near his legs and picks out a single blade. The root is tender and green even if the exposed section is dried and yellow. Beneath the ground, it was still alive.

“I’ve spent the last few weeks trying to figure out how this happened, and I think I understand it now. I shouldn’t be here. Dot’s told me that enough times—joked that I have nine lives—but I never thought about it that much, you know? I should have died with my family—and at least a dozen times after that. Even the quarry didn’t scare me. When I fell and broke my arm? For the first time ever, I thought, that’s it. This is the end. But it wasn’t. You’d been watching me, waiting, and I think that thought was enough to finally bring you here. If it wasn’t over for me, it’s not over for you either. We’re connected in a way that no one else is. I didn’t let the man who killed you get away with murder, and you came back because you knew how much I’d lost.”

He drops the blade of grass and runs his hand over the other yellowed blades, still firmly rooted in the soil. “I guess what I’m saying is that I hope you’re waiting for me, Lucy. Because this time, I’m taking you through the gate, not the other way around.”