I sing: “And it’s into this river I drown.”
And as soon as I sing the last word, a drop of water falls from the ceiling and lands directly on my tongue. It slides to the back of my throat, leaving a trail of water in its—
wake up —wake. It doesn’t taste like rain. It doesn’t taste like rust from sliding along the roof of the shack. It tastes like—
wake up wake up
—the river, like the river from my dreams, the river where my father drowned, the river where Cal’s body lies. It tastes like sorrow and skin. Anger and bones. It tastes like everything I’ve ever wanted to say to those who are gone. It tastes like I love you. It tastes like I miss you. It tastes like I am so angry you’re gone. It tastes like—
up benji wake up cal wake wake
—regret. It tastes like knowing you can never go home again.
But most of all, it tastes like strength.
“Wake up!” a voice shouts in the shack. It’s deep, that voice. It’s familiar. It’s loud. It’s angry. It’s here with me, but I can’t. I just can’t. I don’t want to wake up. I don’t want to open my eyes. “Wake up!” my father roars, right next to my ear. It’s unexpected, and I jerk awake, my eyes flashing open, sure I will see—
my dad father big motherfucking eddie
—someone standing above me, sure I am no longer alone and that memories, like ghosts, have risen, have become corporeal.
But he’s not.
There’s no one there.
I shift on the floor, frantically looking around for the owner of the voice, even though I know who it is. Even as I twist my head, a sharp pain cuts into my finger. I gasp at the suddenness of it, piercing through all my other aches in body and mind. I roll onto my stomach, away from the wall, trying to see what I cut myself on.
Estelle’s gift to her husband lies on the ground against the wall.
“Wake up,” I say. “I gotta wake up.”
Yes, boy, Abe whispers in my mind. You gotta wake up, because sometimes, all we want to do is to jump into that river and drown. It’s easy. It’s relief. It’s the warm embrace of death. But it’s also selfish. It’s selfish and solves nothing, and that is not who you are. So you wake up.
I don’t want to die here. I can’t die here. I have to tell people what I know. I have to tell the world what has happened. If not for my father, then for Cal, who only wanted to protect what was his. For Abe, who deserved more than to die on the dirty floor in a derelict shack in the middle of the woods. They deserve more, and only I can give that to them. Then I can sleep. Then I can float on the river’s current and drift away.
Like ghosts, my father says.
Like knives.
I lie back on my side and count to three before I jerk myself up and onto my ass, using my legs as leverage against the floor. My ankle screams at me, but I ignore it. The pain is nothing. It’s nothing compared to everything else.
Then I’m up and take a moment to catch my breath. The air inside the shack is stifling and hot, the little cracks in the walls not enough to ventilate the inside. Another splash of water lands on my head and trickles down my face. The rain thunders on the metal roof, and it sounds like a rushing river.
I press my back up against the wall and scrabble for the open pocketknife. My fingers brush the blade, and I follow it back until I reach the handle. I twist it up in my fingers until the blade is pointed up. My fingers are sticky with blood, sweat, and grime. I can’t let it slip. Not now. I don’t know how much time I have, but it can’t be much.
I press the blade flat against my wrist and slide it up against my skin until it’s under the plastic zip tie. It cuts into the already sliced flesh and I grit my teeth. This is nothing. The pain is negligible, I tell myself. I’ve been through worse. I’m going through worse. The searing of the knife into my flesh? This is nothing.
But the pain grows as I twist the knife, until the edge of the knife is pressed against my wrist, the sharper edge against the plastic of the zip tie. Blood drips down my fingers. I close my eyes and try to visualize my hands behind me. Instead of focusing on the damage I’m doing to my wrist, I focus on what I have to do to make this work. I grip the handle of the knife tightly with my knuckles.
A sound, above the rain. A low rumble. Lights roll up through the shack, flashing through the metal slats. The sound
of tires on gravel. The harsh squeal of brakes.
A truck, a large one by the sound of it.
Not much time, I tell myself. Not much time at all. You going to do this? I am.
I grip the knife as tightly as I can. Taking a deep breath, I lift my knuckles up