Why is he in the fountain?
“Damon?” I say in a timid voice. “Are you okay?”
He says nothing, and through the falling water, I can tell he doesn’t move. It’s like he doesn’t hear me.
Clearing my throat, I harden my voice. “Why are you sitting in there?” And then I add, “Can I come in, too?”
I didn’t mean to say it, but I got excited. It looks fun, and something inside me just wants him to feel better.
He shifts his head, his gaze flashing to the side, but then he turns back.
I squint into the thin slices of air between the spills to see his head bowed and wet hair hanging in his face. I spot a flash of red, noticing blood on his hand. Is he bleeding?
Maybe he wants a Band-Aid. I always want my mom and a Band-Aid when I’m hurt.
“I see you at Cathedral sometimes. You never take the bread, do you?” I ask him. “When the whole row goes to receive communion, you stay sitting there. All by yourself.”
He doesn’t move behind the water. Just like in church. He just sits there when everyone else goes up the aisle, even though he’s of age. I remember him being part of my sister’s first communion class.
I fidget. “I have my first communion soon,” I tell him. “I’m supposed to have it, I mean. You have to go to confession first, and I don’t like that part.”
Maybe that’s why he stays seated during that part of Mass. You’re not supposed to take the bread or wine unless you’ve confessed, and if he hates that part as much as I do, maybe he just sits out altogether.
I search for his eyes through the water. The spray from the falls hits my skin and costume, and the hair on my arms stands up. I want to go in there, too. I want to see.
He doesn’t feel friendly, though. I’m not sure what he’ll do if I climb in.
“Do you want me to go?” I lean my head to the side, trying to catch his eyes. “I’ll go if you want. I just don’t like it out here very much. My stupid sister ruins everything.”
She took off with my friends, running away from me, and my mom is…busy. Seeing what it’s like inside a fountain for the first time seems like fun.
But he doesn’t look like he wants me here. Or anyone, for that matter.
“I’ll go,” I finally say and back away, leaving him alone.
But as I turn, the sound of the water suddenly changes, and I look over, seeing that it’s hitting his hand now.
He reaches out slowly through the water for me, inviting me in.
I hesitate a moment, trying to see if I can make out his face, but still, it’s covered by his drenched hair.
Glancing around me, I don’t see anyone, and my mom will probably be mad that I’ll get wet, but… I want to.
I can’t hold back the smile as I reach out and clutch his chilled fingers, lifting my leg and stepping into the fountain.
So long ago.
That was so long ago, but that day was burned into my mind, because it was the last day I saw my mother’s face. It was the last day I saw my bedroom and whatever new décor she would fix it up with. The last time I could run anywhere I wanted, knowing by the clear picture in front of me that the path ahead was without danger, and it was the last time people weren’t nervous around me, or that my parents loved me more than they were burdened by me.
It was the last time I was included without question or could enjoy a movie, a dance, or a play the way it was meant to be enjoyed.
It was the last day I was me as I knew it and the first day of a new reality that could never be undone. I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t rewind and not go into that maze. I couldn’t undo stepping into that fountain.
Because God, I wished I never did. Some mistakes you never heal from.
And as my mother and I stood next to my older sister, now thirteen years later on her wedding day, smelling her perfume and hearing the priest mumble through this blessed sacrament of marriage, I fought not to recoil or remember how, for one brief, beautiful moment, that fountain all those years ago was indeed a heavenly hiding place. And how I wished I was there now, if only to be away from here.
The rings, the kiss, the blessing…