Page 64

The song.

The damn river.

A horn blares behind me, and I accelerate. The entrance appears before I decide whether I’m going in.

The parking lot is empty. Of course it is. The park is closed for the winter.

I shut off the truck, and for one irrational second, I expect to look over and find her in the passenger seat. Her legs tucked beneath her. Her hair falling over one shoulder. Her hand reaching for mine. But there’s only the trash and a pale indentation in the worn leather where no one has sat in months.

Raven's not in my truck. She's waiting down by the river. The thought settles over me with a quiet certainty. That’s why I came here.

Raven led me here.

I don’t fight the thought the way I would’ve a month ago. A month ago I would’ve called it what it was, grief, exhaustion, a mind coming apart at its seams. Now I just let it sit there, warm and welcome, the first thing that’s made sense to me in longer than I can remember.

If she’s waiting, I want to go to her. I don’t examine that wish too closely. I’m not sure I’d survive examining it.

A laugh catches in my throat before it can become a sound. Jesus. I'm talking like a man who's finally lost his mind.

Maybe I have. Maybe losing it is exactly what it takes to find my way back to her.

The song plays on repeat in my head, looping past the point of meaning anything.

A river.

A girl.

A man who never stopped looking.

I close my eyes. "You've been waiting for me,” I whisper.

She’ll be there. She has to be.

I open the door. Cold air tears through the cab, but I barely feel it. Snow crunches beneath my boots as I walk to the locked gate. It's taller than I remember, the chain wrapped tight around the bars beneath a heavy padlock dusted with snow.

Someone else would see a closed park. I see one last chance to find my wife.

I grab the top rail. The metal burns against my hands. One boot finds a crossbar. Then another. By the time I drop onto the other side, my palms sting and my knees protest the landing.

The wooden walkway is slick beneath my boots. Snow dusts the railings and gathers in the corners of each step. The waterfall is louder in winter, or maybe everything else is quieter. Water crashes somewhere below, hidden behind trees and rock, filling the air with a constant low roar.

My body remembers the path before I do. Left at the first split. Down the narrow staircase. Past the overlook where Raven and I stopped to take pictures.

My hand slides along the railing as I go, cold biting through my palm with every step lower into the woods. Somewhere overhead, a bird calls once before the sound disappears into the trees.

The song is still playing inside my head.

Not the words.

Just the story.

A girl by the river.

Gone.

A man walking through a town where everyone has already decided what happened. I understand him better than I want to.

People kept telling me Raven was gone as though repetition could make the word mean something.