Death Rhythm

A curt New England breeze slices through the oaks. Leaves shimmer in lazy circles downward, barely landing before scuttling over my unpainted toenails in search of a resting place.

As am I.

I left the house, my slice of chocolate cake still on its plate, to escape the doom cloaking Annette's bedroom. Her shallow breaths hiss with the rhythm of her heartbeat. The sound is a timepiece, a deathwatch ticking. It anchors my hopes as surely as a boat trapped in port.

I trudge down the leaf-littered path, stepping over gnarled roots that have risen aboveground. Or perhaps the ground has sunk. Depleted by time and wind and rain. My fingers grip the ragged waistband of my jeans. I inhale sea-salted oxygen. It pours into my lungs, a steady burn, a grim reminder that Annette can no longer draw a deep breath. Her lungs rattle in her chest, cavernous drums filled with fluid.

I veer off the path, stepping past my wishing stone. Moss the color of rotten spinach blankets the old rock. When I was five, I sat on it and wished for a father. A year later my mother had remarried. My wish came true. When I was seventeen, I sat and asked for true love.

He came riding into town on a rickety Harley. A southern charmer with silky bravado and thick black hair. Annette looks like him. True love doesn't stay though, especially when a mother with an egg-plant colored jaw sits on her rock and wishes for freedom.

I leave the stone behind me. I don't dare sit there today. I don't dare think of what I might ask. The ocean calls me, just around the bend, the part where the trees thin and the land drops off. My Atlantic. That violent, crashing entity whose roar grows louder as I near. How often Annette ran these broken hills, her chubby face wreathed by a gap-toothed smile.

She fell often, scraping her knees against the rough landscape, drawing pinpricks of crimson that dotted the braised little-girl skin. She never needed my hug. The ocean drew her, instead. A mad call she answered on spritely legs and silver bell giggles. There was no hint of her future drowning. No possible way for me to see this end.

I've come to the edge of the path, the end of the trees. Shards of wind-broken rocks dig into the tender flesh of my arch as I near the cliffs. The sun has not yet dipped into the horizon. Its cantaloupe ripeness melts into a blueberry sky. The breeze is stronger here, at the outer reaches of earth. It butts against me in prickling shoves, tiny nails of sea spray brushing my cheeks.

I don't want to go back.

I can't bear to hear her dying.

The jagged drop off is close. Only feet away. I slip closer. The ocean foams below me. Beckoning. Rocks eroded into smooth arrows that jut from the churning waters. To land on one would most certainly be lethal.

I can't stay.

The mantra pulses through my mind, as tempting as the fruit that enticed Eve. What could be more powerful than to release myself from this earth? To grasp control and end my own suffering?

Annette might not even notice. The thought comforts. I lift my hands high, straining to scrape the ceiling above me, to touch an invisible God, to have Him reach me.

Only three more steps to freedom. Released from the daily pressure squeezing my heart into nothingness. An organ that pumps and does nothing more. I can step forward, into the unknown, diving through saline-laden molecules, embracing a future that surely must be better than my present. Zipping across the spectrum of time.

Annette won't be long behind me. Perhaps a few days. The knowledge saturates my consciousness, strengthens my resolve. I will be there to greet her. I will cross that bridge before her.

I close my eyes against the setting sun. I slide my right foot forward. Pebbles grind into my heels. How many years have I visited this cliff? Longer than Annette's life.

Behind my lids, I see Annette running to me. Long legs healthy lean, face flushed pink with excitement and not with the strain of drawing a breath. Her hair will shine. Newly polished ebony and her irises gleaming with joy.

Two more steps. Change is within my grasp.

We will both leave.

The wind is stronger now, urging me forward with insistent hands. There are no human sounds here. A gull cries, startling me. My eyes fly open and I see just how close to the edge I am. My heart clatters to a stop. If I jump off, I jump off alone. Which means Annette will be alone.

What kind of mother lets her child die alone?

I back away, because my chocolate cake is waiting for me.

Annette cannot eat it. It is for her that I will.

And it is for her that I will live my life. To taste the chocolate. To touch the ocean. To feel for her when she is gone.

Turning to the house, I go home. The waves crash behind me, their rhythm life.