The Sudden Reappearance of Finn

Emily Harris screamed and punched the air. She was in the dream again. It was always the same—a replay of the day that everything changed. The day she lost her boy, her sweet, funny four-year-old, Finn. In the dream, she manages to grab hold of Finn's shirt and save him. In the dream, she and Nick hug their frightened tears away and celebrate. In the dream.

Through the open bay window, the salty air and lull of crashing waves beckoned Emily to wake. Her swollen eyes and sweat-drenched tee shirt confirmed the fading nightmare. She struggled to pry open her sleep-filled eyes and turned to look at her slumbering husband. She gazed at his slim silhouette, curled toward the wall. She doesn't know if she wants to snuggle into his arms or karate chop him in the throat.

Emily wanted to scream her grief over everything, to wear it out by talking. Nick shoveled his own heavy sorrow down into a deep, internal grave. Theirs was no longer shared mourning. An invisible forest grew around them—its sinewy branches tangling and truncating their unified front, threatening to strangle them both.

She leaned in and kissed him as she stroked his sandy blonde, curly hair away from his face. The sleeve of her left arm pushed up to reveal an angry pink scar jagged down her wrist.

Nick made no effort to wake.

Emily gave up her futile attempts at rousing him. She quietly changed into a bikini, threw on her flops, and snagged Nick's light blue button-down from the left bedpost. She threw it over her shoulders and crept out to the beach. She closed her eyes as the morning wind whipped through her hair. She squinted to stare at the horizon and noticed a faint, green light glowing in the distance.

“Finn,” she thought. Finn loved all things green.

For his years of short-lived Halloween fun, he insisted on dressing as the Green Lantern. Emily connected all sudden appearances of green in her life to a supernatural message from Finn, but she kept the message to herself.

She walked in the wave breaks, past solitary morning fishermen, sitting in lawn chairs, praying for a snag on their taut lines. A sea-green conch shell serendipitously hit her shin. She took the conch as a sign—a jackhammer to her boulder of grief.

Sun-worn, she stumbled home to find Nick cooking breakfast. They chatted about the Orioles’ terrible season. They laughed and bantered about surface, tedious things. It was a comfortable blanket, this moment. Emily wished she could snuggle up in its security forever.

After the meal, Emily busied herself scooping leftovers in Tupperware. Nick loaded the dishwasher. It's an old routine--safe and sure.

"How was your walk today, Em?" Nick asked.

She shellacked a smile and told him the walk relaxed her. But she knew he wanted her to let go, to let the tides of palpable grief ebb. She can't ever let go.

Later, they walked the boardwalk for dinner at The Crab Shanty. They sat on a balcony overlooking the Chesapeake Bay and watched the crabbing ships unload their catch as the sun sank to slumber. The faint late-night breeze cools the stifling humidity of the East Coast summer. Their conversation was as easy and light as the years "before."

With the pleasant fatigue of full stomachs, they strolled down the warped planks of the boardwalk toward home. Emily heard a faint echo of a four-year-old’s clobbered footsteps on a loose plank behind them but said nothing. The Shanty's "All-you-Can-Eat! Steamed Blue Crabs!" neon sign glowed green and hung askew—a lantern of hope to guide their exit.

Nick stopped in front of the Jolly Rodger Amusement Park. He parked himself on a peeling white boardwalk bench.

“I miss you, Em,” he whispered. “I want us back. We have to figure out a way to keep on living.”

“I can’t live without Finn, Nick,” she barked.

A volcano of anger threatened to erupt inside of her. How can she be the only one drowning? How is he able to function?

The safety of the bright arcade lights dimmed as they walked. Nick's rangy legs put him ahead of her; he jammed his lanky arms in his jeans pockets to plug his anger. Emily lagged behind, her long hair veiling her face to salve the sting of her tears. And, that's when she saw him.

Amid the sugar-hopped young crowds and their exhausted parents, he waited in the bumper cars line with an older boy. A green spotlighted halo hung over his little head. The cacophony around her muted, and the people melted away. His ice-blue eyes made contact with hers.

She pushed through the sweaty, snaked line. She squeezed by twin preteen girls.

"Hey! No buttsies!" they declared in unison.

Emily pressed on. She could faintly hear Nick shout her name, his voice heavy with worry. She didn't care.

"Finn!" She screamed.

“Finn” froze. He shrieked as she tried to scoop him up. Emily hesitated.

It wasn’t Finn. His raven hair was a lighter shade of auburn, and his nose was too long. Finn's freckles eradicated by olive cheeks. His almond eyes—nothing like her Finn's—stared at her like she was a monster.

"I'm so sorry. I thought that you were someone else…" Horrified, Emily turned away.

An overweight, ketchup-colored man in a tank-top attempted to restrain her.

Nick arrived just in time to offer a stammering explanation. "We lost our son recently. I'm sorry. We're leaving."

A wave of pity surfed over the crowd. It made Emily's stomach hurt. The kid was Finn…until he wasn't.

Emily and Nick walked home in a thick, silent fog. Emily stifled her cries until they exploded through her pores. They embraced under the stairs leading up to the house. Nick's shirt was soaked with a mixture of snot and tears. He stiffened and pulled away from his wife.

Emily reeled in her tears.

"I'm so sorry. You're totally gonna need to throw your shirt out."

She pointed to the layers of bodily fluids dried on Nick's tee-shirt. She hoped he’d laugh, but he remained stoic in his icy fortitude.

Emily didn’t tell Nick that she's not just seeing Finn. She didn't tell him that sometimes she can hear him too.

They walked up to bed together, but the space between them expanded. When Emily was sure Nick had fallen asleep, she reached into the nightstand drawer next to her. She grabbed a balled-up, tiny red Spiderman shirt, inhaled its faint scent, and hugged it close to her heart.

In the first months following the accident, they’d watched home movies of their sweet, funny, dark mop of a 4-year-old and spoke of how life would never be the same. And then, it mostly was—it was shocking how "same" life felt.

***

At three a.m., she heard it. Pebbles at the bay window. First one. Then two. Then a handful. Emily flung herself out of bed.

She rushed downstairs and pulled open the back door. The motion-activated green spotlight on the porch clicked on.

"Finn?" She whispered.

The light switched off. Emily stood alone in the darkness—the ominous humming of cicadas and crashing waves, her only companions. Something small and clammy shot out of the inky black and touched her hand. Emily screamed, solitary again in the unending midnight.

Within seconds, Nick rushed outside. He found his wife, laughing and crying hysterically. He knelt next to her as she slowly raised her head to meet his eyes.

"It's Finn, Nick. He's alive!"

Nick sighed and carried his wife to bed.

In the morning, Emily jittered like a speed addict. She felt like a kid on the first day of school—nervous but excited to see how everything has changed. Nick stretched and opened a squinty eye to greet her. She knew that Nick didn't get it—that he could never get it.

"We need to talk about last night, Em," he implored as she headed out the door.

She laughed him off and kissed his cheek.

"Fine. Go for your damned walk instead."

He huffed into the bathroom and slammed the door.

When she arrived home, a note sat on the kitchen table.

“Em, you need help I can’t give you. I can’t drown with you. I’ll check on you. Love, Nick.”

Emily rubbed the raised, soft pink of her left wrist and crumpled the note before tearing it into a thousand pieces. She grabbed a well-worn photo from her nightstand drawer. The last shot of Finn—baseball cap cocked, a grin ushering in boyhood.

No one blamed her. It was a freak accident. There was nothing that she could do.

Emily walked the beach alone and screamed for Finn until her voice failed her. The sand burned fiery coals beneath her feet, but she didn’t turn around until humid heat covered her like a scratchy blanket.

When she returned home, the stillness in the house felt like mildew on her skin.

"Nick?"

She entered the bedroom before she remembered Nick’s departure. Emily yelped like a kicked puppy. Nick kept her grounded, and she had become untethered.

No longer afraid of the inky terrors of darkness, she began to sleep on the porch. Night after night, she sat gazing at the green porch light as if her resolve alone could bring her son back.

In the kitchen, a mountain of food-caked dishes spilled from the sink, the fridge door was wide open, and the air hung with the rancid odor of spoiled fruit. But Emily no longer cared. She focused her energy on Finn and his imminent arrival.

One night, she actually showered and pulled on a white, lacy sundress. She wore it only once the previous year, and when Finn saw it, he declared, "Mommy, you ah bootiful!"

Yes, this was the dress to wear.

Emily wanted the night to be perfect. She set the dinner table with two matching red place settings; a lone red candle flickered between them. A cornucopia of chicken nuggets, corn, and watermelon waited to be devoured.

She pushed out the chair next to her. She drummed her fingers on the tabletop, and she waited.

At midnight, a tidal wave of failure crashed over her. She threw the dishes to the floor and clapped as they splintered into a million pieces. Her foot bled, but she paid it no mind.

She sobbed into the silence.

"I'm so sorry, buddy. I just wanted things to be perfect for you.”

"Finny, where are you? Where can Mommy see you?" She headed outside, peering through the black.

She raced toward the beach and the beckoning of the crashing waves.

"Are you in the ocean, Finn? Mommy's coming. Oh, I can't wait to hug you, Sweetheart."

She stumbled through the sand, arms flailing like pinwheels. She tripped over driftwood and split her chin open. A faint luminescent glow illuminated the waves, and it beckoned her.

Emily made her way to the water, blood from her chin gushing a trail behind her. The salty cold stung her skin.

"Finn!" she screamed.

She saw a small dark head, haloed in green light bobbing among the ocean's crests.

Emily paused and looked back toward the house. She gazed out at her son, his features still too blurred to distinguish.

She waded out past the wave breaks. She continued to shout Finn's name, but the closer she got, the further away he seemed. When she could no longer stand, the water covered her face.

"Finn," she gurgled.

The ripples on the water distorted her smile, and the velvet sea swallowed her.