School’s over. This is my last letter to you.

Donnie and Rhett are in the other room waiting for me. After I finish this letter, I’ll mail it on our way to the marina. They both assume I’m gonna jump. Off the marina, I mean.

We start from the shore. We swim about a hundred feet out to a ladder. You’ve got to wear shoes, says Rhett, or when you jump, hitting the water hurts your feet. And climbing the ladder does, too. The ladder goes all the way up from the water. The bottom part —the part that dips below high tide—is all covered with seaweed and barnacles, like wood on a shipwreck. The ladder gets cleaner as it goes up. The top rungs are bleached and cracked by the sun.

We climb the rungs all the way to the top. Then we just stand close to the edge of the roof and jump.

Rhett says there’s nothing to it. You just step off and fall.

I suppose I should say goodbye Dad, but I think you’re beyond goodbyes now. Beyond letters. Beyond words.

All that’s left is for me to step into air.

So that’s what I’ll do.

Your son,

Trevor

You’re really gone, aren’t you? You’re never gonna write me back.

Just to let you know, I’ll probably keep checking the mailbox for a while to make sure.

I went in to Mrs. Henry’s class at lunch today to talk to her about you. She was writing in a notebook with a pencil, but stopped when I came in. She looked up and smiled at me with all her wrinkles. I sure like those wrinkles.

“What can I do for you, Trevor?” I just stood there. Mrs. Henry is one of my favorite adults, but it’s still hard for me to talk to her. Then again, all adults are hard for me to talk to. Even Mom. Sometime in the future, I need to write letters to Mom and apologize for not talking much.

I told Mrs. Henry I didn’t really need anything. I just wanted to say hi and tell her about some stuff. She set down her pencil, then picked it up again and tapped the desk with it.

“What kind of stuff?”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“Other stuff?” She smiled again. I knew what she meant. I nodded, but I didn’t say anything. We sat there like that for 20 seconds. Then she said, “You know, Trevor, you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. Some things aren’t meant to be shared. Maybe this is one of those things you just want to keep. For yourself.”

“Yeah, maybe.” I might have sighed a little right then, either in relief or disappointment.

She said, “Can I ask one question? Did things turn out—OK?”

“I think so.”

“You think so? You’re not sure? Well then, Trevor, I guess you’ll just have to get used to not knowing.”

“That sucks,” I said. I meant it.

“I suppose it does. But there’s something exciting about the not-knowable-ness of it. It means you’ve got a secret—a mystery—that’s still waiting to be solved. There’s not many of those left. Seems like you’ve got a good one. Right up there with Bigfoot.”

I thought the Bigfoot comment was pretty stupid. But I pretended it was funny, then told Mrs. Henry to have a good summer and left.

Not knowing totally blows. I’d rather know, Dad. Where are you?

Your son,

Trevor

It’s been more than a week since you got on the boat. You did get on the boat, didn’t you? I hate not knowing. I want to know for sure. At least I think I do.

I’m pretty certain you’re gone for good. So why am I still writing? I’ve got no reason that makes sense, other than sometimes you get into a pattern and you just keep doing it because it’s what you do. I’ll probably stop when school gets out, because I try not to do anything that even smells like school in the summer. Except reading, I guess. I still read. But I try to read only trashy books, full of lots of violence and maybe even a little sex, but not so much mom would think I’m reading porn or anything weird like that.

Donnie is supposed to come over after school on Friday. Our plan is to stay up super late then sleep in practically all day on Saturday. Which means Donnie will stay up super late and I’ll probably fall asleep by 10. 11 if I drink lots of Coke. And I can’t sleep in to save my life, so I’ll be up early playing video games with the volume down.

I told Donnie that Rhett wants me to jump off the marina after we get home from school. Donnie said, “Can I come? I’ve always wanted to jump off that thing.”

Sometimes I hate my friends.

Anyway, tomorrow is really like the last day of school, even thought we have to go on Friday, too. Friday is only half a day. The cool teachers have parties in their classes and the other ones make you clean out your desk and review stuff. I think they should all have parties, because that will be the last thing you remember about them. But some teachers want you to remember how hard their classes were, I guess.

I’m gonna try to talk to Mrs. Henry tomorrow to maybe tell her about what happened between you and me. I figure she was a key person in the whole deal, so she deserves to know. If I don’t tell her tomorrow, I probably never will, because I won’t have her for a teacher next year.

I know that, because I got my list of classes for 8^th grade. All new teachers. I don’t know any of them. I hope they don’t think I’m a hood, because of the whole cookie thing. I figure they all heard the story. Maybe Mrs. Henry will put in a good word for me. Maybe I’ll ask her that tomorrow.

If you were writing back to me, this is where you’d say, “You’re not a hood, Trevor. You’re a good kid. I believe in you. Blah blah blah.” I wouldn’t mind having someone say that to me right now.

Your son,

Trevor

The second hardest day to go to school all year long is the last Monday before summer break. You know that summer is almost here and you get a weekend of great weather to give you a little taste of it—just enough to drive you insane. Then you have to get up early and go back to school for a whole other week. Barf.

The hardest day to go to school is the day after you’re suspended for poisoning the teachers with Ex-Lax.

It’s the beginning of the final week. Then summer. And Rhett told me that after school on Friday, he’s gonna make me jump off the marina whether I like it or not.

Maybe that’s what bugs me—him pushing me so hard. Maybe if I felt like it was my decision to jump, I’d be happier about it.

But who would ever decide to do such a stupid thing? Even at high tide, the roof is at least 40 feet above the water. From that height, the water is like concrete. If you land wrong you’re dead. Or you’re paralyzed from the waist down and you’ll never walk again and kids will stare at you in the mall. You just spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair. Maybe if you’re really lucky, you do a talk show on PBS or something dorky like that.

Should I jump? I guess I’ve gotta figure this one out on my own, because you’re no help. You’re beyond dead.

Your son,

Trevor

Things I miss, now that your letters have stopped:

-        Hearing stories about when you were alive, like when you made that trailer from the Popular Mechanics plans.
-        Hearing you worry about me. It sucks to worry, but it’s nice to be worried about.
-        Learning about boxing. Knees bent, hands up, elbows in, fists relaxed.
-        Thinking that maybe I was like you, after all, and being OK with that.
-        Gordon’s weird Latin quotes. E pluribus cuckoo.
-        Knowing that I was the only kid getting letters from you.
-        Descriptions of Sung-Hee’s crappy coffee. I don’t want to drink it. I just want to hear about it.

I wish you’d write back.

Your son,

Trevor

Still no letter from you. I think you may be gone for good. Then again, I thought you were gone when you went into the woods, then you came back. But you said no one ever comes back on the boat except the bloody captain. The boat goes out full and comes back empty.

I know I should be glad, right? Because this probably means you made it to heaven. Or somewhere. You’ve moved on at least. That’s good, right? I really am glad for you, if it makes sense to be glad.

By the way, if the postman or Sung-Hee or Gordon or someone else is reading this letter right now, I’m OK with that. But you don’t need to write back to me. I don’t want to start getting a bunch of letters from dead people I don’t know.

It was super sunny today. It made it really hard to keep my mind on school. After today, only six days to go and then school is done. I’m glad summer is here to take my mind off your being gone. The only thing that worries me about summer is the marina. I know Rhett is gonna bug me to jump off it. I don’t know what Rhett’s problem is.

I was trying to think if there was a question I wished I asked you before you got on the boat. Here’s a simple one: What should I do about the marina?

Your son,

Trevor

I’m not sure what happened in your last letter. I think you just got on the boat. Is that true? Are you gone?

What happens now? How will I know?

It figures that yesterday was Memorial Day. Mom picked a bunch of flowers from the yard – big, red rhododendron blooms and tiny little lime green flowers and I think lilies and some other stuff. We went to Washington Memorial and visited Meredith’s grave and your grave. We scrubbed your tombstone with copper cleaner. I think we’ve probably been scrubbing it a little too much over the years, because it’s looking kind of worn through around the letters. Then Mom put her flowers in the little metal can that’s sunk in the grass and we dumped some water in there. It’s kind of cool, because we decorate your grave, even though there’s no one to see it. It’s kind of like Mom thinks maybe you’re looking down or God is. Maybe it’s just for us.

It was weird being there with Rhonda and my brothers, who were working away with the copper cleaner and making jokes and stuff, while I was mainly thinking about our letters. Visiting your tombstone felt different to me this year, because now it’s there for someone I know. I mean, before we started writing to each other, Memorial Day was kind of about the idea of ancestors, not about real people. Now you’ve become real, just in time to leave.

Our timing is off again, because you’ll probably never read this.

Your son,

Trevor

 I know you need me, but I am beyond apologies.

 I write this leter at the Laughing Gull. Ezra sits next to me, tapping his fingers on the table. Tap tap tap.

 The boat pulls in. The woman captain is dressed in her best blood. “Why is she like that?” I think to myself. Or maybe I say it out loud, because Ezra answers.

 “Who knows what g—got her to that point. A bill—billion little things. That’s like me asking you wh—why you look the way you do.”

“Why do I what? Look like this? This is who I am. Or who I’ve become. I’ve looked better.”

“Ah. And this is the best she’s l—looked so far. Like she’s dressed for a wedding. Don’t you think she looks lovely in h—her wedding clothes?

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, but she looks just rough enough to get me where I need to go.”

“Then come.”

“I’m coming.” My heart pounds as I say the words.  “I’ve just got to mail a letter.”

“Even so, come quickly,” says Ezra.

I will finish this line, stuff this note in an envelope and hand it to Sung-Hee. I’ve gotta run, Trevor.

Your dad,

Hugh

 Huh.

 It’s strange, but I miss this town, even as I sit in it.

 I think of it as passed. Or past. I feel like I’m sitting in something that has come and gone, like a time traveler who is just here to document a completed event.

 Maybe that’s the right word. Completed.

 Can I thank you for your act of taking on my burden? I don’t think so, Trevor. Not in words, anyway. Certainly not in these words, which feel like smoke trailings behind a plane. I have no confidence in their ability to communicate my real feelings. By the time the envelope arrives in your box, you’ll find only the damp evidence of steam.

 Perhaps I could howl for you, but I don’t know how to spell the sound I would make. Let me just say that I feel primitive. Wild. I want to bite something. Ha!

 The hairs on my arm are tingly. When I brush alongside my doorway, my side tingles for a full five seconds. I can feel the rough boards through the souls of my shoes. I can stand on my porch and smell the salt shore, smell Sung-Hee’s fish and coffee, even Sung-Hee’s own sour sweat.

 I want that boat to come in, Trevor. I bet I’ll smell its iron odor when it’s five miles out.

 I picked up all your letters from my table with the thought of rereading them, but I found I wanted nothing to do with the words. I only wanted the feel of the paper on my skin. I rubbed them on my rough, unshaven face and I could smell the oil of your fingers. The oil smells like my own self. I can smell my blood in your blood.

 I want to grow a beard. Is that silly? I’m done with haircuts, too.

 Do I worry about the burden you now bear for me? I don’t. I can’t. My brain has gone native within my skull.

 Dad

 I’m no longer willing to wait for you to ask. Therefore, I’m jumping ahead without you. Consider your IOU cashed in.

 I, Trevor Griffiths, officially take on the burden of my father’s shame for anything he had to do with the death of his daughter, my sister, Meredith Griffiths.

 There. That’s it. It’s done. Move on.

 Your son,

 Trevor

“People think that forgiveness is a gentle act. There’s nothing gentle about it. At times it’s been the most bloody, violent act in the history of the world.” That’s what Ezra told me. That’s what it would feel like to me, Trevor, to let you take this on for me. To have my blood on your hands. On your back.

I can’t ask that of you. Of anyone. I have no right.

Ezra disagrees. Of course, Ezra is a bit of a nut. I verified this fact with Gordon. “De omni re scibili et quibusdam aliis,” Gordon said.

“Which means what.”

“It means he’s a bloody know-it-all, even about things of which he has no right of holding expertise. He’s annoying.”

“I don’t know. I kind of like him.”

“You would. You’re always seeking for something different. Something more. You should be like me.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I have decided I am quite comfortable here.”

“Oh, you are not. You do nothing but complain about this place.”

“Perhaps. But perhaps I like complaining. Perhaps it is the very act of complaining that gives me comfort. Perhaps it is the sheer mediocrity of this locale that makes it so right for me.”

“You may have something there.” I left. I went back to my cabin and took my IOU out to reread it. Then I put it back.

You don’t owe me this much.

Dad

 Don’t get into trouble for me. Especially for this. I don’t want any more shame piled on.

 Thanks for telling about your mom missing me. I’m not sure if it helps.

 A few months ago, when your trouble with Mudgett was making you vomit, you told me how your mom would make you feel worse when she’d baby you and call you her “poor dear.” That’s what Ev’s quick forgiveness felt like to me. It made the shame that much harder to bear.

 I kind of longed for her to scream at me. To hit me. To scratch my face and leave a horrible scar that I’d have to bear. Take a baby’s weight of flesh out of my backside. But Ev has never worked that way. She’ll take the sins of the world on herself to avoid causing anyone pain.

 Trevor, tread carefully around the cookie business. Cookies can be dangerous. Get a teacher sick and you could torch your school career. A vengeful teacher can make a kid pretty miserable.

 Dad

 If I were to talk about this to your mother, what would I say? She knows what happened. She knows I was there, in charge, when the future of our baby girl was eliminated, when your mother’s own joy stopped breathing.

 It’s strange how quiet tragedy can happen in real life.

 If I could have fought and lost, it would be so much easier to bear. If I’d been bloody and battered, laying half dead next to the all dead baby body, it would have been easy for Ev to forgive me.

 I’m wallowing. I know it.

 I thought this purgatory—if that’s what you call this place—would slowly scrape this burden off of me. But I took it with me into the woods and packed the whole thing back out again. Now I sit with it on my front porch. Maybe it’s like my hunch. Is that what you call it? My lump? I mean, if I were a hunchback, my deformity would be this lump of shame. I’ll take it with me everywhere. It will burn along with the rest of my bones in hell. Maybe it will make heaven a bitter place for me forever.

 I can’t imagine going to heaven, being surrounded by perfect people, and still walking around, hunched over with this crap on my back.

 Enough.

 Trevor, distract me. Tell me about the cookie contest. Shock me. Do something irresponsible to slap me out of this hangover.

 I remember when Keith was little and he’d bang his head on the kitchen counter. He’d whimper about his injury. Steffan would walk up to Keith and gleefully stomp on his foot. Keith would howl with pain and grab his smashed toes. Between sobs, he’d say, “Whadja do that for?”

 “You should thank me,” Steffan would say. “Now your head doesn’t hurt.”

 That’s what I need, Trevor. I need a pain so great that it will make my head stop hurting.

 Dad

I know I asked you to tell me all this stuff, but it’s a lot to handle. I feel like you should be telling this to Mom, not to me.

I guess I knew most of it—the basics at least—but I never really felt it before, you know? And it’s weird to think about Meredith like she was a real baby. Before your letters, she was a name out of an old story. And she was a tombstone. Or a name on a tombstone. That flowery little stone in the children’s section at Washington Memorial that we visit with Mom once a year. Mom still puts baby flowers on the grave. Baby’s breath, I think it’s called. I never thought about how weird that was until I wrote those words just now. Baby’s breath.

Maybe it’s too early to ask, but I’m wondering if you feel any better. I had this screwy idea that if you talked about what happened, you’d have some sort of weight lifted off your shoulders. Anything?

In movies about stuff like this, people always say things like, “It’s not your fault!” Then they shake the person by the shoulders and everyone cries, then look out at a sunset or stare out a rainy window or some moody crap like that.

But I think maybe it was your fault. Most things are somebody’s fault. We try hard to work things out so no one has to take the blame, but maybe on this one you do need to take the blame. I mean, you screwed up.

So now what?

Your son,

Trevor

Sorry it’s taken me a few days to respond to you. No excuses worth noting here other than it’s taken me that long to find the gumption to finish this story.

Back on that day, the next fifteen minutes were the most mind-bending of my life. Ev walked upstairs, still angry with me. I could hear what sounded like your mother crying in the distance and I thought, “What could she possibly be crying about now? All I did was watch a football game.” Then I heard her voice, still soft from upstairs, but broken with sobs, telling me to call 911.

I knew right then. At least that’s where my imagination went. I imagined the worst–that our little Meredith had stopped breathing. I picked up a cordless phone and dialed. The operator came on and asked my emergency and I told her just that–that our baby had stopped breathing. She calmly said an ambulance was on the way and asked me to describe what had happened. I said I didn’t know. Then I ran upstairs.

Ev was trying to breathe life back into that tiny baby. The baby wouldn’t have it.

I was glad for the operator on the phone. I needed someone to talk to other than Ev. I laid out the scene for her until the paramedics took over our house. From that point on, things got really technical. Death got covered in equipment. Bulbs and tubes and monitors. It seemed more official that way.

Your mom cried for days. Weeks. I don’t know if I ever did.

We had a funeral. The saddest of sad days.

We went on to fill our house with four more kids. You included. That stopped the crying pretty well. Nothing takes your mind off a dead child like a house full of chaotic joy.

Then I died. And here I am. It all makes a kind of sense. I fixed the problem by replacing Meredith four times over. I paid my debt in a sense. Now I’m serving my time. Least that’s how I see it.

If your mom had asked to have 10 more kids, I would have said yes. I would have said yes to almost anything.

Dad

It’s weird, because I know how the story ends, at least so far. I know that Meredith dies. I have a pretty good idea how it all happened. But I’m still afraid of your next letter.

I think I know you better now than I did when you were alive. I was a baby. We never talked. Now sometimes I wish we didn’t talk so much. Or didn’t talk so much about such heavy stuff. I wish we had that day-to-day thing where you’d ask, “How was your day?” I’d say, “Fine.” We’d go see a movie about a magician and you’d say, “So what did you think?” I’d say, “I liked it until Tesla started making clones of everything. It got really stupid after that.”

Talking is different when we write stuff down. No one makes small talk in letters. Well, maybe girls do. I bet Misty Lee could blather on about nothing for ten pages with no problem. But in our letters, it’s always life or death stuff. Maybe once we get past this we could share lists of favorite songs or books or pizza toppings. Something small like that.

Whew. I bet this is hard for you.

Maybe this will take your mind off of it. Brian Haase wants to talk about cookies. He says that the cookie contest the teachers are judging is a week from this Thursday and we need to have A Plan. “Let’s get together at lunch and make our strategy.” Brian is one of those guys who seems all quiet, but once he gets an idea, he’s like an army general. I can tell he’s already committed to some kind of idea in his head. He’s got that caveman-on-the-hunt look in his eyes. Blackie the Dog gets the same look when he sees Mrs. Johnson’s cat. He can picture the hunt, step-by-step, all the way to the kill.

I bet you’re barely able to concentrate on that, thinking about Meredith. I get why this is so hard for you. Stick it out, Dad. You’re halfway there.

Your son,

Trevor

I’ve been thinking about that IOU. I even wrote it out, so that you’d take me seriously when I asked to cash it in. It’s sitting right here in front of me now. I have other plans for it. But I do appreciate your offer, you persistent little punk. And now you’re threatening me, too. You pulled the mom card. It’s enough, Trevor. Enough to even push my way to a bit of a beginning about this story.

So here goes:

You guessed that it happened 19 years ago. You were close. If you are 13 now, then it was almost exactly 20 years. I’ve been dead for eight of those. Part of me has been dead the full two decades.

It was a Sunday. About 10 a.m. One of those spring days when it was sunny one minute and then rainy the next. Your mom put Meredith down for a nap in the upstairs bedroom—the one Rhonda must be using now. Ev told me to check on the baby in an hour and not let her sleep too long. Then she took Steffan with her to church. I was home alone with Meredith.

She was six months old at the time. I got to know that baby pretty well in half a year, because that was her entire life. With babies, the soul is all smells and burps and velvety skin. Meredith’s soul smelled like soap. She had your Mom’s unpredictable eyes. Green one day and brown the next depending on the weather and the color of her onesy. She had Ev’s disposition as well—out to make everyone happy all the time. Quiet and happy. Ready to smile at even the hint of a peekaboo. Ev would stare at her and say, “I’d rather watch you than TV any day.”

That morning, Meredith was asleep. I sat down in front of the television and started watching an East Coast football game. Philadelphia Eagles vs. the Washington Redskins. I didn’t care about either team, but football was my Sunday morning routine and I am a man of habit. Still am. As I recall, the Redskins made a rout of it and it was a lousy game to watch. No matter. I watched anyway.

Two hours later, your mom came home. I can still hear her church heels on the front porch steps, still hear her hello as she opened the door. “Where’s my baby?” she asked happily, looking around the living room.

That’s when I realized I’d left Meredith upstairs the entire time without checking on her. A slight infraction, right? The slightest imaginable. I mumbled something about her still being asleep. Ev instantly got mad at me. “Have you even checked on her?”

“I haven’t.”

“Do you even know if she’s OK?”

“She’s a baby,” I said, joking. “How much trouble can she get into?”

That joke. If I could take one thing back in my life, it would be that joke.

I’m stopping right there, Trevor. If I could find a liquor store up in this town, I’d drink myself all the way to oblivion, then drink a few more miles, just to be sure.

Dad

I’m not gonna leave you alone, you stubborn old bastard.

Remember way back in December, when we made that bargain? When you took on my fear of Mudgett? You said that in exchange, you’d file away an IOU. How about if you use it now? How about if I take on your fear of telling this story? How about if you give me your fear and then write freely?

Either way, I’m not gonna back off on this one, so you might as well spill. You’ve been talking about talking about this all year. It’s time you got down to it. Get it over with. Do.

If you don’t tell me, I’ll ask Mom.

Your son,

Trevor

You are getting on my nerves. I wish you would shut up about this topic. I wish you would leave me the hell alone.

I can’t do it. I can’t open my mouth about this one.

Dad

I asked Rhonda about Meredith. I figure since you aren’t telling me, I might as well dig a little on my own. Like I said, I’m just gonna keep writing about it until you spill your guts.

That’s one advantage of having a dead dad. I can sass you all I want and you have to put up with it. I’m mostly joking, Dad. I’m not trying to be a pain in the butt. I’m trying to get you to unload, you know?

Anyway, Rhonda is my only real option. No way I’m asking Mom, because I know you’d really freak out if I brought her into it. Mom would probably tell me the real story if I asked. She keeps a lot of stuff to herself, but if you ask her, she’ll tell.

I just asked Rhonda straight out. I walked into her bedroom—upstairs. She was listening to some weird county-punk music and lying on her bed looking at the ceiling. I turned off her music and said, “Hey.”

“Hey.” She didn’t look up. Must have been something really amazing on that ceiling.

“Do you know how Meredith actually died?”

“Our Meredith?”

“Yeah.”

“Why? And why didn’t you knock?”

“I just wanna know. No one’s ever told me and I figure she was practically my sister.”

“’Course she was your sister, you little dork. She’s just dead. Why’ve you been so weird lately?”

“I don’t know. Puberty. So how’d she die?”

Rhonda finally turned onto her side. “Crib death, I guess.”

“Which means…”

“Which means that some babies just die in their cribs. Like they don’t get enough oxygen. Their faces get too smooshed into the sheets and they just keep breathing in the same air over and over until they suffocate. Happens all the time.”

“How do you prevent it?”

“What, are you planning to have a baby or something? Geez. I guess you make the baby sleep on its back or something.”

“How come they didn’t do that with Meredith?”

“You ever tried to keep a baby on it’s back? Baby are intrinsically squirmy. Besides, they didn’t know better back then. Now go away. And close the door. And knock next time.”

I left. I have no idea if Rhonda is telling me the truth or not. Anything you want to share here, Dad?

Your son,

Trevor

I don’t feel like I have a right to tell this story. Just the act of telling it will be one more thing that needs to be forgiven.

I don’t know how to start.

I am the villain in this tale. No. Villain is more appealing than my role. My crime was less active but no less unforgiveable.

Can we avoid it for another few days? Can I talk about your math test? About how proud I am of you? About how I hope your Mom lets you take taekwondo lessons? Believe me, I’m in no position to ask her for anything, although I’ve asked her for so much throughout my life.

That’s all I’ve got for you today, Trevor.

Dad

I guess there was something pushing on the back of my brain about Meredith. You never mentioned her even once, even though she’s the only other person in our regular family that’s died, other than you. I mean, I know she was only six months old and died before I was even born, but Mom still talks about her pretty often. And we still go and put flowers on her grave every Memorial Day. Her grave’s in the baby section. You probably know that. You probably bought the tombstone.

Mom’s told me a little bit about how Meredith died. Well, she’s never told me the whole story, if there is one. Other than Meredith was taking a nap and didn’t wake up. Mom called 911 and the ambulance came racing over. That’s why I’ve heard the story. When we hear sirens, Mom talks about Meredith. She says she can’t hear a siren without thinking about that day. Good thing we don’t live by a fire station. Yikes.

I figure it was about 19 years ago, so it seems like you’d all be pretty much over it by now. I’m clearly wrong about that.

I also figure it’s hard for you to read this right now. That’s OK. I’m gonna keep talking about it until you do, because I guess I think it will be good for you to talk about it. I feel like you’d do the same thing for me. Or to me.

Mom settled down about the canoe trip, although sometimes she looks at me and shivers. I thought she’d settled down enough for me to bring up the chance of taekwondo lessons again, now that stupid basketball with stupid Mr. Schick is over. But I was wrong. When I asked, she yelled, “Trevor! Not now!” Which I took to mean, I’m still really pissed at you so don’t even think of asking for anything.

Hey, guess what? I passed that algebra test in Mrs. Fletcher’s class! I’m going straight into algebra next year, so I guess somehow I’m no longer a math idiot. Don’t ask me how. I still feel confused most days. Maybe everyone does.

Your son,

Trevor

Not feeling much like writing today. Give me a day or so to figure out how to do this. I may need to learn a new language, because the one I’ve got doesn’t seem to have the right words.

Dad

We need to talk.

I survived the canoe trip OK, but I barely survived Mom.

We put the canoe and the rest of our gear into the back of Donnie’s truck and headed up to the park. We unloaded by 10 and figured we be to the pick-up spot by about 3. Donnie’s mom made sure we had Donnie’s cell phone in a Ziploc bag. Donnie even opened the bag to make sure it was charged and on. Last but not least, she made us promise to keep our lifejackets on.

We got into the water and started floating down the river. It was awesome. Even at 10 it was already pretty warm. I took my life jacket off and sat on it. I was just wearing sandals, cargo shorts and a t-shirt.

The river was high, but most of the time it was pretty mellow. We planned on taking it easy, anyway. We talked with Donnie’s dad the night before and promised that if we came to anything too rough, we’d carry the canoe around it. Donnie’s dad called this a “portage,” which sounded cool in a Lewis-and-Clark sort of way.

So that’s how it went for a long time. We shot a few small rapids and portaged a few big ones. After a couple hours, we stopped at a sandbar and ate lunch—sandwiches, water, brownies and Fritos. No Bugles. Then we skipped rocks for a while, until Donnie said we should get going, because he knew that if we were very late his mom would freak.

It was really warm by then, until the river went into this kind of canyon where the sun couldn’t get. The canyon kept getting narrower. Cliff walls went about 30 feet up on both sides. Lots of shadows. No banks.

Up ahead, I could hear rapids, but I couldn’t tell how big they were or how far away. We paddled stupidly toward them.

We came around a bend and the rapids sucked us right in. They weren’t too bad at first, but we could see curling whitewater ahead. Donnie let a few curse words fly and we both started paddling for the smoothest section of water. Then the river grabbed us and started slamming us around. Right in front of us, a huge boulder seemed to pop out of nowhere. The river spun us sideways right toward it. We slammed into the boulder so hard that Donnie and I instantly flipped out of the boat. The river sucked Donnie downstream. I grabbed the bottom of the upside down canoe and held on through the rapids, banging my shins on rocks as I went.

I caught up to Donnie a few minutes later. We dogpaddled the canoe over to the bank and lied on the muddy shore, catching our breath. After a few minutes we turned the canoe over and saw the hole in the side. It was about as big as a softball and below the waterline.

We’d lost most of our stuff, including Donnie’s cell phone and cooler, my life jacket and both paddles. We were soaked and cold and about ten miles from our pick-up point at the Highway 18 Bridge.

We tried stuffing a wadded-up t-shirt into the hole in the canoe, but the water still pored through. We ended up stashing the canoe in some bushes on the river’s edge, then started walking. Most of the way, it wasn’t too bad, because there were train tracks that followed the river. But it felt like it took forever.

When we reached the pick-up spot no one was there. There was no place to call and we had no phone, so we started walking toward Donnie’s house, another couple miles away. We finally got there about dark—eight o’clock—and there were a bunch of cop cars out front. Mom’s car was there, too.

I guess they all thought we were dead. At six, Donnie’s mom called the cops and the cops sent out Search and Rescue. The Search and Rescue guys found the canoe and my life jacket and were scouring the bank for our bodies.

The police lectured us, lectured Mom and Donnie’s parents, then left. Then me and Mom left and she started lecturing me. She was really upset. She started crying while she was driving. I asked her why, since I was OK. She said she thought she’d lost another of her children.

I knew what she was talking about. Meredith. The sister I never met who died as a baby. Mom

Dad, does this have something to do with your shame?

Your son,

Trevor

By the time you get this letter, you’ll be back from your canoe trip. Can I wish you luck—or pray for your safety—in the past? I think so. I pray that you were safe on Saturday and that you made it back to your mother alive and well. Bruised, maybe, but not broken.

Not all my children have fared so well, Trevor. Ahh.

I’m on the hunt for the stranger in town. Sung-Hee and Dr. Jones both claim to have seen him, but both describe him completely differently, so I doubt their stories. Dr. Jones says the man appeared to be “short, bald and studious.” Not sure what studious looks like. Jones said he wore a rumpled, dark blue suit and appeared lost in thought. He said he saw him down among the sound end of the cabins, but no one who lives down in that part of town seems to have spotted the man.

Sung-Hee said the man had a full head of hair and a prominent beard. “You should see the beard on this guy,” she said. “He put some years into that thing. He’d never be able to work in a restaurant with hair like that.”

Sung-Hee claims to have seen him on the dock. I looked, but saw no sign. At least it’s nice to have something to look for, Trevor. It keeps my mind off the letter I know I need to write you.

Dad

I’m not sure what advice to give you about the cookie contest. All year, I’ve been telling you to do. Kiss the girl. Fight the boy. Go back to school. Play in the game. Now what? Hold back?

I wish your motivation wasn’t revenge, because I’m pretty sure that one will leave a bad taste–like one too many donuts.

Then again, one too many donuts sounds pretty good right now.

What are you thinking? Making horrible tasting cookies? Poisoning Mr. Schick? Don’t do anything stupid.

I don’t know what you can do to help me with my burden of shame. Nothing, I expect. But I could be wrong. I’ll keep thinking about it as much as I can stand to.

Sung-Hee told me a strange bit of gossip. Supposedly, there’s another newcomer in town, but no one has met him. The well-dressed black man–whose name I still don’t know–confirmed it. I asked Gordon if he wanted to go door-to-door with me to search out this mystery man, but he said he was contemplating a particularly interesting fog bank and didn’t want to move from his porch. I went by myself, up and down the entire line of cabins and shacks, but found no one I hadn’t seen before.

I’d love a little new company. A little new something. Maybe tomorrow.

Dad

O O O O. I don’t know how to tell you about my shame. I’ve been carrying it around so long in silence, I don’t know how to give a voice to it. I honestly don’t know if I can tell you.

I think if I sat in my shack with the door barred and tried to just say it out loud to the board and batten walls, I would fail.  The thought of actually writing it down to paper where you could read it seems impossible.

I’ll try, Trevor. Or I’ll try to try. For now, I’ll tell you that it’s about my family. About our family.

Trevor, give me time.

Dad

Have fun at the water park..

I’m back to my old routine for now, except that Carl is no longer part of it. Martin is gone. Julia was only here for a short time, but I miss her, too.

It’s down to Gordon, Sung-Hee, me, and a few newcomers I don’t have the energy to get to know. I see them wandering between the cabins or loitering at The Laughing Gull. One—a youngish black man with the nicest suit I’ve seen up here—came to ask me about The Woods. Sung-Hee had told him I’d been there.

“It’s nothing,” was my reply to his questions.

“But can’t you tell me about it?”

“I just did.”

Gordon has become my most common companion. I’m grateful for him. When I told him about Carl, he listened silently. When I stopped talking, he was quiet for a long time. We both were. He finally whispered, “pulvis et umbra sumus.” I didn’t ask him what it meant. I think I know.

I’ll wait to hear from you. I’m good at waiting.

Dad

I hope you let the letters continue, Ev. This is a shot for me, you know, to do something for this kid of mine. Or maybe that’s not right. Maybe it’s a shot for him to do something for me. I don’t really know. I certainly don’t pretend to have any deep words of wisdom. I’m just trying to figure out my thing and he’s trying to do the same. But, you know, if a brother stumbles and all that.

Your call, though.

Dad (Hugh)

 I still haven’t heard from you. It makes me nervous. Your letters were the only rhythm to my rhythm-less existence.

 Even the silent postman seems a bit shaken. You’ve become part of his rhythm, too. When I walked in to his tiny post office a few hours ago, his face had an actual expression on it for the first time that I can remember. It wasn’t quite sorrow. It was more nervousness, I think.

 The smell of blood drew me away from Carl’s numb side and back to this seaside town. I knew what it was from the first subtle scent. It was that bloody boat. Just the smell of it made the woods seem even more dead—more lacking in sensation.

 I stumbled out of the trees into the dim light of this place. I followed the smell down to the pier, just in time to see the boat pulling away from the dock. Sung-Hee came out of her restaurant, wiping her hands on her dingy apron. She looked at me with only the slightest of interest. Then she turned and walked back inside—she had two new customers on whom she could foist her miserable coffee.

 The boat still terrifies me, but it pulls on me, too. I think it is the only choice I have here. Because I can’t stay in this in-between town. And now I know what the woods are. They’re death. They’re hell. So what does that make the boat?

 If it’s heaven, it’s a terrible kind of heaven. If it takes me to another level of hell, at least it’s a hell with some kind of something. I mean it’s not nothing. It may be all blood and violence, but I tell you, Trevor, that scares me less than those woods. I’d rather go down in blood than go down beneath the moss.

 Trevor, write me back. I’m on the brink. I need to hear from you.

 Dad