“We were flying, going to Oregon, to see her sister. Everything was fine until an engine misfired, and then there was a problem with the wing and we went into a dive. The pilot came on and said we would have to just land wherever we could, so we did, on some two-lane road. We hit hard, and something fell and hit me on the head. I blacked out for a minute or two.
“When I woke up, we were stopped and the plane was split in half, right next to my seat, right where Pam had been. She and her seat were just gone. I climbed out, down over the cargo hold, and then I saw we’d hit a huge tree at the side of the road, and that was what tore the plane open. I walked back, and…” He paused, taking a gasp of air, wondering if he could even say the next words. Katie waited silently. He closed his eyes and forced the next part out.
“I walked back and found Pam. She’d been hit by one of the big branches, and she was just laying there and… and… she was… her body was all torn up…“ His throat was so tight he could barely breathe, and his head felt like it had swelled to twice its normal size. Carson saw spots at the outer edge of his vision and felt dizzy. He dropped to one knee, unsure of why he felt compelled to continue.
“Her head and face were all bloody and disfigured because she’d been hit right in the forehead. It barely looked like her at all, but I knew!” Any strength he had drained from his body and he fell to all fours, making a high-pitched noise as his diaphragm worked to get him the air he had to have.
Katie jumped up and came to him then. She knelt next to him, applying a gentle, reassuring hand on his back. “OK, OK, relax, breathe.” Her voice was soft and soothing, and it calmed Carson just a bit. “Slow down. It’s OK.”
“No it isn’t! It will never be OK!” He pushed himself to a kneeling position and looked up at the stars blurred by his emotion. “I can’t remember her anymore except like that, after the crash. What kind of man can’t remember his fiancée’s face except for after she’s already dead?” Massive tears welled up and spilled from his eyes, filled with years of guilt and self-reproach.
“Carson, I’m sorry,” Katie repeated. “I can’t imagine having anything like that happen to me. I’m not sure how I would be able to handle it. Seeing her that way must have been shocking. I can understand why you’d see it again whenever you think about the crash.”
Carson shook his head. “No, it’s all the time. I had to take down her pictures because they made me see that every single time!”
“Oh.” Katie briefly fell silent again. “Have you talked with someone, like a doctor, who might be able to help you?”
“Yeah,” he replied, his voice a little calmer but suffused with bitterness. “Psychiatrists and psychologists and grief counselors and support groups and tribal witch doctors and what have you. They made me talk about it over and over and gave me coping mechanisms and anti-anxiety drugs and anti-depressants and tons of other shit I can’t pronounce until I was living my life in a fog. They kept pushing me to make a ‘breakthrough,’ but it felt like I was trying to break through a brick wall with a drinking straw. So I just stopped all that bullshit.” He closed his eyes and hung his head, feeling the grief settle over him like a flood of dark, heavy crude oil.
Katie remained by his side and, when it became clear Carson had nothing more to say, she spoke. “I don’t know you too well, Carson, but I’m sure it’s not healthy to still have these images and feelings stuck in your head after so many years. Maybe you should try some more.” Carson heard her and knew she meant no harm, but her words stirred a cauldron of dangerous emotions boiling just below his already less-than-calm exterior. He recognized them from times past, knowing what they were but unable to put a name to them. He knew only that he couldn’t release them, not in front of Katie, not even to himself. He stood slowly, like an old, old man weary from life, shaking his head both as a response to Katie’s naive suggestions as well as in self-disgust for his weakness.
“It won’t matter.”
“Sure it will. Well, it might, but you have to give it a chance. I’m sure it looks hard from here.”
She was just making it worse. How can she be so close to and so far from the truth? “No, you can’t understand. I’m not sure I understand.” It angered him that he couldn’t manage to put words to his pain. Even though it was beyond description, he recognized it as that feeling. He’d put that beast in a box and buried it deep in his soul a long time ago, but now it was pounding on the lid, threatening to break free.
And he didn’t know what might happen if it did.
“Carson, you don’t have to explain it to me, not here, not now. I mean, you can, and I’ll listen, but I can totally understand what you’re going through – “
“YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND SHIT! I COULDN’T SAVE HER!”
The eight words boomed across sand and water, destroying the gentle rhythms of the sea crashing against the shore. Even after it faded, it seemed to hang in the night air like a proclamation from
