Seth
I had only been to the graveyard once since my mom died, and that was for her funeral. My mom had never talked about death; she was always the one who lived life as though we lived forever and had all the time in the world to grow up. She was carefree on good days and always loved to be spontaneous.
Even when she got sick, I always believed she’d come out of it. Bounce back, fight it. Even now, I still didn’t understand why she let it win. It didn’t make sense that she had given up fighting for the life she loved. It killed me that I didn’t know, that I would never truly know. I took out the key from my pocket and ran my finger across it, knowing I had to face this, whether my father gave me more answers or not. I thought of him and how much we had changed since her death. I wondered what she would say to me now.
I remembered the day she died so clearly that I had no trouble finding her grave. The stone was simple. Just her name carved on it with the date. I knelt down beside it and set down the yellow roses, barely touching the stone. I let out a big sigh and sat on the ground.
“Hey, Mom,” I began, “sorry it’s been awhile...”
It was a nice night to lounge at the beach. The sky was getting black and the waves blended with it. Amy hadn’t shown up yet, which was unusual. I lay back onto the sand and closed my eyes. I started humming the song I had played at Conner’s, the new one I had been working on. The crowd had seemed to love it. Will was impressed and asked me if I wanted to play again next week.
“I do not have knobby knees,” a voice behind me said.
My eyes popped open. I didn’t respond, waiting to see if she would say anything else.
Amy continued, sitting down. “Seriously? Knobby knees? I give you advice on your music, and that’s what you come up with?”
I cleared my throat, stifling a laugh. The fact that all she thought about was the knobby knees and not that I’d had written a song about her was amusing.
“Hey, give me a break. It was my first shot at something different.” I looked at her. “The crowd really liked it.”
“I’m sure they did,” she said, snorting. “My friend wouldn’t stop talking about it. She was actually humming it.”
I continued to look at her, wondering when it was going to hit her. She saw me staring at her and looked back at the ocean.
“What?”
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
She looked back at me and lay on the sand, putting her arms under her head. We both just stared up at the sky.
“You wrote a song about me,” she said, her voice quiet.
I stayed silent, not sure of what to say. She didn’t say anything else, so I shook my head. She turned her head toward me.
“Not really,” I said. “Just about your curly hair and knobby knees.”
She laughed and shook her head. “Are you playing next week?”
“I might,” I said. “Are you coming?”
“I might.”
I could hear the waves crashing and the breeze on my face. I could just barely feel Amy’s warmth next to me and got the sudden urge to move closer to her and grab her hand. Instead, I put my hands under my head and nudged her. She nudged back. Even though it was really dark, I could make out a faint smile on her face.