In Memoriam ✔️

6

Kyle motioned threateningly with the knife, or, at least, he attempted to do so. His movements came across hesitant, and with that hesitance he might as well have shouted his utter inability to make good on his threats.

"No, I won't," Anita said responding to Kyle's insistence that she would return his daughter to him. Anita stepped towards him, while Jonesy rooted through the cushions of the therapy couch behind her. "I will do no such thing. Your daughter has passed, and I ain't piercing the veil for you anymore than I would for myself when my own Charlie died. It's high time we end this farce."

She held out her open hand and waited. At last, Kyle sighed, handed her the knife, and fell into a nearby armchair. He didn't weep or apologize, nor did he hint at any emotion beyond resignation.

Anita returned to the couch with Jonesy. Only ten feet separated her and Kyle, and yet a gulf existed between them, a great chasm of unease and distrust. Kyle had shattered the harmony of their relationship, leaving in his wake a great discord.

Kyle cast his gaze about, avoiding eye contact with Anita, settling at last upon his own clasped hands resting upon his belly. He fidgeted idly with his thumbs, one pressed to the other, then glanced away looking over the empty couches. A lonely pallor hung over the room, settling upon it like dust with the ages.

He wanted to speak. The words welled up in his throat and caught, burning, an acidic reflux, and he swallowed them back each time. Anita provided him no further respite from the silence, no proffered olive branch to bridge the rift that had formed. Whether she sat in silent judgement, simply grieved for the loss between them, or pondered some other course entirely, Kyle did not know. What he did know is that she had made no move to call for help, though by all rights she could have him arrested.

"Why..." he started.

"... don't I call the police?" she finished.

Kyle nodded.

"Should, I s'pose. Might. But would you have done it, really?"

"No."

"Of course not."

"But," he started, "how... how can one..." He paused, his mind swirling in the eddies of possibility – the infinite might-have-beens that lay now just out of reach. His daughter, his Charlotte, was no longer a period full-stop, but a simmering question mark imbued with the potential of actuality, an existence beyond death.

"How," he continued, "can we know that death lacks finality and not seek to overturn it?"

"Laws of nature, Kyle, and of something more. Life doesn't come from nothing. You read the records. You know about the Mackies. You found Rose Newsom in the adoption files, but did you see her mother in the paperwork? Did you find any record of Christy Newsom?"

"A death certificate."

"There you have it. A barter, not a gift. Christy hadn't been long gone even. Your daughter, three times longer. What price must be paid? Would you have that on my conscience? On yours?"

Yes, Kyle thought, but he did not reply. He had failed to face death in that morgue, and he knew that here too he would fail. His daughter should be returned. Order should be set right, and his life was a trifle to pay, but he could see the anguish in Anita's weathered features and her half glances. She had lived with the guilt of that woman's death for decades, had abandoned the use of her gifts because of it, and he had no right to force her to walk that path yet again. The damage this time could be irrevocable.