MARIEL

4~ Closure ~

In the city of Chicago, across from Buckingham Fountains where many tourists lingered, there was a walkway called Lakefront Trail. Alongside the tossing waters of Lake Michigan, it ran just over eighteen miles. Sometimes, in the morning before class, Esther Caravan ran three to five miles on this trail. She wore her earbuds, something that her father vehemently warned against doing, but Esther could not care less. The music was what always kept her legs flowing... that and the beautiful sunrise over Lake Michigan if she ran early enough.

Tonight, when she sat on a bench that overlooked the lake, the sun had already set. The rain had stopped not long after she had taken a coffee break with Gabe, and now it was simply windy with the threat of sprinkles. It was warm for a January evening but, this time, she wore Gabe's extra black jacket around her shoulders.

As the wind tugged her brown hair, Esther watched Lake Michigan's choppy waters.

Last week, she had been bombarded with continuous messages of 'congratulations' and 'you two are so cute together'. Normally, she did not mind the attention but, tonight, she wanted to be away from her family, away from her phone. Her phone always seemed to vibrate, always seemed to remind her that she once had no desire to date Gabe. It would remind her that, on Facebook, sorrowful birthday messages to Mariel Nadier still appeared on her timeline from January 1st.

Except from her.

Esther had not been able to write the message on Mariel's page, and she was not fully sure why. However, even though the torturous grief had waned, she knew she still missed him. Every time she thought about him, Esther felt sick, guilty, and even angry. She supposed her father had warned her about his mental illness, but she had not expected Mariel to follow through with suicide.

The last time she had seen him, that horrible afternoon at the bookstore, she had felt crushed and heart-broken. It had been hard enough to cope with the idea that he was not truly in love with her, but it had almost been worse to find out that he most likely had been. Knowing Mariel, it would be like him to reject her so that the decision to commit suicide might be easier. It tore her to pieces... and watching Fr. Jerome attempt to lead a church while mourning the loss of his son was almost unbearable.

As if losing his son had not been stressful enough, Phil Jameson had become a nightmare for the priest, until Esther had eventually demanded to take Phil's place as a Sunday School teacher. Esther loved kids, and she knew it would provide an assemblance of relief for Fr. Jerome if he no longer had to deal with Phil Jameson's outrageous Sunday School lessons. Simultaneously, it would allow her to add to her college fieldwork, and she also felt that Mariel would have wanted her to look out for Fr. Jerome.

Despite her ability to continue on with life, Esther still felt that a piece of her soul was missing. She had not been able to talk about her feelings with her family. Her brother was a spoiled nightmare who only thought about himself, and her parents' method of comfort had been to say -

'Esther, honey, we told you so.'

Now, Todd and Mary Caravan were ecstatic about her new announcement with Gabe. The Caravan parents had always wanted Esther to date him, and she could only imagine that it was because he came from the stereotypical family that the United States of America so often worshipped. They were rich, Orthodox Christian, and well-respected in Chicago... everything Todd Caravan had always wanted to be. Despite the fact that this had always turned her off to the idea of even looking at Gabe, Esther tried not to hold it against him. Once she began to spend more time with him, she had realized that he was a completely different person than what she had expected. He was attentive, he was sweet, he was warm. He loved her, and Esther realized that -