Time continued to stand still as I took several steps away from my mother, my jaw slacking open in horror at her words. Neither she nor anything else moved as I examined the scene around me. I could see Officers Hodge and Troy making their way to the parking lot to examine what had just happened, though they too were stopped in time.
The only information that was of any importance to me was why my mother had just lied. What would make her fabricate this story of August’s death from thin air? Had she really cracked and was now living in some horrible delusion where her youngest son was no longer alive?
Or was it me?
Had something happened to me on the way up there to pick up August? Had the months of searching for him fried some kind of circuit in my brain so that when the truth had finally been revealed to me, that my little brother had not survived his fall from the Young Street Bridge, I couldn’t bring myself to actually accept it?
What was going on?
“Mom,” I said wearily. “I need you to talk to me and explain what’s happening.” She was still frozen in time, tears still running down her aging face.
And then I saw the hearse, parked only feet away from me. The puzzle pieces started to fall into place, but still, I had to see for myself. I needed the proof, for some reason, I knew was locked in the back of the hearse.
As I stepped closer and closer to the enormous door, the questions kept racing through my mind: What had Dad insisted we take the hearse? What was wrong with my car?
I placed my hand on the back door handle, turning it slowly; not actually wanting the door to swing open and reveal what I should have known would be there all along.
Instantly, time picked up again, and I saw my mother emerge from around the hearse slowly, not wanting to startle me. She didn’t speak, didn’t try to stop me from opening the door. She only watched, knowing what had to be done.
I swung the door open and peered inside, trembling in fear as I saw the refrigerated box resting in the back of the vehicle. I’d seen them before, back in the days when I was still under my father’s control and was forced to help him haul bodies from the morgue, back to the parlor. Dead bodies decay quickly and for long trips, refrigerated transport units had to be used to keep the deceased cool and preserved.
I didn’t have to open it to know who was inside; a white tag had been placed on the outside of the container that read, Sennett, August R.
I turned to my mother in shock. “Why is that there?” I asked.
“Honey…” she began, but I didn’t let her finish. Before I knew it, I had turned away from my mother and the approaching police officers and was running at a dead sprint down Market Street.
I didn’t know why I was running or even where I was running to, but what I did know was that I needed to get away from that hearse as quickly as possible. I knew in the back of my mind, even as I got closer and closer to the Young Street Bridge, that I was running more from the truth than the situation, itself.
The facts had presented themselves to me; that was clear. August’s name was on the case in the back of the hearse, which meant that more than likely, August was in that case. Could it have been possible that he had perished after falling from the bridge? How could it be? I had interacted with him almost continuously since Mom and I had arrived in Aberdeen.
It just didn’t make sense.
On the other hand, as I tried to think back and recall everything that had occurred in the past ten hours, I couldn’t think of one time when anyone other than me had acknowledged August’s presence. Though I had thought it was only out of anger or despair, Mom hadn’t spoken a word to him the entire time we had been in town. The waitress at the restaurant had only dealt with me and had treated me like an escaped asylum patient after I had spent the entire meal carrying on a conversation with my little brother.
And then it hit me. I don’t know why the thought jumped into my mind, but I immediately recalled the moment August and I had been walking to dinner. I had been kicking up dust with every step, yet August’s footfalls seemed not even to disturb the dirt on the road.
August really was dead. But did that make me crazy? Had I been spending time and bonding with a ghost, or had August’s presence been a figment of my own imagination?
As I stepped onto the Young Street Bridge, the destination where August had apparently met his end, I raised a hand to my face, realizing I’d likely been crying the entire time I was running. My nose was running, and my head ached. My legs were sore from sprinting at full force; I felt like I could collapse on the spot.
The bridge creaked loudly and I raised my head to acknowledge my own surroundings. It wouldn’t be long before my mother and most likely Officers Hodge and Troy were catching up to me. After discovering I was not at the motel, it wouldn’t be difficult to figure out where I had taken off to.
Across the bridge, about fifty feet away, my heart stopped as I heard the loud creaking noise again and saw a black figure lifting himself up onto the railing. He used the streetlamp to steady himself, outstretching his other arm and leaning his head back as if to let the wind run through his hair. I wondered if this was my imagination playing tricks on me again, but the figured could have easily been my brother.
“August?” I whispered in disbelief. Just as I had accepted the fact that he was dead, here I was seeing him yet again.
I walked briskly towards the figure, hoping against reality for it to actually be August, but I realized as his head turned towards me that it couldn’t be him. The young man, though about August’s age, had short black hair and a distinctly different face. I could tell in the dim light from the streetlamp that he too had been crying recently.
“Who are you? How do you know that name?” He demanded in a shaky, yet booming voice.
“I’m Connor,” I stated calmly, not wanting to make any sudden movements or gestures that might provoke the kid to fall. “August is—was my brother’s name.”
The kid didn’t speak, but I could tell he was contemplating my words. As he did this, I put more puzzle pieces together and thought about who my brother had been staying with while he was in Aberdeen. I thought about the person who had pulled him from the water the night he fell and realized this was the only of August’s friends I had heard anything about. “You’re Ezra,” I stated.
“You know me?” he asked, wobbling slightly on the rail. His arms and neck were covered in tattoos, though it seemed strange to see someone so young shrouded in so much ink. I wondered if he was even eighteen-years-old.
“No,” I said honestly. “But I’ve heard of you.”
“I was with August when he died.” I knew this was true, but still, I wasn’t expecting him to say it. The words took me by surprise, causing me to stutter momentarily, unable to think of an intelligent or meaningful response. This was the last person to have seen my brother alive, and I had nothing to say.
“I know,” I said, my voice suddenly raspy with both fear and sadness.
“I tried to save him that night,” he bawled.
“I know.” My voice cracked.
“It’s my fault he died!” he yelled at me. “I jumped in after him, but he hit his head and was under water for too long. When I pulled him to the shore, he wasn’t breathing. We’d been drinking, and I told him not to get too close to the railing, but he didn’t listen to me.”
It was strange for me to hear an account of what had happened to August the night he fell from the bridge. It was terrifying, emotional, and cathartic, all at the same time. I needed to hear this, even if I didn’t particularly want to. And while all the stories came to the same conclusion that August had indeed fallen and not jumped from the bridge, it was relieving to hear the same thing from someone who had actually been there.
I took a few steps toward Ezra, beginning to extend my hand towards him. My goal was for him to take it and step off the railing. However, he slapped it away, screaming, “Don’t come any closer!”
I recoiled in panic, not wanting to cause any trouble
, but wanting to help all the same. “Ezra, it’s not your fault. You tried to save him,” I pleaded.
“We were going to start a band, you know,” he continued, as if I hadn’t even spoken. “We were going to make enough money to get an apartment and one day a record label would sign us, and we’d be famous. We’d be able to tell the story about how we’d started off on the streets of this shit-hole city, but persevered and made it to fame.”
I couldn’t think of anything profound to say, so I simply said, “That sounds really cool. Maybe you’ll still be in a band one day.”
Ezra looked up at me, a look of disgust and anguish on his face. “I’d rather be dead than cool.”
I could tell this was coming to a head. I needed to get Ezra off the railing before anything bad happened. He was just as likely to slip and fall as he was to throw himself over the edge. I could hear sirens in the distance, which told me the police and my mother had checked the motel and realized I wasn’t there. It was likely they were on their way to the bridge.
“Ezra, step down off the railing. We can talk about it. I want to hear about your time with August while he was here,” I said softly.
“There’s only one way off this railing for me,” he stated, letting go of the streetlamp with his left hand and outstretching both arms. He leaned his head back again and whispered to me, “I should have saved him.”
Before I could even reach out to him or protest, Ezra leaned forward and disappeared into the darkness below.
Chapter 9