As I approached Emma's grave on the anniversary of the day we met– my birthday– I saw a woman standing there. She was dressed in all black, he had dirty blonde hair and had fair skin. She seemed to be old, but not old. Almost as if she was… wait.
As I reached the grave, I saw who it was. Emma's mother. She looked distant and dark. As I approached her side I prayed and started talking to Emma's grave out loud.
"Hi Emma… I, uh, I turned 19 today." I laughed and continued, "It's been a while, hasn't it. I flew in from Chicago today so I could see you… I wish I could see you. I started talking to someone like you told me to. I know you told me to move on and find love, but it really is hard to find someone that doesn't remind me of you. Every day I see things that remind me of you… I hear things that give me glimpses of us. Things that just remind me of my failure. Nonetheless, I'm trying. One day, I'll introduce you to whoever I meet, haha. Hope that's not a bad date idea– taking the current girlfriend to my ex-girlfriend's grave. Knowing you, you'd be laughing right now. Are you up there? Is it fun?" I paused.
Emma's mom still hadn't moved or said a word. I decided to continue my conversation out loud.
"You know, on campus I've made some cool friends. There're a few kids in my history of paint class that wanted to form a study group and we started hanging out for reasons other than school. We go to Millennium Park and ice skate in the winter, and we go to the lake in the summer. It would've been awfully fun if you could have seen it. They have this cool metal sculpture called "The Bean". It's huge and metallic and reflective. I go there when I want to reflect on myself– literally! I have an off-campus apartment near McCormick place. It's damn expensive… I had to pick up a job along with doing the commissioned paintings on campus. I tutor a few kids who live on the north side. One of the kids reminds me of myself a bit. He's shy and doesn't have many friends but recently he told me that he met this girl and ever since he's been a bit brighter, and he even smiles and laughs when we do group tutoring. Oh, get this! Remember Carly? Well apparently, she goes to school in Chicago as well because we ended up running into each other and we have gone to dinner and lunch a few times now. She's different now. When I met her again in senior year, we spent a little time together, but nothing enough to get to 'know' each other again. She's way cooler now though, I'd say maybe even cooler than she was in middle school. She's in modeling school and she's in a magazine now. She tells me all the stories she's had with her coworkers, and she's even introduced me to a few of them. It's kind of cool. You could've been an amazing model. You were so pretty and looked so elegant all the time, even when you had just woken up. You didn't need an entire crew for makeup and lighting, the light leaks from a window were more than enough."
I looked down at my hand… they were shaking. Was I scared? Nervous? No. I wasn't just shaking, my eyes were welling up as well. I coughed and sniffed in, sucking up the tears.
"I think you would have liked it here a lot of Emma. Chicago. We could take the El together and get hotdogs downtown. Maybe catch a game at Wrigley? Or maybe even Soldier Field? I caught a game there with my friends from the study group and the view from the stadium seat was crazy. It was funny… when I was there, a girl asked for my number, and I instinctually said I have a girlfriend… ha… I guess I don't have to say that anymore."
I felt myself choking up as my eyes welled up a little bit.
"It… It sucks that I can't say that anymore. In my eyes… I think you'll always be my girlfriend. The girl who taught me how to love. The girl who taught me how to be loved. The girl who helped me learn to love myself. I– I guess no matter what… you'll always be there for me. For everyone."
I looked over to Emma's mom who I finally saw the face of. She was crying. Not dust in your eye tears. Those were tears that you let out in the shower. Tears that make you want to scream your head off. Tears that make you wrap a pillow around your head and pray it would all just end– the tears, the feelings, everything. She looked like I did when I first heard the news.
"Well… bye Emma. I love you. I'll… uh, I'll see you next time I come to visit. Bye… I love you."
I turned toward Emma's mother who was on her knees now, almost with her head to the ground.
"Mrs. Jones… I…" I sighed, "Is there anything I can do?"
She sniffled her nose, wiped her eyes, and looked at me. Her eyes looked red and swollen as her eyelids were puffy and looked almost scratchy from rubbing.
"Anything you can do?"
"Yeah," I replied, "I… I just want to be able to help you… since Emma helped me so much."
"Your help… your help only hurt my daughter."
My eyes widened.
"W-what?"
"You killed Emma. If it weren't for you… if it weren't for you, she would still be…"
"Mrs. Jones…"
"I… Emma… before Emma died, she... She gave me a note. She didn't let me open it. She said it was for you. I… I…"
She pulled a folded note that was sealed with a heart sticker out from inside her pocket. Before opening it, I anticipated a long reasoning, or maybe a letter cursing me out. Saying how I was her demise– How I killed her. But no. The note was short. It was one sentence written in a pink pen.
"'I love you. Take care of my mom. Take care of yourself. I love you both. Goodbye Mom. Goodbye Nate.'"
Mrs. Jones' eyes widened.
"But… you… at the funeral you said you killed her."
"Mrs. Jones… you know what I meant."
"But weren't you on bad terms?"
"No, ma'am."
"Then… why didn't she tell you about the surgery?"
"It's like she said Ms. She loves us."
"If she loved us…, why did she go away? Why did she leave you without a word and leave me without a daughter!" She started sobbing again, wiping tears from her eyes.
"Because, ma'am, she loved us, and she hoped for a future. She hoped for a future where you and I can coexist. Because she loved me, and she loved you. So, we should try to love each other. I will never be able to bring back the happiness you had with your daughter, but if you need someone to talk to, or want to share stories of times with Emma, I'm always here. I will always be forever in your debt for creating the woman that was Emma Jones."
I bowed down while facing her and finally let all the bottled emotions I've wanted to let out since I saw her at the grave.
"Mrs. Jones, for making Emma, thank you. For allowing me to be with her until the end, thank you. For letting me love her, thank you. And, for loving her, thank you! Emma may not have said it to you often, but she loves you. She loved you so much. She admired you. She said you were strong. She said you were kind. She told me that when she became a mother, she wanted to be like you. So, if you allow me, I'd like to get to know you, so I could know what it would've been like if Emma was a mother– and so I can get to know what type of mother you were for her."
"Nate, thank you. Thank you for being there for Emma. I… I would like to get to know you too. To get to know why– to know what type of person you are. And, to know what type of man it was that my daughter loved so much."
I smiled and extended my hand out to Emma's mother, and together we got off of the ground. I asked her if she wanted to go somewhere to eat and talk and she invited me to their home where she made me one of Emma's favorite meals. It was baked mac and cheese with breadcrumbs and a side of ham. She told me many things. Things like how Thanksgiving was one of Emma's favorite holidays because she got to eat that meal. We talked till the sun went down and eventually I bid her farewell as I left the Jones residence.
I walked through the town– the one I used to live in. It felt different. It had only been about a year, but it was different. Everything felt so empty. It was no longer the same place that I spent all those years. It felt hollow. I walked down the road, passing all of the stores I used to go to. I saw the school that I once attended. I saw the hospital that both my girlfriend and dad died in. I saw the playground I went to as a kid. The slides and swings were still intact, despite the fading of the paint. I saw the bookstore I went to with Carly. I saw the school I skipped out on in middle school. I saw that this town wasn't special. This was just a place where I was born. It was just a place for me to spend my time, it was just a place for me to grow up in. But even then… It felt so hard leaving. I was afraid of the real danger that faced me in the future.
I reached my car at my house.
I looked up to my window and saw my desk that faced my window. On top was a sculpture I made in elementary school. It was a heart. It was lopsided and grayish– but it was a heart. I put my hands up, made a heart, and got into my front seat.
As I drove away from the house, I turned on the radio and heard a soothing song. The lyrics went as so:
"La, La,
La, La,
La, La,
La, La,
Through the evenings and starry nights,
To mornings without you,
You will always be on my mind,
Because you love me too!
La, La,
La, La,
La, La,
La, La,"