I was sitting on my late son's bed, holding one of his T-shirts, when his teacher called and told me he'd left something for me at school. My son had been gone for weeks. I hadn't heard his voice or seen his face for the last time, and suddenly someone told me he still had something to tell me.
She had Owen's camp blue shirt stuck to her face when the phone rang.
It still faintly smelled of him. Now I sat in his room every day, surrounded by school books, sneakers, and baseball cards, in a silence that felt less empty than cruel.
Now I sit in his room every day.
Some mornings I could still see my son in the kitchen, throwing a pancake too high and laughing as it landed halfway onto the stove. That was the last morning I saw him alive.
He seemed tired, although he kept smiling and told me not to treat him like a child when I asked him if he was getting enough sleep.
By then, Owen had been battling cancer for two years. Charlie and I had placed all our hope in the belief that he would beat it. That's why, that day, the lake took more than just our son. It took the future we had already promised each other.
That morning, Owen went out with Charlie and some friends to the lake house. In the afternoon, my husband called me with a voice I didn't recognize. He told me Owen had gone into the water. A storm had developed too quickly, and the current had swept our son away.
That was the last morning I saw him alive.
The search teams searched for days. They found nothing. They explained to us what strong currents do and, finally, used the words families are expected to accept when reality offers them nothing solid to hold onto.
They declared Owen dead. Without a body. Without a face I could kiss goodbye.
I broke down so badly that I was admitted to the hospital for observation. Charlie arranged the funeral because I could barely bear it. When there isn't a proper goodbye, the grief never seems to end. It just keeps going around in circles.
The phone kept ringing, pulling me from my thoughts. Finally, I looked at the screen: Mrs. Dilmore.
Owen adored Mrs. Dilmore. Mathematics was his favorite subject because she made it into a puzzle, and he talked about her at dinner more than half of his friends.
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