• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

I knew that I had been here with her, but I didn’t know when. The when became bigger and more important the longer we sat there waiting for our lunch, and even though I was chatting, even though I was answering and asking questions, even though I was feeding Maddy, my mind couldn’t stop asking the question over and over again.

When?

I was smiling, but I was sad and I was angry. What the fuck was I going to do when Maddy asked me questions about her mom? I couldn’t place this moment. What else would I forget? What else had I already forgotten? A shit pile of memories lost to time and buried by new ones without her in them. I felt as though my brain had a limited capacity to remember.

When Liz had been alive, it was limitless.

Or maybe it just seemed that way. Back then, I just hadn’t felt like I needed to remember the small details of every experience, because we would have forever together and a lifetime more of them. But now, I had to remember everything to be the keeper of the past for our daughter. I wished I had recorded it all so that those stories I didn’t think to preserve would have been waiting for me—waiting for Madeline. I was terrified they were all gone.

I tried to tell myself that was why I was sitting here with Maddy, because a place and the company can hold the memories, too. But I felt like I was losing Liz more with every breath that took me further away from her last.

We were eating chips and an array of red and green salsas, laughing at Maddy as she hit her blue hammer against the table. The sun was bright in the blue sky, my daughter beating a staccato rhythm, but I was lost in what was missing, in this vague idea of not being able to hold hands because it was too hot. My palms were slippery now.

If Liz were here, I would make her hold my hand, even if the sweat dripped off of them like we had just emerged from the ocean.

A few days later we were on our way to the lagoon, and Liz’s voice popped into my head. Don’t be such a pussy. It then added, Don’t be such a bitch.

Liz had loved this lagoon, especially for snorkeling. The saltwater from the ocean mixed with the freshwater streaming out of the nearby jungle, providing a bounty of creatures we could spy on until our eyes bugged out behind our plastic goggles or until the skin on our backs was red and raw from the strong sun—whichever came first.

I held Maddy in my arms as we approached, smoothing a bit of sunscreen that hadn’t absorbed into her tiny white shoulders. Usually on these journeys, Liz would be looking out for me, making sure that I had remembered the SPF 15. Now I had to make sure I wouldn’t burn, and I was responsible for keeping Maddy as covered up as possible, too. I was using SPF 65, just to be safe.

On the path to the water, I felt dulled without Liz’s excitement, her bubbling laughter as she skipped ahead. More changes were all around me, unexpected changes, like the tacky sculptures placed at odd intervals among the plants, making it look more like a mall with a jungle theme than a place of natural beauty.

Candee found a spot for us to drop our bags and held out her arms for Maddy. I handed my daughter over and then stood there in the sunlight and silence, thinking about the difficulty of being there without Liz. What Tom must be thinking. What Candee must be thinking as our baby squirmed and chattered in her arms. What Deb must be thinking as we prepared to enter the water. How could we be here without her? How could any of this exist without her? Why are we not all crying every second of the day?

I knew how fucking useless these questions were, because I knew what the answers were. Taking trips together, eating at the restaurants we loved, swimming in the lagoon, giggling with Maddy, finding ways to smile when all we wanted to do was break down and wail. I knew already that these were not coping mechanisms; they were survival techniques. Without them, I might not have made it to this point. I would have just stayed