Untitled - December, 2000

December, 2000

Cole remembered laying down for a quick nap while he still lived. He awoke hours later, though he would have sworn he’d hardly closed his eyes. Time passed that way for the dead, in leaps and bounds and blinding flashes. Years were just numbers etched deeply into some stones and faded completely from others, but Cole counted the ones between Mia’s visits to the graveyard and it always seemed like a long time to him.

“Why do you even bother coming anymore?” Mia’s brother, Michael, stood beside her at their father’s grave.

Mia frowned. “He’s not here.”

“What you taking about?” Michael gestured to the headstone. “Marcus Brian Ellis. This is it.”

“I can read, thank you. I meant, I can’t feel him. His spirit isn’t here.”

Cole glanced around. Mia was right. Her father’s ghost wasn’t here. In all the years he’d watched this plot, hoping to find Mia sitting against the marker or laying in the grass, no other spirits had lingered nearby.

“Are you psychic now, or something?” Michael scoffed.

“Don’t be stupid. I just miss him. Mom put all his stuff in storage after you moved into the dorms, and Roy moved into her room. It feels like he was never there.” Tears pooled in Mia’s eyes. “And now it feels like he was never here either.”

The fingers on Michael’s left hand twitched, but he didn’t reach out to his sister. He stood there, letting long, painful moments pass before he spoke again. “Mom deserves to be happy, Mia. One day, you’ll understand.”

“Yeah, whatever. Dumb, little Mia. She’s only eleven. She doesn’t get it.” Mia shook her head, her jaw clenched. “Can you just give me a minute?”

Sighing, Michael turned toward the parking lot. “I’ll wait for you in the car.”

Mia pulled her jacket closer to her small frame, hugging herself.

Beside her, Cole worried she might be cold. It was a gloomy looking day, but he couldn’t know what the temperature felt like to a living person. He wondered what thoughts worked their way through Mia’s mind. He waited for her tears to fall, but they didn’t.

“Bye, Daddy.” Mia turned and walked away.

Cole tried to follow her. He struggled against the invisible stings, tying him to his own grave. He made it eight plots further than he’d ever been since he first came to this place, but the pull of his lifeless body held fast, refusing to let him go even one step further. So, he stood there, watching Mia disappear between the trees and, for the first time since he died, Cole felt something. He felt helpless.