Unfinished Business (Part 1)

Cousteau



It seems that in every high school, someone dies. In cities death seems to prefer to work in the hands of gangs or drugs, in suburbia flowered shrines commemorate youthful drivers and their rides, but in the country the options are often more insidious. Violent deaths can strike fear or anger, but when a teenager dies of an illness, the effects flit through the community like the fluff of dandelions, floating past some, and taking deep root in others.



When David Thompson died, he was seventeen and everyone believed headed to an Ivy. His friends were clapping as he won the science award in June and crying at a funeral in July. Some said the disease came upon him suddenly. Others said his parents knew for years, but kept it secret. Either way, the summer David died, Bridgewater changed.


The changes were subtle. It wasn’t like he was the quarterback for the football team, his death leaving a gapping hole that needed to be filled. But he was known, and liked. His absence was quiet, and people missed him in the way that they miss a misplaced glove in winter. Some stopped memorizing the bus schedule out of town. Some studied harder to assure they would leave. Some spoke of him often, setting up scholarship funds and assuring the yearbook was dedicated to his memory. Others, like Sarah, didn’t seem extremely bothered, but they were.


The summer David died, Sarah was at the Cape. It was only a couple of weeks, but a world can end or begin in two weeks. In the middle of her vacation, she sat on the beach. In the surf and the sand, she thought about entering her senior year. She thought about what was important to her: friendship, laughter, getting into a good school. She thought about Justin. Justin. Would he ever ask for a date? She thought she was crazy about him, and then thought about how often he did not even treat her like a friend, let alone any thing more. Her mind wandered to David, as she sat on the beach, watching happy frolicking couples. When she thought about David, she wasn’t lonely. When she thought about school or the school sponsored trip the summer previous, it was David’s jokes that prompted her laugh. It was David’s sympathy that offered her comfort. It was David who offered to share his lunch and David who helped her pass chemistry. Staring out at an endless horizon, she watched scenes take on new meaning in her mind’s eye.


Christina called her that night. David’s funeral was the next day.


Sarah never shared her revelations of that summer. Her life in the sleepy little town went on. Her senior year was busy with classes, college fairs, and applications. Justin never did ask her out. She came home to find Linda at the Jiffy Mart, wearing his motorcycle helmet, and ready to perch herself on the back of his bike. But by then it didn’t matter. On a hot day in August, with a car loaded with clothes, bedding and small appliances, she left.


She didn’t come back to town often. There was little to comeback for. More cows than people. Most of her friends when they went off to college, stayed. Some even transferred and traveled further away. For seven years, she came home once or twice a year. The first couple of years, she visited with her mother then met up with her old clique to eat pizza or rent a movie.


She thought of David often. She would find herself in a class, wanting to ask his opinion or seeing a poster she wanted to show him. One night after a drunken revelry, she cried at David’s loss, presuming he never experienced the joyous abandonment of intoxication or sex.


(to be continued - tomorrow)