Good Grief

What's gonna be left of the world if you're not in it?

It could have been a love song, Lucas thought as he crested the bridge, breathing ragged, wind gusting in his face.

He could feel the cord of his earphones sticking to his spine beneath his shirt, follow its cold lines splitting over the back of his neck to nestle in his ears. He usually ran without music, mind wandering, reaching out past the quiet strain of his lungs to a place of absent detachment.

But this morning, he'd awakened in an unfamiliar bed well before sunrise and lain awake, suffocating in the silence, and felt a crushing sense of loss that was as unsettling as the place of his birth.

Every minute of every hour, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more.

His solution, as always, had been to run. Pausing only to pull on a pair of socks and his trainers, he had, at the last moment, snatched his phone from the desk, threading the cord down his back in the grey light of the foyer before yanking the door open and sprinting out into a graveyard world.

The River Cam stretched out beside him, dark and silent, an unwanted reminder of just how far he'd come. There were no rowers this time of the day, no quiet whir of cyclists braving the chill.

He ran aimlessly, following the river north, gaining speed across the fields, nearly slipping at the footbridge over the tracks still standing only by the anger of its graffiti. Shadows loomed through the fog, foreboding monoliths before the sudden switch of a tail.

They'd come here often in the summer, gone for leisurely cycle rides up NCR 51 through Bottisham and Burwell and all the little villages on the way to Ely.

He gathered pace.

Every minute of every hour, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more.

They'd picked blackberries in the fall, stacked crates and crates of them on their bikes and sold them to the old man at Market Square for just enough to buy a pair of tickets to the latest festival. But they'd keep a small box for themselves, nick a couple of fizzy pops from Sainsbury's, and float down the river by moonlight in a stolen punt.

He crossed the river at the Green Dragon, ears pounding.

Every minute of every hour, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more.

He remembered how, in the winter, the sun would rise over the frosted scrub at Fen Ditton, scattering golden mist around his feet.

His trainers slipped on the dirt track, and he flung out a hand to steady himself.

Every minute of every hour, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more.
Every stumble and each misfire, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more.

It was impossible to sum up their relationship. Then and now. Father? Best friend?

A sudden gust of wind rattled the houseboats in their moorings.

Either way, it was over now. Dead and buried like so many other things.

Every minute of every hour, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more.
Every stumble and each misfire, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more.

But at the same time, he wanted to know.


Had that been family? Those four years of content? Was that family was? Contentment?

"I'm sorry," he gasped.

Every minute of every hour, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more.
Every stumble and each misfire, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more.

Gravel shuddered aside as he flew north past the lock, past the broad intersection to Milton, north and north and farther north he ran.

Every minute of every hour, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more.

Not knowing was better.

He wished they'd never met.

Not knowing had always been better because not knowing had never come with this solid pain in his chest, this heaviness in his legs that would tug him back out across the sea.

Every minute of every hour, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more.

He couldn't get the track to change, stuck on endless repeat, tinny and small compared to the roaring fullness of his heart.

The truth was, he'd always known. Then and now.

Every minute of every hour, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more.
Every stumble and each misfire, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more.

It probably was a love song, Lucas thought as he came to a stop, hands on hips, straining for breath.

Reset

In the days after the funeral, he'd had serious doubts about medical school.

He thought about Dad and Uncle Rick and Mom and Cat and now, in a different sense, Lucas. One by one, they'd disappeared, suddenly like Dad or slowly, painfully, sometimes too quietly to even notice. Like Cat.

He thought he'd be better off doing something at which he hadn't already completely, repeatedly failed.

But then, in the aftermath of the earthquake, he'd found himself running a makeshift Red Cross clinic out of a half-crumpled motor home just beyond the burned-out shell of the college library and realized that it was just time he started over.

He drove home one weekend in complete silence, ruthlessly suppressing the urge to glance over at the empty passenger seat. Deliberately, he parked in the street by the grassy curb and squinted up at the long, sloping drive. Hands in pockets, he crunched through the gravel and unlocked the front door, tossing his keys into the fake plant beside the cluttered shoe rack.

It took the better part of the following week to box things up, arrange for storage, and post ads online, but he managed alright on his own, and on the following Sunday night, he stood again in the foyer, keys in hand, staring at the crisp dust sheets ghosting over the sweeping banister. Caught in the faint draft from the open door, they fluttered limply, bathed in artificial moonlight.

He stepped outside and shut the door.