The Bridge

The flight alone had been a great achievement. A journey filled with expectations of conquering some of the evil spirits which had been with them, providing an everlasting, horrific vision. The walk to the location which had been the setting for all of those nightmares over the years left them breathless, but not from exertion. Their now rapid pulses and sweaty palms had more to do with the memories invading their brains than the walk of only a few blocks.

They stood with silent anxiety, looking out at the bridge which proudly spans the East River, its large expanse of wires web-like in its intricacy.  It was just a bridge; made almost absentmindedly by those who do such work. He knew they’d gone about their tasks like spiders with no thought given to its beauty at the time or how it would be adored and marveled at by all who would see it upon completion. Except for them, the sad couple seemingly transfixed by it now.

His arm slid without any thought around her waist, pulling her closer into him. There they stood rooted, immobilized while taking in the instrument which their son had used so many years prior.

Remembering that day with the kind of clarity saved normally for special occasions - the crispness of that fall morning, the cold of the city air making it feel cleaner than it actually was. The reds and oranges of the trees which sparsely sprinkled the city, giving it more charm and intimacy, like a small New England town with steeples peeking out through the tree tops.  It had been a day like so many others, yet it had been a day like no other, and it still felt like it had just happened. 

She woke on a Wednesday morning to the sound of the alarm buzzing. Golden lines of light shone against the wall, flickering occasionally as the tree outside the window swayed, blocking the sun’s rays at the wind’s whim.

A smile crossed her face as she felt his arm draped across her stomach. Seventeen years of marriage and he still enjoyed touching her. The thought that it was just a habit flew through her head briefly, but she ignored it, choosing instead to concentrate on his touch. The roughness of his calloused carpenter’s fingers which lay on her skin still comforted her. He seemed not to care that her belly wasn’t as taut after giving birth years before. Her mind automatically shifted to their son in the room down the hall.  Again she heard the annoying yet comforting buzz of the alarm and eased away from her husband’s embrace.

The sounds of shuffling echoed through the hardwood hallway as she walked down to her son’s room in her fluffy light blue slippers. While she had threatened to get him a louder alarm clock, she secretly enjoyed waking him every day for school. As she attempted to open the door quietly, the creaking of the old hinges screamed for a fresh coat of oil. Cursing the creaky door under her breath she reached inside and yanked the blinds.  But as the inside of his room was born, bathed in early morning light, the empty wrinkled whiteness of the sheets stuck out accusingly through the darkened room.

Clumsily, she made her way down the stairs — too narrow by modern standards but a perfect fit for the old Victorian house. Her ears strained, expecting to hear the noises of a teenager in the kitchen. Instead, the stillness of the first floor caused her heart to leap and the hairs on her neck to prickle. A teenage boy, her teenage boy; her jumbled mind processed, was never up at seven.  As that knowledge flitted crazily through her head, she circled and spun in a confused moment and nearly tripped over her red flannel nightgown. Years later she’d say it was then that she realized something was wrong.

But she carried on, combing the house methodically room by room.  Every one entered was as empty as the last, and left her anticipating the next.  It took all of two minutes.  With the search of the house nearly complete, a high pitched shriek escaped her throat. She heard her husband’s heavy footsteps scrambling up above in response to her panic, he hit every third step on his reckless descent.  She stood knowing, a silent scream frozen on her face as his eyes asked the question he was unable to voice while his breath came in gasps.
Looking out at the steel form before them now, he couldn’t help but wonder where the exact spot was. The point at which his son had stood so many years ago, giving up on everything, leaving them behind with a torrent of internal questions to torment them. He left no answers in his last cryptic note found that day.

He remembered too, that clear moment of horror when the mundane nature of their lives was forever disturbed, but he still went in search of any and all clues. Attempting to climb the stairs as quickly as he came down them, he tripped, landing hard on one knee. The blood trickling down his shin went unnoticed; he only questioned the still present stiffness silently in his head three days later.  But at the time he’d felt nothing, he just continued his mad scramble up the stairs.

He finally stood in the doorway to his son’s room.  He turned his head slowly, taking in the dresser, the nightstand and finally the desk. It was cleaner than usual, save for the lone sheet of folded paper.  It stood out against the bare surface, that accusing bit of processed wood, and he began to shake as he knew that it was over.

Reaching for that deceptively innocent looking paper, he dropped to his knees, knowing what would be on it. The scream from his wife sounded too far away through the rushing noise in his ears, even though she stood not ten feet from him. A lone teardrop fell, a small splatter evident as it was soaked up quickly by the paper he was still holding. Stupidly he looked at the splotch.  A tiny puckered spot, its wetness making it seem translucent amidst the opaqueness of the rest of the material.

“I can’t go on.” That was all.  The only words written on a stark white sheet.

Still clinging, defying the knowledge deep within, they wiped their eyes and began the ritual of raising false hope.  Calls were made to friends and neighbors in an attempt to dispel the intention spelled out in the ragged scrawl of a teenager’s hand. With each call hope dimmed.  In a day before cell phones and pagers, there was no way to track him down as his mother worried about her fifteen year old baby, all alone in the middle of the night in the city that never sleeps.

Pacing and crying, they waited for him to come bounding in through the front door. They tried not to think of the divers who searched just blocks away. But a body was found. 

Even then their nightmare continued.  The roughness of the water and the river’s rugged floor made visual identification impossible.  Hope, once again, foolishly rose while they waited on dental records for verification.

Confirmation they both wanted and didn’t want came swiftly.  A seemingly inconsequential piece of metal which straightened his teeth and a more significant one which held a bone together in his arm sped that process along. The funeral was just as swift, and before they realized it, their son was gone, and the rest of the world had moved on.

High school football still existed; there was just no number twenty-four on the team. Tests were given in the tenth grade; yet no studying would be done in their house. Concerts would continue to be performed; but one less trumpet would be blown. Dances would be held; minus one boy standing shyly by the bleachers.

Everyone moved on, with the exception of the two standing on that bridge for the first time in twenty years. The move was her idea after he threw a not-quite empty glass of scotch against the living room wall and they watched the fragments fall to the floor.  What was left of the amber liquid drizzled in slow streaks down to the baseboard; they left the mess there, to mix with the shattered remnants of their hearts. They had to sell the house he’d grown up in.  The memories were many and his sad presence too strong. 

It took twenty years of denial to accept that a move cross country couldn’t curb those memories.  Standing at the site now, for the first time, they looked at the bridge that had haunted their lives for two decades. Reaching out they touched it, the cold steel, inanimate, not the breathing, heaving beast they’d conjured up over the years. Simply a bridge.

A bridge which begat the abhorrence of all bridges, causing an emotional sequence of events whenever any bridge was in sight. But there it was, always dragging them back to that day, back to the day they lost their son.