given a great gift,” he whispers. “One most people will never receive. You must cherish it, and do your duty as a son. It’s time for you to stand, Benji. It’s time for you to stand and be true.”
Everything flashes white.
the river crossing
I feel the sun on my face, warm and beautiful.
I hear the sounds of the birds in the trees, bright and sharp.
A breeze ruffles my hair, like a caress, carrying with it the perfume of summer. A river flows somewhere in the distance.
I open my eyes.
I stand on a two-lane road, the asphalt cracked, the double yellow line down the
center faded and chipped. A bee buzzes past my face. I follow it as it floats up and down until it lands on a green sign on the side of the road. The sign reads:
77
“No,” I mutter. “Not here. Not again.”
No one answers me.
I turn around to tell Michael to take me from this place, but I’m alone. “Michael!”
No response. All I hear are the sounds of a normal, sunny day in the middle of
nowhere.
This angers me.
“Why am I here?”
I spin.
“What do you want from me?”
“Take me home!”
“Why do I have to choose!”
“Michael!”
My voice echoes over the valley. I stop, throat dry and heart sore. My chest rises
and falls rapidly. I don’t understand why he’d take me to this place. I don’t understand why I have to come here. This place is sadness. This place is loneliness. This place is my grief.
I look down to the river.
It runs softly, beautifully. The water is a crystal clear blue. It laps gently at its banks. It does not feel threatening. It is not—
A man is crouched on the riverbank near a large cracked boulder. His massive back is to me, his face hidden. He lets a hand drift in the water. He’s a big man, bigger than any man I’ve ever seen. He must be the biggest man in the world. In his chest must beat a great heart that pumps furiously to keep such a man alive. His dark hair is cut short, almost shaved completely, like my own. He’s staring down at the river as if looking at his reflection. I…. He….
Oh, my heart. Oh, my soul.
I need him to turn around, but I can’t find my voice.
Impossible, I think. Improbable.
I take a step toward him and then stop.
“Dad?” I whisper.
As if he can hear me, the man turns to look up to me. His green eyes shine like fireworks across a dark sky. Edward Benjamin Green, Big Eddie, my father, smiles up at me.
“Dad!”
And then I’m running. I’m running as fast as I can toward him, and everything around me slows and bleeds together and I—
am five years old, and he laughs a big laugh because no one laughs like my father. None laugh like him, and it is such a joyous sound, a happy sound, an amazing sound that my heart swells until I am sure it will burst. I
—leave the road, my feet crunching in gravel and dirt, and I—
am ten years old, and my father shows up to pick me up at school unexpectedly. He walks in, having to lower his head so it doesn’t hit the doorjamb. I am worried at first, thinking something is wrong at home. But then he grins at me and winks, speaking quietly with Mrs. Norris. She laughs, and he beckons me with his hand. He steers me out of the classroom and out the door and we spend the rest of the day fishing off the old covered bridge. My
—feet hit the grass, and he starts to rise from his crouch and he—
asks me to hand him a wrench while he curses under his breath without looking up from underneath the hood of the Ford. I’m thirteen years old and scowl at his big hand engulfing my own when I hand him the wrench, wondering when I’m going to get my growth spurt so I can be big like Big Eddie. Somehow he knows what I’m thinking because he turns back to me, a grease smear on his nose, and says, “Only the size of your heart matters, Benj. The only thing that matters is”
—that I reach him as soon as possible. I feel like I could fly down the embankment. I feel like I’m—
dying. I feel like I’m dying as I stand under cloudy skies in a place called Lone Hill Memorial. I feel like I’m dying because I’m one of hundreds moving toward a waiting stone