Page 133 of Help Me Remember
“I think so.”
“Maybe we should make a donation or do something in Isaac’s name.”
His suggestion makes me smile, and I look up at him, saying, “I would love that. We could put in a see-saw or something like that.”
He laughs. “A see-saw?”
“You don’t remember?”
Spencer grins. “I guess I don’t.”
“When I was, like, six, you guys would take me to the park and would launch me! I would hold on for dear life and my ass would slam on the ground every time one of you jumped off your side and sent me plummeting.”
“Plummeting?”
“At six, it sure as hell felt that way.”
“I’m not at all surprised we did that. Emmett’s brother would do awful shit to us as kids, and we were all too happy to pay that forward to you.”
I shake my head before resting it on his shoulder. “Lucky me.”
“I think you are.”
I sigh heavily, enjoying the warmth and the sun. “Spencer?”
“Yes, love?”
“Can we go to the grave?” I ask. “I would like to tell Isaac about us.”
Spencer stops, pulling me into his arms. “Of course.”
* * *
The mound still looks fresh, and the headstone isn’t in yet, but none of that matters. There is a plaque with a flag, and on the ground around his marker are various things that people have left.
There’s a letter from the high school football team, a pacifier, which is probably Elodie’s, and a lot of flowers and photos. I lean down, lifting the one that had to have been left by Spencer, Emmett, or Holden.
“I brought it here,” Spencer says. “I came home after spending the day with you, and I missed him. I wanted to tell him everything, and yet as I stood here, the words wouldn’t come.”
The guilt I’ve struggled with regarding my brother’s death seems to be never-ending. I didn’t come visit his grave. I didn’t do enough to keep my sister-in-law here. All these things that Isaac would have done if it had been me who died that day.
“I don’t know that I have them either,” I tell Spencer.
“Do you think he needs them?”
I shrug, placing down the photo of them and picking up an origami swan. There’s something about this swan that draws me to it.
“Did you make that?” Spencer asks.
I look over at him. “Me?”
“Yeah, you love doing all this stuff. I still have the star you folded out of my last report card.”
“I forgot . . . I mean, I know I loved origami, even as a kid, but that I still did it.” I turn the paper over. “It’s not mine, I haven’t been here since he was buried.”
“Do you know who else would’ve made that?”
A memory of the kids and I at the youth center when the power went out comes to mind. I wrote a note inside and then folded them. The kids had a lot of fun trying to unfold and then refold them so the word was on the outside. Then we would send notes that way when we wanted to mess with Jax.
