haunted - 12

The snow changed to rain sometime overnight. I didn't sleep so good, but then again I never do. It's just past eight when I finally hear clinking downstairs and I spring to my feet, ready to chew my arm off after like twelve hours without a smoke. I have to try to act semi social for a few seconds before I get the nerve to ask if it's okay to smoke out back and if so what to use for an ashtray.
I guess the thought I had the first time I ever had a cigarette was right. Turns out Trey smoked, in the house no less, I just have lost a lot of my sense of smell after years of really cheap cigs. I find his ashtray but still go out back cos I like to be outside in the morning. Quickly I change my mind and suck the cigarette so hard it almost goes down my throat . It's pouring the rain and damned cold.
'You should have put on a coat,' comments his wife to me, I don't know what name to call her. She's making pancakes and I notice she's got real blueberries out, not frozen ones, the real thing. That sounds great. She seems much more there and cheery. I wonder if having me in the house is why, if maybe it makes the place seem less lonely than it had since Trey died.
Officer comes up behind me, how a big Irishman like him can move so quietly is weird. He's not a morning person, and come to think of it I guess he must mostly do nightshift cos I've never seen him on the streets before late afternoons.

The pancakes are great, even real maple syrup and bacon too, and I feel like I'm gonna pop from all of this food.
'So, you ready?' ask Officer.
'Yes, if it's okay, Officer.'
'Call me Colin,' he says with a laugh.
'You can call me Maddy,' his wife says. This has got to be more words than she's ever said to me before so I just say okay and go to find something warm and waterproof in Trey's stuff, finally settling on a Volcom hoody and finding sneakers that match it. The kid had kinda small feet but at least the sneakers don't have holes like mine.
It's a quiet ride to a place I've been scared to visit in years, passing by dozens of shuttered stores observing a holiday that seems so empty to me now. I think I remember enjoying it when I was little, the crinkle of wrapping papper that no matter how bad I destroyed it getting to my presents, moms always folded the salvageable pieces up and stored them.
I see a Chinese flower shop that's open and ask Officer, Colin, er, to pull over, scrounging through the change from yesterday to get something that is at least nice and still alive.

We get there and I feel like I'm gonna puke. I always told myself before it was such a bitch to get here by subway is why I never made it, but the truth is the knots in my stomach are making it damned near impossible to get out of the car. I know where it is and it seems every step closer the temperature is dropping five degrees.
Finally I'm there and it feels like I got punched in the stomach ten times, I just sink to eye level with the 1986-2006 staring me in the face, cold stone confirming it. The only comfort is it says Joey not Joseph.
I burst into tears, wishing the ground beneath would become quicksand, give way, let me sink into the earth and be next to him forever, never have to wake up alone, such a tiny marker all that there was money for yet it feels like the biggest skyscraper in the world about to topple over on me.
I will never get over this. Not in five years, not in ten, not ever, even if I make it another ten despite my best effort. I always knew it which is why there's space next to his marker for me, a destination I keep trying to get to and it always is just a bit too far for me to reach it seems.

I sense Colin nearby but even if I were embarrassed I couldn't stop crying. The man offers me a flask which I kill in one swig, drinking so fast there's not even time for it to burn on the way down.

For twenty two, I've seen these cold stones where people I loved and lived with used to be too much.