The Old Barn

I can’t find my cell phone or write. Nothing makes sense. Nik had blue eyes and olive colored skin and thick black hair. John Gardner says not to write about what you know, but Nik slips into my thoughts with practiced ease. I can’t get him out of my head.
A seatbelt would have saved him, and I wonder why he didn’t buckle up. His arrogance swallowed him as surely as the alcohol he consumed. I can’t seem to write fiction when the nonfiction consumes all my words.
My old barn has wrinkled white walls and faded blue trim. The horse ate all the hay this year, and I had to scrape the bottom layer, trying to feed any available debris to the beast.
She’s not really a beast. I am. If I could do it over, I would. I’d take his keys away and ground him for a month. I wouldn’t let him out of my sight. I’d hug him and kiss him and tell him I loved him. I’d drag him to AA meetings and guard him and protect him. I’d sell the car I gave him for his graduation present. I’d send him back to California. I’d take his anger and hatred if only he would live.
I prayed for a boy because I knew my husband, 25 years my senior, would die before me. I wanted to have his carbon copy. How ironic that they would die the same death, 15 years, 6 days and 2 hours apart. The cars flipped over ejecting them through the windshields. Nik, I am told, was killed instantly. His car crushed him. Bob lived for a few hours. It cost $5,000 for him to die.
The old barn has a fresh scar from when I tried to back the trailer into it. My daughter said, “Mom, you shouldn’t try backing things up when you’re upset.” I gave up trying to put it in the barn. Besides, the barn now houses the old doors, riddled with holes, from Nik’s room, his waterbed, desk, a broken wheelbarrow, extension chord, empty bag of feed, a pile of hay baling string, the snow thrower that refuses to start in the winter but always fires up in the summer, the lawn mower that Nik used to cut the grass with.
Every night I wonder if tomorrow will be the day I don’t have to cry. But whenever I think that, the tears spring leaks in my eyes, dripping down my weathered cheeks and into my mouth. Worse yet, my snuff stained nose begins to drip brown snot. I can’t help myself. It’s as if I’m trying to stuff my loss with whatever I can to fill the leak.
People tell me I’m a warrior, courageous and brave. I feel like a warrior with the necklace I had made with my son’s ashes on a chain around my neck my armor. I will not stuff Nik out of mind, out of site, or out of memory. I will confront my grief and face it. I will talk about it and about him. I have to make it count for something. Does that make sense?
I can’t help it. When Bob died, I got a week off from work, and then was expected to perform as if nothing had happened. I never told one single customer what had happened. Because I didn’t know a dam thing about death, I didn’t write an obit for him. It was easier, or so I thought, not to let anyone know. It amazed me how no one could tell I was walking around like a ghost.