The Unraveling

by Vi Keeland

“There isn’t a specific timeline on healing. I’m sure you know that from your own patients. Coping with loss is a unique experience for every person. We all grieve differently.”

Instead, I walk through fields of the dead, reading gravestone after gravestone until I’m sure I’ve examined them all. It’s oddly soothing, being among the dead. Often it feels like I belong there with them, yet I’m somehow trapped in the world of the living.

“You were right. The painkillers were making things worse. I didn’t stop taking them when I said I did a few weeks ago. But I’m done now. I had a few left, and I dumped them down the sink this morning. I’m also going to ease up on the drinking.”

Never want this for my life

She smiles. “I tell everyone I’m fine, too. Just remember, whatever it is will eventually pass.”

I doubt it. There are some things in life we don’t deserve to run away from.

I stare at our wedding photo again. God, I love you so much. God, I hate you so much.

It’s a very strange coincidence. Though a guilty conscience will do that to you, connect dots to form a line that isn’t really there.

“I’m sorry things didn’t work out better. But this is only the end of a chapter of your life, Meredith. Not the end of the book.”

But it’s like the universe wants me to right my wrongs.

Regret is like an anchor that wraps around the heart and weighs it down, keeping it from sailing free.

Like when you’ve ended a relationship, then gotten back together, and just briefly, optimism makes you light and happy, like anything is possible.

Trauma sometimes bonds people, makes them cling to one another.

I come to a sudden stop, gaze fixed through the window on the outside world, where nature is coming alive, flowers blossoming, trees blooming. And yet I’m here, unchanged.

It was so cheerful, the sort of detail that made me realize I still have a whole life ahead of me, and if I shake this one loose, I might even enjoy it.

But as it turns out, she won’t be able to make it, so I’ll be going alone.”