The Shadows

by Alex North

It’s going to be okay. Yes, I think about that a lot. How every good parent says it, and how often they’re wrong.

Because more memories were arriving now, dark and angry, and I realized that however much I wanted to be done with the past, what mattered was whether the past was done with me.

But whatever his response was going to be, I never heard it, because, as he stepped thoughtlessly into the road, a van smashed into him, and he disappeared.