In an Instant

by Suzanne Redfearn

“It’s not you,” she manages. “It’s all of it. I hate it. I hate what that day did to us. And I thought I could do this”—her eyes slide to the snow through the window—“but being here and remembering . . .” Kyle reaches over and takes her hands again. Then he brings them to his lips and blows warm breath on her fingertips. She lifts her teary face to his. “Are you going to do that every time I remember?” “Every time,” he answers.

“How do I get past it?” she mumbles, not necessarily to him. Hate. Hurt. Guilt. And grief. So much of it that I feel its thickness and its weight, like she is drowning and can’t breathe. “A single step at a time,” the man says, speaking from some profound experience of his own and with deep understanding, making me wonder if all pain might be the same regardless of its origin. “You’re still here,” he goes on. “So there’s not really a choice. An inch, a foot, not necessarily in the right direction, but onward nonetheless.”

“Until eventually,” he says, “the present becomes the past, and you are somewhere else altogether, hopefully in a better place than you are today.”

You only live once, and no one has any idea how long that once is going to be, so grab on tight and hold on for the ride and don’t worry about it and don’t look back.

I’ve always believed regret is the most difficult emotion to live with, but in order to have regret, you need to have a conscience: an interesting paradox that allows the worst of us to suffer the least in the aftermath of wrongdoing.