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And then I got the urge to walk out on that ice, beneath that golden sun that glittered in that blue sky. I figure now, it was the same voice that urged me to make this trip in the first place.

A calling home, of a sort.

It was a shock when the ice cracked. There was no warning, no popping or groaning.

One moment I stood beneath that blue sky and the next I was submerged in water that stabbed into my flesh like a thousand blades—beneath the ice.

Fear invaded my subconscious as I fought to swim to the surface, weighed down by my heavy jacket and boots. I gulped icy water into my lungs. I rose to the surface, slapping my hand against unbroken ice above me. I burned my eyes as I peered into the darkness for a break of light, for the bubbles I’d been taught to look for, in the event this ever happened.

I screamed…

And I found the break in the ice.

I can still see myself crest the surface from where I hovered above the ice, unaware of the cold that bit into my mortal flesh. I watched my teeth chatter and I listened to the thoughts that raced in my mind.

I heard the voice again, clearer, tell me, ‘it’s time’.

It’s time to come home.

I watched as my body fought for a moment to cling to life, as all bodies do.

I could climb from the ice; I’d been trained to do just that…

I wasn’t cold anymore. Warmth spread through my body even as I watched my lips turn blue. I stayed a while, clinging to the ice and life as I gasped short breaths that grew shorter and shorter.

I plucked again from that vault in my mind, smiling as I watched my son throw his fists to the sky after a goal, so handsome and alive—like my brother. I re-lived lifting my sweet baby girl into my arms, dancing her around her room under the stars, falling in love with her again and again.

I made love to my beautiful wife, my soul mate, one last time—sinking into the warmth of her—as I let go of the ice, to life, sinking into the calm abyss of the frozen water that now felt hot-springs warm.

Because through all the memories that played in my mind, through all the wishes I’d wished since receiving my diagnosis, one stuck out.

Please, God, don’t make them watch me die.

And He didn’t, I realize, as my soul hovers above the water, watching my body disappear into the darkness. Watching the water turn still as I close this final chapter.

There was no true fear in my passing. There was no pain.

There was only warmth and love and a knowing that even as I close this chapter, my story is not over. Our story is not over. It is simply over in this place in time, and there is peace in that knowing.

I turn to the sun, my soul floating higher as I shed the fear and doubt and anger and grief. I cling to the gift of my vault, of the memories my soul will eternally cherish—and that same voice promises me that one day, I will hold them again.

One day.

47

THE LAST LETTER

AUGUST 2023 – PRESENT DAY

Faye’s truth came to me on the bench outside the hospital, cutting into me with surgical precision. I suppose there’s no better place for the cut-throat truth of her words.

Tate’s truth came later. It came in confessions spilled in ink over time-stained paper. A whole box of confessions. Years of them. A whole lifetime worth.

I read every one of them in the hospital room where I healed from the surgery, short one kidney.

And the last letter, dated the day he died—well, I’ve kept that letter with me for months now. I read it again and again.

I’m not angry anymore. Not with him, not with her. I’m not even bitter over the secret they kept.