Guilt
I knelt silently before the grave, the small white card a temporary gravestone.
My eyes couldn’t leave her name. As much as I wanted them to, I couldn’t help it. Couldn’t help but let the torrent of memories rush upon me. I remembered the first day we had met, how I had spilled her coffee accidentally, walking without paying attention to where I was going.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry,” I said quickly, taking out a napkin and handing it to her, picking up the fallen cup. “Here, let me buy you a new one.”
I would’ve thought she would have been furious at me, but instead she simply smiled and accepted my offer. I smiled back, and together we walked back to the coffee shop.
It seemed so long ago now. A lifetime ago. Yet at the same time, it seemed like just yesterday. We shared a coffee together afterwards, and somehow I had had the courage to ask for her number, and even more of a miracle was that she had given me her real one. That was one of the greatest days of my life. I remembered our first real date…how nervous I had been, how much I had prepared for it.
“Dude, chill, it’s going to be okay,” my best friend Aaron said to me.
But I couldn’t help it. I fidgeted nervously, wringing my hands together and pacing the backyard. I had set up a table accompanied by candles and a waiter in a tux: Aaron. Every she didn’t show seemed like an hour.
“Are you sure everything’s okay?”
“Yes, it’s fine! Just look at it, it’s perfect,” he replied. I had to agree, it did look pretty nice. But that didn’t stop me from worrying. I had never felt this way about a woman before. I remembered just two days ago when I had only met her because of my clumsiness. I remembered the lovely conversation we had, where we discovered so many similarities. I remem—
The doorbell rang. The intense desire burned in my heart all the greater and I rushed toward the door.
A tear fell from my eye. She had loved that date so much, the perfect smile of hers always present on her face. Yet I couldn’t see it. The memories were all a fog, and no matter how hard I tried, I could not see her face. Why? I asked myself, but could think of no answer. I shook my head quickly, trying to forget, focusing again on the happy memories. Yet that only made it worse as after every smile from every memory I realized that that was what I lost. Her. Gone forever.
I buried my head in my hands as I remembered the day I proposed. A beautiful dinner at a fancy restaurant, with a garden and balcony overlooking the ocean. I remembered how happy she had been when I got on one knee, but I couldn’t see it. Couldn’t see her smile, her face.
It was the guilt. I had done this. It was because of me that she was dead. I should’ve listened to her when she begged me to leave my job – an undercover cop infiltrating gangs. It was dangerous. I knew that the moment I slipped up, the moment they found out, my family was dead. But I thought I was good enough. Good enough to evade their discovery forever.
I was wrong.
More tears fell. ”I’m sorry,” I whispered to the stone. Hoping I could say it to her, but knowing that I never could. I only wished she knew…knew how sorry I was. But it was too late now. She was gone.
I tried to think of other happy memories – almost every moment we had spent together; our wedding, the happiest day of my life; the birth of our child, the second happiest day of my life. But I couldn’t. Now all I saw was her body with a hole in her head, a pool of blood under it. The duct-tape on her mouth, hands, and feet. The look of fear in her still-open, dead eyes. This picture of her face, her half blown-off face, would be the only one I could ever see again.
The guilt consumed me.
Aaron approached from behind, probably wondering why I was still here, hours later after the funeral.
“C’mon, man,” he said, “it’s not your fault.”
“But it is.” The guilt wouldn’t let me think any differently.
A. Page in the Stacks 