[COMPLETE]
When Hanna Haddad embarks on what's supposed to be another uneventful summer as a lifeguard on Cape Cod, a trip to the past comes as an unnerving surprise. The discovery of her estranged mother's journal opens up the world of tragedy and...
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My mother was all I had left.
After screaming into a pillow for a solid minute, I yanked her journal from my bedside drawer, nearly tearing the first few pages apart in my ongoing fit of rage. I flipped through the unread entries, realizing I still had around a quarter left, a quarter that held the true answer to my question somewhere in its many tattered pages.
I treated it like homework for the rest of the night, getting through each remaining entry through bleary eyes and oversized cups of coffee, even the more mind-numbing ones about feeding me as an infant or her resuming her graduate studies when I'd turned one.
It was the turn of the millennium and my parents had been celebrating over five years of marriage. By then, their relationship had lost all its charm, just a husband and wife struggling to raise a young child in the throes of busy schedules and a changing economy. I had no idea my dad had been on the verge of losing his job thanks to the dot-com bubble, narrowly missing a layoff by way of his more senior position at the firm. My mother had finally graduated with her PhD in the same year and accepted a professorship at a nearby college. Everything had seemed to be working in their favor, until August of that doomed year.
August 4, 2001
4:33 a.m.
We prepare ourselves for many deaths.
The deaths of our parents, the deaths of our pets, even the deaths of those who garner our respect: teachers, advisors, neighbors.But nothing prepares you for the death of your best friend. There are no words in the English language to describe the void it leaves behind, the gaping hole that eats up condolences and spits them out, reminding you that you will never be the same again.
Because it wasn't just me, Benjamin, Nicolas, or Jesse that had lost Samantha. The world had lost one of its sweetest souls, and it mourned on her behalf. I had never uttered the words "I'm cold" on Cape Cod in August before, much less dug through my pile of winter jackets for relief.
I couldn't bear to look at Hanna today, her innocent, smiling face reminding me that a boy, only two years older than her, would never be able to smile at his mother again. I also wasn't sure how much I could bear the unofficial duty of comforting the father of that boy with what little life was left in me.
"Oh Annie."
Benjamin collapsed into my chest, throwing his weight and the weight of the world on me. I squeezed my eyes shut, knowing such a beautiful man would be marred forever. His broken wrist would heal and the sprawling bruise around his eye would once again fade into a sea of tanned skin, but his soul would never be the same. It had witnessed its death while experiencing it, its only source of light gone forever.
