Diverse Voices Quarterly Issue 1 & 2

I watched the reflection of her eyes welling up. Sarah wiped the tears from her cheek.
“I don’t know what to say to you, Cal. I just don’t know what to say to that.”
Annie and Jack slid down the snowdrift again.
“Annie worries about you. She sleeps with that holey T-shirt on her pillow.”
I was sitting on that shirt. It was in my stocking on Christmas Day my junior year of
high school. I held what was left of the blue fabric to my face and inhaled my own scent.
Sarah was watching the children when she said, “You’re not the only one grieving. At
some point, you’re gonna have to let go. Do it before you lose us.”
I didn’t respond.
Jack started down the wind drift on his bottom. He flipped over in an attempt to stop
himself, but it was too late. He was lying on his belly at the base of the hill. He and Annie
were laughing.
I told Sarah, “I feel like people are destroying everything I love.”
“What are you talking about, Cal?”
“Even my students. They buy things, meaningless things. They’re destroying the
things I love by buying things, things they don’t even…”
Sarah took my hand, “What do you love?”
“The mountain, the ponderosa pine forest, the elk. I love the grass, Sarah, and I don’t
understand why other people don’t love the grass.”
Tears fell from Sarah’s cheeks. She dropped my hand. I was still sitting on the edge of
the bed. We looked out the window.
“You didn’t mention Annie and Jack.” Sarah turned from the window. She looked me
in the eyes, “You didn’t mention me, Cal.”
I didn’t know what to say.
Sarah asked, “Do you love us?”
“I love you.”
“I asked you what you loved.”
“You.”
“Sometimes I wonder.”
Diverse Voices Quarterly, Vol. 1, Issue 1 & 2
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