A wooden cross, tall as a man, sits in front of the sign by a few feet, and behind the cross and the sign is a tiny white chapel with a tiny white steeple. I can see houses beyond, and the lake to one side, the top of it green with algae.
I turn off the engine and sit for a few minutes. I lose track of how long I’m there. Did he come here the day he died? Did he come here the day before? When was he here? How did he find this place?
Then I am out of the car and walking to the chapel, and I can hear my heart and, somewhere in the distance, the sounds of birds in the trees. The air is already heavy with summer.
I turn the knob, and the door opens, just like that, and inside the chapel smells fresh and clean, as if it has been aired out recently. There are only a few pews, because the entire place is smaller than my bedroom, and at the front a wooden altar with a painting of Jesus and two vases of flowers, two potted plants, and an open Bible.
The long, narrow windows let in the sunlight, and I sit in one of the pews and look around, thinking: What now?
I walk to the altar, and someone has typed up and laminated a history of the church, which is propped against one of the vases of flowers.
Taylor Prayer Chapel was created as a sanctuary for weary travelers to stop and rest along their way. It was built in memoriam to those who have lost their lives in auto accidents, and as a place of healing. We remember those who are no longer here, who were taken from us too soon, and who we will always keep with us in our hearts. The chapel is open to the public day and night, and on holidays. We are always here.
And now I know why Finch chose this place—for Eleanor and for me. And for him too, because he was a weary traveler who just needed rest. Something pokes out of the Bible—a white envelope. I turn to the page, and someone has underlined these words: “Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky.”
I pick up the envelope, and there is my name: “Ultraviolet Remarkey-able.”
I think of taking it to the car to read what’s inside, but instead I sit down in one of the pews, grateful for the sturdy, solid wood underneath me.
Am I ready to hear what he thought of me? To hear how I let him down? Am I ready to know exactly how much I hurt him and how I could have, should have, saved him, if only I’d paid more attention and read the signs and not opened my big mouth and listened to him and been enough and maybe loved him more?
My hands are shaking as I open the envelope. I pull out three sheets of thick staff paper, one covered in musical notes, the other two covered in words that look like lyrics.
I begin to read.
You make me happy,
Whenever you’re around I’m safe inside your smile,
You make me handsome,
Whenever I feel my nose just seems a bit too round,
You make me special, and God knows I’ve longed to be that kind of guy to have around,
You make me love you,
And that could be the greatest thing my heart was ever fit to do.…
I am crying—loud and hiccuping, as if I’ve been holding my breath for a very long time and finally, finally can breathe.
You make me lovely, and it’s so lovely to be lovely to the one I love.…
I read and reread the words.
You make me happy …
You make me special …
You make me lovely …
I read and reread them until I know the words by heart, and then I fold up the papers and slide them back into the envelope. I sit there until the tears stop, and the light begins to change and fade, and the soft, pink glow of dusk fills the chapel.
It’s dark by the time I drive home. In my bedroom, I pull out the staff paper once again and play the notes on my flute. The tune finds its way into my head and stays there, like it’s a part of me, so that, days later, I’m still singing it.
I don’t need to worry that Finch and I never filmed our wanderings. It’s okay that we didn’t collect souvenirs or that we never had time to pull it all together in a way that made sense to anyone else but us.
The thing I realize is that it’s not what you take, it’s what you leave.
VIOLET
June 20
It’s a white-hot summer day. The sky is a pure, bright blue. I park the car and walk up the embankment and stand for a long time on the grassy shore of the Blue Hole. I half expect to see him.
I kick off my shoes and cut through the water, diving deep. I’m looking for him through my goggles, even though I know I won’t find him. I swim with my eyes open. I come back up to the surface under the great wide sky, take a breath, and down I go again, deeper this time. I like to think he’s wandering in another world, seeing things no one can ever imagine.
In 1950, poet Cesare Pavese was at the peak of his literary career, applauded by his peers and his country as the greatest living Italian author. In August of that year, he took a lethal dose of sleeping pills, and even though he kept a daily journal, no one could ever truly explain why he did it. The writer Natalia Ginzburg remembered him after his death: “It seemed to us that his sadness was that of a boy, the voluptuous heedless melancholy of a boy who has still not come down to earth, and moves in the arid, solitary world of dreams.”
It was an epitaph that could have been written for Finch, except that I’ve written one for him myself:
Theodore Finch—I was alive. I burned brightly. And then I died, but not really. Because someone like me cannot, will not, die like everyone else. I linger like the legends of the Blue Hole. I will always be here, in the offerings and people I left behind.
I tread water on the surface under the wide, open sky and the sun and all that blue, which reminds me of Theodore Finch, just like everything else reminds me of him, and I think of my own epitaph, still to be written, and all the places I’ll wander. No longer rooted, but gold, flowing. I feel a thousand capacities spring up in me.