I Fell in Love with Hope - Lancali

C’s parents wait on shore. With Neo and Hikari’s help on either side,
C
walks into the water. It’s cold, icy stones and shells in the silt.
Eric asks us if we’d like to say a few words. We do, each of us
saying a little something to the empty expanse. Logically, we know
Sony can’t hear us, but this isn’t really for Sony at all.
Eric caresses the surface of the box. He presses his forehead to it
and closes his eyes. A moment passes and I remember those days
Sony fell asleep hooked up to a ventilator. I remember how he used
to cry and choke it all down so she wouldn’t wake. I remember the
whispers I could never make out that he spoke
every night after tucking her in. It’s only now, as I hear it up close,
that I realize they weren’t renditions of goodnights or little reminders
to stay alive or anything so confined to a nurse-patient relationship.
They were a father’s I love yous.
Eric opens the box.
“Goodnight, Sony,” he whispers. “I hope you find your everything.”
Her ashes spring free in the shape of wings. Wind carries the sheer
gray cloud into the sky, dusted rain settling on the waves that give it
passage to other worlds.
I take ahold of Eric’s hand as he lets the box sink into the water. He
wipes his face and looks out as far as the horizon stretches,
watching Sony take the shape of water.
When the cold begins numbing his limbs, Eric retires to the beach.
He sits in the sand, Neo and C retiring with him.
Hikari lingers a little longer in the shallows. I stay with her, helping
her return the seashells in her pockets to their home. The only one