Some Quiet Place

leaves again. Without hesitation, I follow.
    We walk into a kitchen. The house is small; it only takes five steps. Everything is clean and orderly in contrast to the boy’s room. Though the furniture is worn and there’s only one very old TV as entertainment, someone has worked very hard to make this place a home. The rugs are colorful and there are pictures on the walls, framed images of a smiling family of three: the boy, the mysterious girl who always weeps in my dreams, and an older woman with crinkling eyes. Grief doesn’t exist. These pictures … these pictures are genuine. The Caldwell mark is nowhere to be seen—no shadows in their gazes, no tight smiles, no distance between shoulders.
    I pull my attention away from the pictures and examine the room. A woman has her head half-inside a refrigerator. As the boy circles her and approaches the table I see that she’s sniffing milk. “You’re going to be late,” the boy says.
    The woman sets the milk down in front of him, telling him, “I’ll be fine. Oh, and I did pick up an extra shift, so I’m going to be little late tonight. Make sure you tell your sister, okay?” Of course she’s his mother; the knowledge is there in the way she brushes his bangs back, the way she moves around the kitchen with such purpose. This is her purpose. He is her purpose. It must be so fulfilling, to have a design.
    The boy pops the mouth of the milk carton and tilts it. The sound of the milk streaming into a glass is the only sound for a second. It’s strange for me, the silence. There are no ticking clocks or thudding boots coming into the house.
    “Where is she?” the boy asks his mom after a moment. I lift my head at this—it’s the same thing he asked me in that clearing. Before the churning skies and bloodthirsty swarms.
    This time he receives an answer. The dark-haired woman sighs. “She went out to the woods again. She didn’t hear me when I tried to call her back.”
    He watches her. “Don’t worry. She’ll be back. She always comes back.”
    It doesn’t soothe her, but she hides her expression. When she turns back to her son, she raises her brows. “Are you sure you want her to? You wouldn’t have to share that damn bathroom anymore.”
    He smiles faintly, holding his fork tight. She smiles too, a sad curve of the lips. They’re entwined together through loyalty, not obligation. This is what family is supposed to be.
    The boy bends his head again, back to his food, and hair falls into his eyes. Just like Joshua. I lift my hand to push it out of his—
    Suddenly the scene is rushing away. Cold air and streaks of black and blue shoot by. A dizzying sensation makes my head swim, and I lower to my knees to maintain balance.
    Everything goes still again. It’s not gradual. One moment I’m on a speeding, burning train, and the next I’m at a stop, and the whistle announcing my arrival is an abrupt silence. I lift my head … and see.
    He lies there. He’s just a foot away, so close I could reach out and touch him. Where any other person would recoil or cover her mouth in horror, I just stay right there on my hands and knees, gazing down at him. My wall of nothingness twitches a little.
    This time the girl is nowhere to be seen. There’s no cradling, no screaming. Just the absoluteness of death. The moon gazes down at us with its white face. It’s chilly. Dew coats the grass and soaks through my dress. I hardly notice. Blood seeps into the earth. I study the scene for a long, long time. No matter what other theories I’ve had up until this point, I now know one thing for certain: this was no accident.
    The isolation wraps itself around me. Briefly I wonder why there are no crickets. I continue to sit there by the body, trapped in this place. For some reason, I seem unable to tear away from the sight.
    “You did this,” his voice whispers in my ear. The boy himself doesn’t open his eyes or move. But it’s true. I feel it to the marrow in my bones. Because of me, somehow, someway, all of this is ended. No more breakfasts, no more laughter, no more studying. Never again will that beautiful boy turn the page of a book or squint at a sentence. Never again will he share a joke with his mother or wait for his sister to return.
    I should care. This dream, this memory, whatever the correct term for it is, clearly is meant to serve a purpose of its own. To help me remember? To cause an Emotion, any Emotion? Or maybe the intent is something far more