Christi by Jennifer Pester

Christi

by Jennifer Pester

It was a quick death—one slippery road, one car, one telephone pole, all somehow adding up to zero— the small carnivorous emptiness that seems to be life without her. And yet, what I remember is not so much.

A parking lot, late at night, waiting for her. I'm curled up in the passenger's seat. She screeches to a stop, he rolls down his window, asks her "Did you just use your emergency brake to stop like that?"

She smiles, rolls her eyes. He says, "Wow, that was pretty cool!" and life flows on. Strange, these pebbles of memories the swirling eddies polish and leave at my feet.

I remember another time, after everything. Pine trees, granite . . .we're sitting in the memory-strewn grass, and he says, "We're probably sitting on her feet."

So we laugh, and we move a little further away.

It isn't an easy time, but not as difficult as I would have expected (as if something like this could ever be expected).

And now it's much later. We don't talk much anymore. We have new lives, new friends, new interests. And I wonder sometimes if he still goes there at night to think, and if it all still adds up to zero for him.