Paeonia

Dear Cary, 

It’s been three months since you’ve been gone. I’m doing okay. Your family misses you a lot. I do, too. I think about you every single day. I left you flowers, I really hope you like them. They’re peonies, your favorite. You always looked so happy whenever you saw them. Your face would light up like you had twin suns hiding behind your eyes and your mouth would curve and open into that half-moon shape and all of your teeth would show like little stars shining out because you were smiling so big. I never really knew how to work my lungs when you smiled like that. I was always so jealous of those peonies getting a reaction out of you that I never could. I hope they can make you smile like that again. I’ll do anything to see you smile again. 

I still don’t know if I believe in a heaven but I know if it’s up there then so are you. I hope they have lifeguards because I never even knew you couldn’t swim until you jumped in the water and thought you had gills. I wish you had let me come with you so I could have taught you to. They said you probably just sank. I would’ve shown you how to tread water it isn’t that hard really it’s easy so very easy we could’ve done it together I would’ve helped you if you started to sink. I wish you would’ve let me write you a letter back first so I could have told you that it’s okay to not know how to do it I would’ve taught you how to keep your head above water if you really wanted to do it alone. 

I hope they taught you how to swim in heaven. I hope it’s full of peonies and that you smile every day. I’ll tread water here until they let me in. 

Love, always, 

Taylor 

*

He started to scrawl an address on the envelope on the desk, stopped, cursed, and finished writing it anyways. Taylor rushed out of the room and down the stairs, sealing the letter in the envelope. 

Somewhere in the other room, someone called, “Where are you going, Taylor?” 

“I’m delivering something.” And so he went. 

It was an unusually warm fall this year, they said. The leaves were especially colorful, they said. Taylor tried to believe them, but every time he looked at the trees they were dull, the autumn leaves muted tones quietly sinking onto the earth. 

He drove with the stereo off, parking the car in front of the small flower shop. The bell on the door jangled in a tinny tone as he went in. 

“Back again,” the florist, whose nametag read “Mara”, commented. Taylor ignored Mara, picking out the peonies without hesitation. 

“She must really like peonies, huh?” 

He was in the middle of handing the cash over, suddenly going stone still. “Yeah. They really did.” He slapped the bill on the counter. “Keep the change.” The tinny bell clanged away as he left, his steps suddenly heavy. 

In the car, he slammed his head onto the wheel. Something hot had woken up in his chest, making his breaths come in short bursts and his fists ball up of their own accord. How could people be so careless? He slammed on the wheel again and again, making the horn squeal. 

What would Cary have said? What would Cary have said when Taylor mentioned the incident later, handing over the flowers he never bought enough of? 

Cary probably would have shrugged, smelling the peonies with that smile that Taylor loved so much. “It happens all of the time. It hurts, but not as much as it used to. These are beautiful flowers, Taylor.” 

There was a sob stuck somewhere in Taylor’s chest, a choking gasp that cooled the heat pump-pump-pumping in his blood. 

No, what Cary really would have said was that it didn’t matter to the dead. 

He parked the car in the lot across the street; walking through the iron fence gate and down, down, down the path. Each step felt like he was only moving centimeters, the fingers of light between each tree starting to fade with every passing moment. 

Finally, he approached a small tombstone. Taylor placed the flowers at its foot, placed the envelope against the cold stone. He sat himself down on the earth to stare at the engraving. 

CARY FAIRFIELD 

1993-2014 

“It’s funny,” he said. “I wrote you an entire letter, but I already thought of more things to say.” 

CARY FAIRFIELD continued to look back at Taylor. 

“Can you see the leaves from wherever you are? Everybody says they’re so vivid. I don’t think I believe them.” 

CARY FAIRFIELD remained still. 

“It isn’t just colors, you know,” Taylor added. “Food doesn’t taste the same. Peonies don’t smell as good as they used to. Everything is just… dull. My mom wants me to talk to somebody, but why would I talk to anybody when I can talk to you?” 

CARY FAIRFIELD was silent. 

“I just…” A shuddering gasp suddenly, unexpectedly, grabbed his chest. His eyes, so warm, began to leak, pour, rain, storm. “Why can’t you be here?” There was a heavy thud-thud-thud inside of him that threatened to split his chest open. “Why isn’t this just a bad dream? I-I’ll do anything, Cary, just let me wake up tomorrow and know you’re here. I’ll t-teach you to swim, I will, I’ll paint all of the ocean in stardust, and we can swim to Australia if we want to, and it’ll be beautiful, so beautiful, just--” He had to stop, his chest convulsing, heaving. He leaned forward to rest his head against the grave, the stone smooth, cold under his skin. 

CARY FAIRFIELD rested against Taylor. 

Finally, as his heaving gasps subsided, Taylor whispered to the carved name, “It isn’t getting better, Cary. No matter how much time passes, it feels like it did the day you gave up. I know that you gave up, I know. I just wish you hadn’t given up on me, too.” 

CARY FAIRFIELD stayed cold against his forehead. 

“I have to go. I… I still mean everything I said in my letter. I hope that you can read it.” Taylor touched the stone with feather-tip fingers. “I love you, Cary.” He looked at the name for a long time before he finally had the courage to walk away. 

CARY FAIRFIELD watched dutifully. 

Taylor had one more place to go. He stepped out to the edge of the water that playfully kissed the shore. They say that all life came from the water. Maybe Cary decided that the water was where people should return. 

He started to walk, ignoring the crawling, unpleasant feeling of water in his shoes, in his socks, in his jeans, in his shirt. Waist deep, he turned to float on his back. The sky was pink--vibrant pink, pink as peonies. 

The soft waves felt the way Cary felt, warm and gentle. Taylor turned to lay his cheek on the water’s surface, closing his eyes, pretending for just one final moment that they were there with him. 

The water stilled. Taylor turned over, breathed in. 

He began to swim. 

About the Author

Kelsey Cohan is a senior studying English with a concentration in Creative Writing. In her free time she likes to hang out with cats, go to the city, and cry over thesis--sometimes all at the same time. Her dream is to be a graphic novelist.