The Veil

RETURN TO AVALON

I waited around the corner for Dion's headlights.

I don’t remember most of the drive, not even realising we'd arrived until the ocean smell hit.

Salt.

Heavy.

Inevitable.

Moon low, I got out of the car and walked towards the shore.

A torch in one hand.

A white lace veil in the other.

I waded in until the water took my knees.

Cold at first.

Then not.

The beam cut white ribbons through the dark, the veil catching light like something not quite of this world.

I moved it slowly.

Not dancing.

Not performing.

Just… moving grief through my body because I didn’t know where else to put it.

The ocean held me the way Finn once did.

Steady.

Wordless.

Certain.

Dion stood on the sand, a silent witness.

I told myself I needed him there, that he was the one who could hold space for me. 

When the torch died, the dark rushed in.

I lifted the veil to the moon and waited. But nothing came back. Not peace, no flicker of a presence. Just wind and the flow of the tide doing what the ocean does, indifferent and continuous.

Walking back to the car, the sand cool beneath my feet, I felt hollow. I was hoping to feel him on that beach for a moment, a goodbye, but I didn’t find him there.

Back home, I drew until my eyes blurred.

A mastiff curled by a fire.

A boat on still water.

A cabin glowing in the dark.

Three images.

Belonging.

Passage.

Warmth.

In that last one, I gave him what I never gave him out loud. The words I'd said wrong when I had the chance. I told him, with windows and firelight, what I couldn't say to his face:

I did love you. I'm sorry I said otherwise. I just didn't know what to do with it.

The light stayed on all night.

The next day, driving to work, I took a detour down a backroad that he had loved.

Put the Cannons on the stereo.

I said it out loud this time.

Soft. Almost embarrassed.

“In another life… maybe I could make your heart beat again.”

The wind carried it out to sea.

And the tide answered.