Finding Shiloh: a novel

After

you're gone you're gone you're gone you're gone you're gone i miss you

i hate you so much for this, but how can i hate you for making a decision that made you happy?

why was it this? why did your version of a solution hurt everyone around you? that's selfish, Shiloh, and you know it.

i don't know what to do anymore without you.

you could have told me you were struggling. how did this happen? how did i not see this? why didn't you show me?

you were so happy, Shiloh.

but were you? was this an escape, or was your life a prolonged escape from your mind?

you have no idea what you've done to me. to all of us. we can't do it, Shiloh. you left us to deal with everything.

it's not fair. you gave me all your pain and it's too much. i don't want it anymore than you did.

you took Colton's chance at being happy again.

you broke what was left of your family.

you left me. how could you do this to me?

i love you, Shiloh. i love you and you're never coming home.

***********

They bury Shiloh two days later, on a warm afternoon with enough sun that it would make anyone else feel happy.

Shiloh's gravestone stands next to both her grandparents', much newer and cleaner and younger than a gravestone ever needs to be.

Shiloh Elaine McKenzie

April 16, 1997 – May 31st, 2015

Beloved Daughter

The date of death feels like a stab. The police had said Shiloh had been dead for at least a day or so before we found her. Knowing that we had been just one day late kills me.

It's a closed-casket service. Shiloh's mother doesn't say a word the entire time.

I stand in between my parents, both of their shoulders pressing uncomfortably into mine, like they're afraid I'll disappear at any second. What they don't realize is that part of me already has. Part of me is in the casket with Shiloh. Part of me is being buried, cold and dead, with her.

It's a small ceremony, with fragments of Shiloh's extended family, some kids from school, a few neighbors and family friends, and a few other people I don't recognize.

Is this what you wanted?

Colton wears a tie and keeps clearing his throat quietly. It takes me way too long to realize that he's only there out of respect, and that he's trying to hold himself together by the threads of a few seams.

Lillian doesn't come. I tried to call her a couple times the day before, but she never answered. I know why. It would be too hard.

The priest talks about decisions and chosen paths and how Shiloh chose her path early, and that she is finally now at peace.

I stare at Shiloh's casket and imagine her body, 206 bones and millions of cells, slowly disintegrating. The same body that used to pulse with life, radiate sound, is now stiff and cold and lifeless. My Shiloh. My Shiloh is gone.

I'm looking at a casket that is holding Shiloh's body. No matter how hard I try to process that thought, I can't.

I can't accept that she's gone. I keep looking around the cemetery, waiting for her to appear. Waiting for her to show up, laughing at all of us for believing this. Or waiting for someone to wake me up from this nightmare I've been living for the last week.

The ceremony is over in twenty-six minutes and two haphazard songs about finding God. My best friend's life and the entire twelve years of our friendship, summed up into twenty-six minutes. They don't mention the way Shiloh's nose used to crinkle when she laughed. They don't mention the way Shiloh would sing in the car, drumming her hands on her steering wheel in the Steak n' Shake drive-thru at 2am. They don't mention how Shiloh always smelled like pineapple gum and her island breeze perfume. They don't mention the way Shiloh brought color into every facet of my life.

And now she's going into the ground. Shiloh doesn't belong in the ground. She belongs on top of it, with me. Forever.

Shiloh's casket is lowered into its final resting place. Her mother stays there until everyone has left, staring hard at the rectangle carved out in the ground. I look for Colton, but he's gone. Disappeared into the air like everything else Shiloh left behind.

I watch everyone around me say goodbye to Shiloh and each other, and they all fade back into whatever shadows they came from.

And then there's silence again.