By Regan Chern
Content Warning: Child Death
Luke
We are by the river, standing on the bridge above the black. It’s a Sunday, bright and sparkling.
Luke slides over the metal rails lining the bridge and stares into the water’s reflection. With the sun’s heat pressing onto his back, he cannonballs into the familiar cool. Nia joins him moments later with an unabashed smile.
You, on the edge of it all, sending shivers through the rails. You are searching for reassurance in our eyes that you’ll be fine.
‘Come on Teddy. Don’t be a baby,’ Luke calls. Teddy grips tightly onto the rails.
‘It’s really far,’ Teddy says.
‘You can do it,’ says Nia, which makes Teddy stand a little straighter. He thinks about coming out of the water and gallantly shaking his wet curls. Surely, she’ll be impressed.
With his eyes closed, he releases himself and falls in. The wicked crack of Teddy’s bone splinters against the river’s stony fang.
My head is screaming. I can’t move.
Nia is screaming. Her veins run fiercely cold. She tears through the water headed towards Teddy, his body bobbing among the reddish waves.
I puncture the shock and throw myself toward you. My stillness dies, wailing.
They pull him to shore, his eyes looking nowhere.
I blindly rummage through my bag and pull out my phone and press the numbers: 000. Their voice is distant. My voice is distant too. I stumble over the words.
‘We need help. My brother is…’ the operator tries to calm him, ‘We’re a-at the,’ he’s searching for the words, ‘the Trevor Bridge.’ He’s barely listening to the instructions that follow.
I can’t take my eyes off you, your blood painting the rocks. Nia’s lying next to you, sobbing, with head and hand on your little warbling chest. I don’t move. I don’t…
The sirens close in. It feels like it’s been seconds since the call. But seconds too late. Their hands drip scarlet as they press and hover over his ugly wound.
It happens.
They listen to his heartbeat. Luke stops. Nia stops. It stops. This moment becomes their home.
This scene repeats every day, Teddy. I see you through windows, in the water of my cup, in my plate, in dad, in mum, in my dreams. You’re smiling, crying, bleeding, dying, and cursing me out until I scream. Hollow eyed, mouth agape. Is that me, or is that you?
I see your spectres and the knot reforms, a new knife is implanted, and that fog becomes a tide, rising again to meet my nightmare.
Come back, Teddy, I pray. I need my little brother.
Nia
You weren’t meant to be there. You weren’t part of my plan.
11:28. Luke had come out of the house, huffing and puffing, and then you came, tagging along behind him.
He mumbled some apology, something about parents and babysitting. I didn’t care. I gave you a little wave and you blushed. And with our bikes and backpacks, we were headed towards the river.
It breaks me to recall the countless times Luke and I had been there. I recall it in our laughter at long lost jokes, the music scratchily escaping his radio, the gentle whipping tails of tadpoles we’d caught. And then our screams, climbing the trees. The crunch, as your bones collapsed. The sirens. Your heart, thrumming out into quiet nothingness.
All those sounds echo, bouncing off the water’s surface and into me. They’re echoes of our past.
I went to the river, not on purpose; I just rode there blindly. Notice my watch: 11:49. The rocks slid as I moved towards the water’s edge. I looked over the scene, the wind gently bending the tree branches.
A silvery leaf glanced my head and flew into the water. It was so voiceless when it hit the surface. Its ripples, finite and small. But still, when it touched the water, I heard my scream.
It came so suddenly that, I-I couldn’t escape. Here it was. Again. My scream, as loud as a leaf hitting the water.
I left myself there and ran away from her as fast as I could, Teddy.
Luke
1:10. At your funeral, I stare at the carpet. It’s grey, checkered, and hard. I rub my blazer against my fingertips. It’s dad’s suit. I am thinking about when we’ll go into the city and get mine made. At the end of the year, they’d promised, with the whole family.
That’s dead, I think, you’re dead.
Dad turns to me; his cheek is twitching. My knee is bouncing up and down. I didn’t even notice.
‘Stop it,’ he grips Luke’s thigh, ‘and lo-look at your brother.’
His spit is plastering my cheek. I don’t care. I do my best, Teddy, but I can’t manage to raise my eyeline towards your small shiny casket. The lid firmly closed.
Instead, I glare at the white lilies and baby’s breath littering the floor beneath your coffin. Your face is among the flowers, framed by gold. You’re dressed in your superhero cape and you’re smiling. This is your fault; a voice repeats in my head. My leg shakes.
I speak to the voice as though it is a familiar friend: Hi, Teddy.
Nia
You used to call me Ni-ni when you were a baby. Ni-ni. We’d play in your brother’s room. Lukey, though he’d never admit it, would play the mum and put on a fanciful high voice. I would be the dad, trudging around in your father’s shoes and scribbling notes onto old bills. And you were our baby. Big and talkative. Ni-ni, Ni-ni.
When you boys got older and no longer wanted to play house, I lost my baby in some strange, not-at-all-real way…
I was there when your parents found out at the hospital, Teddy. 3pm.
They enter swiftly, blasting through the swinging doors.
I tried to offer them something. A hand? A word? But the social worker was quicker to action.
She said it. Slowly. Honestly.
I just looked at their faces. They fell slowly, like leaves into water. Grey, and silvered by cold sweat. Your father was a blank stone. Your mother stumbled back; her purse dropped out of her hand. My hand moved to hold her, but she pulled away.
Your mum howled, wailing and guttural:
‘It was you,’ she points at Nia, ‘this is your fault.’
It sliced through me and my remains were falling into water, waiting for the cursed stone beneath the surface to release me. But it never showed. I just keep sinking further faster.
I long for Ni-ni.
Luke
I’m sitting opposite dad. He’s opened another beer, his eyes holding onto the kitchen table. The grandfather clock ticks over the quiet.
Only your voice talks to me these days, Teddy. Though it doesn’t say much. It’s your fault, it says, or some variation. Over and over.
I break the silence and say the first thing that comes to mind:
‘It’s my fault,’ Luke says.
Dad blinks at me. His eyes, black pools.
‘You’re right,’ his father says, rotating the can in his hand.
Dad’s mouth stretches to a half-hearted smile. Hollow. Distant.
‘No. It’s my fault, I…’ his father pauses, unable to say it.
I feel poisoned and revived simultaneously. But a fortified silence fills the space again, too loud and too strong to break. So, I leave. The flyscreen mechanically locks behind me and I head towards the night. Behind me, the clock sounds out the hour’s death.
I head towards Nia.
Nia
I didn’t go to your funeral, Teddy. I wasn’t welcome anyways. Instead, I honoured you by sitting on the porch steps, watching the stars, praying for reason.
I heard a bike chain rotating familiarly in my ear as it approached the house. It hits me. My muscles tensed to move but, nevertheless, I stayed glued to the stairs.
Luke
The bell rings as my bike meets the ground. I throw myself down beside her. It seems I am ringing too, my knee shaking.
She looks to the sky, as though she’s gone to them.
I bring my arm over her shoulder and lean in. She manages a little smile, and it looks like yours, Teddy.
She’s here, I think.
Nia
It felt like treachery to smile, Teddy. It felt like memories.
Did you see it?
Luke
I attempt to bridge the two weeks of radio silence with my voice. The words float towards shore. I look to her. She looks to me. 1:24.
‘It’s not your fault,’ he says. She tries hard to believe him.
A few moments pass.
‘It’s not your fault either,’ she says, searching his eyes. He tries hard to believe her.
They gaze into each other. The sincerity of it all almost makes them laugh.
And in there, time is like a leaf drifting into water.
Author Bio:
Regan is in his final year of a BFA (Creative Writing) at QUT etc.… do you really need to know more than that? You could be reading my work instead, you know. It’s far better than any dry self-aggrandising drivel that I could’ve written for this bio.
If you’d like to contact me, do so through my Instagram: @regancchern