The Goodbye Cliff

2008 NYC Midnight Creative Writing Challenge #2

Genre: Romance
Setting: Beach
Object: Wheelbarrow

The Goodbye Cliff

It was the first time Charlie had been to a beach since he left the small coastal town in the Pacific Northwest. Today he has returned to the beach that used to be his front yard.

He and Rose, his wife of two years, hiked up to the landing above the beach and looked at the abandoned house as though it might do something any minute.

“That’s it,” Charlie said, pointing lazily at the house he lived in. “He built it himself. And now it’s crumbling like it never should have been there.”

“Do you want to go in?” Rose said softly.

Charlie shook his head and led Rose out of what used to be the front yard. On their way to the cliff’s edge, they passed the scrap heap Charlie escaped to when he was a kid. When the violence at home was unbearable. He could have sworn he saw the same rotting furniture and other random trash deposited by passing families on their way to better coastal getaways. And there was that wheelbarrow, now rusted almost beyond recognition, where he sat until the stars came over him.

Charlie and Rose sat in silence with their legs dangling over the cliff. He watched the seagulls dive toward the jagged rocks fifty feet below and cringed.

“Are you okay?” Rose asked slowly, squeezing his hand and resting her chin on his shoulder.

“I’m okay.” They both knew he wasn’t.

Although it had been almost 20 years since Charlie had been home, the eeriness of the place settled over him with an unwelcome familiarity. He closed his eyes to the setting sun, and the first thing he remembered was the shouting.

Charlie’s older brother Evan bore the brunt of their father’s rage: the arguments; the slaps; the punches. Nosebleeds, black eyes and broken limbs followed. No matter how big Evan was getting, he remained powerless against his father.

And Charlie clung to the darkness in his room for safety. With the covers pulled over his head, he tried to drown the noise out by thinking about the mornings. It was his favorite time of the day because it was when he spent the most time with Evan. The two years’ difference in age between them fostered a closeness Charlie was grateful for. As long as Evan was around, Charlie felt safe. And as long as he wasn’t, the dark was what he had.

But Evan became less engaged with Charlie, so the younger brother had to search for the reasons why. There would be voices at night coming from Evan’s room for instance, but Charlie just thought he snuck a friend in. But he couldn’t do that every night. And sometimes Evan’s door would slam shut with no morning-after explanations. There was just the uncomfortable silence before it would be time to leave for school.

“Rose, I don’t know if I can do it,” Charlie said, furiously rubbing the pendant he had just removed from around his neck.

“Remember that whatever you decide,” Rose said. “There are no wrongs.”

Charlie closed his eyes again and forced the memory of that night to come back.

“You still awake?” Evan asked as he walked into Charlie’s room. Evan had become less interested in Charlie, but the younger brother figured it was because of girls, school, sports and whatever else 16-year-olds had to deal with.

“Kind of,” Charlie said, lying. Evan moved to the side of Charlie’s bed and squatted.

“Don’t turn that on,” Evan said when Charlie reached for the lamp. “I just wanted to give you this.”

“Why couldn’t you wait till the morning?”

“Because I couldn’t. Listen. This is a pendant. It’s— It’s Maori. It’s made of bone. And— are you listening?”

“Yes,” said Charlie, who was still fighting off sleep.

“It’s a guardian symbol. I got it for myself a while ago, but– but I want you to have it. It’s kind of like I’m protecting you even when I’m not around. For when we’re at school or you’re walking home alone.”

“Mmhmm,” Charlie muttered.

“Goodnight, kid.”

“Mmm.”

Evan stood up and tussled Charlie’s hair.

The next morning, Charlie awoke to the screams of his mother. “You killed him!” she shouted. Charlie opened his door slowly and watched his mother pounding her husband’s chest with an anger he didn’t think she was capable of. It was the one time Charlie recalled any real emotion coming from his mother. “My baby’s gone!” And she fell to the floor. “Charlie!” She called to him when she heard his feet shuffle out of his room. He went to her “Charlie, it’s Evan honey,” she began through her sobs.

“Don’t tell him anything yet!” his father yelled. “He won’t understand.”

“Go to hell!” Her sobs were like shrieks of an animal, and Charlie watched her, helpless. “Charlie, honey,” she began again, holding him tight against her. “Evan …” she trailed off and was out of reach.

Charlie looked up at his dad who towered stiffly above them. “Is he dead?”

His father turned to go but stopped abruptly with his gaze firmly on the floor. “He jumped off the cliff.”

When Charlie finally made it back to his room, he collapsed on his bed and his eyes fell on the necklace Evan had put on his side table only hours before. He stared at it for a long time before picking it up. “Guardian,” he said quietly, recalling Evan’s words. He put the necklace on and it would remain there, save for the occasional update in chain, until his return to the beach.

“I’m not throwing it away,” Charlie told Rose, and he gripped the pendant so tightly that he could feel his nails in his palms. “I just want it to protect him now.”

He looked into Rose’s eyes for the first time since they arrived. “He knows,” she said. “Wherever he is.”

Charlie kissed the pendant and tossed it over the same cliff Evan went.