Die Again

Forty

CHRISTOPHER WILL BE WAITING FOR ME AT THE AIRPORT. VIOLET WILL be there too, almost certainly holding a big bouquet of flowers. I’ll be swept into their arms and then we’ll drive home to Touws River, where there’ll be a welcome-home party this evening. Chris has already warned me about it, because he knows I don’t like surprises, nor do I much like parties. But I feel it’s finally time to celebrate, because I am reclaiming my life. I’m rejoining the world.

I’m told that half the town will be there because everyone’s curious. Until they saw the story on the news, few of them had any idea of my past, or why I’ve been such a recluse. I could never risk the exposure before. Now they all know, and I’m the town’s new celebrity, the ordinary mum who went to America and defeated a serial killer.

“It’ll be utter madness here,” Chris told me during our phone call just before I boarded the plane. “The newspaper keeps calling, and the TV station. I’ve told them to leave us alone, but you need to be ready for this.”

In half an hour, my plane will touch down. These final moments of the flight will be my last chance at solitude. As we start our descent toward Cape Town, I take out the photograph one last time.

Six years have passed since I last saw him. Every year I grow older, but Johnny never will. He will always stand straight and tall, the grass waving at his feet, the sunlight reflected in his smile. I think about all the things that could have been if things had turned out differently. Would we now be married and blissful in our rustic hut in the bush? Would our children have his wheat-colored hair, and grow up running barefoot and free? I will never know, because the real Johnny lies somewhere in the Delta, his bones crumbling into the soil, his atoms forever bound to the land he loved. The land he’ll always belong to. All I own are my memories of him, and these I’ll guard as my secret. They belong to no one but me.

The plane touches down and rolls to the gate. Outside, the sky is a brilliant blue, and I know the air will be soft with the scent of flowers and the sea. I slip Johnny’s photo back into the envelope and tuck it inside my purse. Out of sight, but never forgotten.

I rise to my feet. It’s time to go back to my family.