On Our Last Day of Third Grade, Your Desk Sat Empty

All these years later, I hold your death in my hands like a delicate butterfly

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I don’t know if any of our classmates remember you.

There’s no record of you. No proof you ever walked the halls of our school, that you sat three desks to my left, that you lined up in pairs, that you wore a Tenderheart Bear backpack just a little too low on your back, and twirled the loose straps around your fingers.

The world has moved on without you. I don’t know if anyone else has carried you with them. But sometimes I wonder — do you still exist in any of their memories, too?

When my daughter’s lips turn blue in the cold, I think of you, and how your mom didn’t want you to go to the indoor pool party at the Sheridan down the little lane by the mall. She thought you wouldn’t have any fun because you wouldn’t be able to keep up. I assured her I would keep you company. That you wouldn’t be all alone.

Sitting on the edge of the pool, your legs dangling in the water, I would swim a lap, tickle the soles of your feet beneath the water, break the surface tension with a splash, and then kip up to take a seat beside you.

I remember your soft shoulder-length curls, your speckling of freckles, and your…