Chapter 1 - Part 1

  ​     The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Bridge may have been named after one of the greatest presidents in history, but it had seen its fair share of heartache in the 70 plus years that it spanned the Grey River, here in Carlton.  The Grey River had seen so much death that the locals took to calling it the River Styx.  By day, the Grey River was beautiful--carving its way through Laurel Valley, creating a majestic portrait of steel blue water against the backdrop of thick green foliage.  But by night, the River Styx, was an oily black abyss that slithered through the shroud of trees that lined its banks. 
     
     It didn’t make sense that such a quiet, simple town could know so much death.  In 1953, Jim Lowell, the mayor of Carlton, slid on a patch of black ice and drove off the bridge to his death, taking with him his wife and three children.  Two years later, a school bus carrying the high school football team, followed the mayor’s path and crashed into the guardrail.  It didn’t go over the edge that time, but the bus driver was killed as well as the captain of the football team.   Six years later, bodies bound in duct tape, started popping up in the Grey River.  Seven bodies in all.  The Carlton Strangler, Carlton’s first and only serial killer, was believed to have abducted seven adolescent boys as they hitch hiked on I-47. After binding them and strangling them to death, he also tossed them over the FDR. 

       By then the bridge had become notorious for its morbid past.  Every year, it seemed at least two distraught people would fling themselves from the ledge in a desperate attempt to end their lives.  This year Trisha Michaels would be distraught person number one.
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     Trisha was young and single, beautiful and completely fed up with life.  She rode her bike the two miles from her apartment to the bridge, knowing what needed to be done.  Sunny, her cat, had a week’s worth of food to keep her fat self nice and plump until someone came and to collect her.  She had made up her bed, cleaned out the fridge and even scrubbed out the coffee stain that had been enbedded in her living room carpet for the past three years.  If the police showed up and did and investigation, she didn’t want them to think that she was a slob—a suicidal slob. 

     Trisha walked about 50 yards up the trail until she reached the bridge.  It was 9:12 in the evening.  The place was deserted.  No one dared hang around FDR Bridge after dark. People barely liked to drive over the bridge at night--too many horror stores.  Trisha was there alone.  She was always alone.  This time, though, she needed to be alone.  She slid her legs over the railing and took a deep breath.  The muggy summer air felt heavy in her lungs.  Below her lay what felt like a black hole.  It was too dark to see the Grey River.  Trisha could hear only the water rushing by, noisily against the stillness of night, like the cry of wounded souls urging her to join them.

     She didn’t cry.  Trisha was surprised by that.  She had cried so much these past few months, maybe she had used up all of her tears. And yet her hands trembled like a nervous cat.  She took in shallow breaths, as if breathing too hard might cause her to accidently topple over into the river before she was ready. 

     To calm herself, Trisha tore her eyes from the inky blackness below and looked up to the sky.  A moonless night.  The stars glittered in the darkness, like the twinkle lights on her old family Christmas tree.  A ghost from her past.  It comforted her, reminding her of a simpler, more joyous time in her life.  A time when she was part of a family and lived in a home full of love.  Faces flashed before her:  her mother humming carols as she tidied up the house.  Grandma arriving at the door, plump and pretty, arms loaded down with sweet potato pies and banana pudding.  Trailing behind her, Pop Pop, in his red and green, reindeer sweeter, smelling like tobacco and ranting about the holiday traffic.  Her dad was the family photographer, always snapping pictures, while pretending to be surprised at all the gifts Santa had managed to sneak into the house under his nose—as if Trisha hadn’t stopped believing in Santa years ago.  They were all gone now.  Faded memories, almost transparent in her mind.  But she would see them again soon. 

     She closed her eyes and said a prayer.  Another face materialized.  Trevor.  Her older brother by two years.  Every Christmas he hovered in the background keeping a mental tally of how much his gifts cost in comparison to Trisha’s.  He had not crossed over to the other side with the rest of her family.  He was still alive and well—last she heard.  She hadn’t seen him in 10 years.  She wondered how he would react when he heard the news.  Would he shed a tear when he learned that things had gotten so bad in his little sister’s life that she felt she had no other choice but to end it?  He probably wouldn’t throw a party.  Or shed a tear.  He would be indifferent, just like he was the last time she saw him.  Back then it had been an addiction, a disorderly conduct then a shop lifting arrest that caused her to call on him for help.  Bail money.  He hung up on her.  But the next day, he bailed her out then put her out of his life for good.  “Lose my number,” he had told her.  He meant it.  And so she did.

     Okay, so she had been a mess then and 10 years later she was a mess again—though no longer an addict.  Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference…  She chanted the prayer she had grown so familiar with in Narcotics Anonymous, over and over beneath her breath.  She had enough wisdom to know that could not change the past.  But she did have the courage to change her present.  She didn’t have to live this way anymore.  Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference…Trisha gripped the railing a little tighter and leaned into the night.  God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference…  The river’s wind brushed through her hair, enticing her to let go.  Her gripped loosened until it was just her finger tips keeping her tethered to the bridge.  Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference…

      She let go.

      Trisha braced herself for the smack of her body striking the water, the rush of the cold Grey River pouring into her mouth, nose, her lungs.  She prepared for the pounding her body would take as it crashed into rocks and tumbled in the current.  None of that happened.  The only force she felt was that of her body crashing backward onto the paved road on FDR Bridge.  What happened?  Her eyes popped open and she saw the top chords of the bridge.  She looked down and saw an arm draped around her.
     
      “No, no, no, no!”  Trisha half yelled, half sobbed.

     The arm was attached to a breathless man.  Trisha could tell he wanted to say something but he was panting too hard to get the words out.  She made a run for it,  scrambling back to her feet and racing for the railing.

     The breathless man tackled her.  “Are you insane?”

     Trisha tried to push his hands away. “Get off of me, you freak!”

     “I can’t…let you…do…it”  His words were cut off because Trisha was smushing her hands in his face, willing to do whatever she needed to break free of his grasp.  Kicking.  Shoving.  Slapping.  His grip was like steel.  “Man, you’re really serious about doing this are you?”

      “Yes!” Trisha screamed, scratching her nails deep into his hands.

      “Ouch!” He howled and finally let her go.  “All right, fine!  Go!  Jump!”

     At the release from his grasp, Trisha tumbled forward.  She was exhausted from the struggle.  She managed to scurry a few feet from the man then collapsed, rolled over on her back and rested on her elbows.  The sweet stillness of the night had been interrupted by heavy breathing from both Trisha and the man.  He was tall.  Even though he was doubled over and leaning on his side, she could tell that he was a tall man, with the lean frame of a runner.  His eye brown eyes, which studied her, were squinting.  She assumed that he was in need of those glasses, which lay on the road beside him.

       “The name’s Jared,” he said between gasps.

     She didn’t answer.  Trisha was concentrating on building up enough strength to make another run for the railing.  But glaring didn’t require any additional energy, so she shot an evil glare in his direction.  Then her eyes started to sting as the first tears emerged.  She fell back on her back and felt warm tears leak out of the corners of her eyes.  “The one thing,” she muttered.
       “Huh?” 
       She turned her eyes back to him.  “This was the one thing I could change and you took it from me.”
       “I’m sorry.  I see someone in trouble and I have to come to the rescue.”
       “So, what, you have some sort of Superman complex?”
     “Superman?”  He let out a dry chuckle.  “Hardly.  I’m just someone who knows we always have options.  I try to help people find it.”
        “Well, I already found my option.”  
      Jared slid his glasses back on.  “That’s no option.  Suicide is what you do when you think you have no options.  But there’s always option.”
               
       Trisha sat up and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “No offense.  But you’re talking out of your ass.”
       “See that?  You’ve still got some fight in ya.  You’re not ready to die.”
       “You don’t know anything about me.”
    “I watched you sit on that rail for twenty minutes.  If you had wanted to jump, you would’ve done it,” Jared said, confidently.  “But you didn’t.  You sat there.  Waiting for something.  Waiting for someone to come along and save you.” 
        “I came this late because I didn’t want to be saved!”
       “I’m sure on some level that’s true.  But deep down, you don’t want to die.  You just want things to be better.  I get that.  So what is it?  What is it that you want to be better?
               
       Trisha stared at Jared and almost answered him.  He had warm brown eyes that made her think he might actually give a damn.  And that was the worst thing for her.  The last thing she needed was a glimmer of hope.  She did not dare believe that there was another option.  All that would do is prolong her suffering.  If there was another option, it would just turn out to be a false hope and she would end up right back here on this bridge a week later, a month later, or even a year later. 

      Finally, she spoke.  “You know what would make things better?  A million dollars, a brother who doesn’t despise me…oh and just for fun, how about living on an island paradise with the man of my dreams.  Can you make that happen Superman?”
     
     “A million dollars, huh?  You don’t want much, do ya?  I mean, what would you do with it?”  He wasn’t really interested in the answer.  He just wanted to keep her talking.  Keep her mind off of that rail.
               
     Trisha sighed.  “Screw it up.  That’s what I do.”
     “Hey.  We’re all screw ups.  I could tell you some colossal screw up tales that--"
     “Don’t you think I know what you’re doing?”
     “What am I doing?”
     “You’re stalling for time until the police get here.”
     He shook his head, adamantly--a little too adamantly. “Nah, no police.  I don’t fool with police.  It’s just you and me kiddo.  So if you want to jump, I’m the only one here to try and stop you.  I’m the only one here with another option.”
        “Yeah, what’s that?”
        “You can come and have dinner with me.”
       “Dinner.  Seriously!”  Trisha tipped her head back and laughed.  She had to laugh.  It was so typical of her life.  “Are you seriously asking me out?  In the middle of my suicide attempt?”
         “Not on a date.  Just dinner.  I’m new to this town so I don’t know the hot spots.  And you could probably stand a good meal.  A nice steak, some lobster, some good wine.  A nice big hunk of cheese cake?”
         “I hate cheesecake.”
        “Chocolate cake then.  Whatever.  It’s on me.  We eat, we drink.  You don’t even have to talk to me.  And if after all that you still feel the same way, well at least you can leave this earth on a full stomach.”  

     He flashed a smile that Trisha could tell had probably opened a lot of doors for him—and a lot of hearts.  She did not want to be charmed though.  And she certainly didn’t want any chocolate cake...  

​© 2016
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