Letting Go - Rick

Steve D’Amico closed the hall door, went to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of VB. He had done this every weekday night for the past 4 years and knew that this would be his first beer of many that night. This too had become a ritual – to drink himself to oblivion 7 days a week.

Steve is 32 going on 50. He’s exhausted after another 8 hour shift on the Holden assembly line. 5 years ago he was a supervisor on the line, one of the youngest ever, but his spirit for work died with his spirit for life and after 2 demotions, he found himself back where he started. He knows he’s become an alcoholic and he doesn’t care. He never misses a day of work, always shows up on time and sober but never goes out with the guys anymore, never phones his family, never does anything but work and get drunk.

Loser. Quitter. These two accusations have been hurled at him so often that they no longer have any impact. He’s beyond self pity, beyond self loathing, beyond reach. He sometimes has thought of suicide but the act seems to intentional and full of purpose and he’s beyond purpose and intention.

He knows why too. It’s Marianne’s fault. He knows if she hadn’t died he wouldn’t be this way. And he knows that knowing this doesn’t make any difference to him either. When she died he lost everything. He has lost all capacity to feel.

As he sits on the couch drinking his beer, he picks up the small parcel that was in the mailbox this evening with the bills and junk mail. With no more interest than he took with the Woolie’s circular advertising grapes for $1.99 a kilo, he opens the parcel. It’s a small box. He opens the box and there is this little gold locket and chain. He checks the box and the wrapping paper, but there’s no note of any kind or return address. “Strange”, he thinks to himself.

He opens the locket and his heart stops. There in the locket is a tiny but instantly recognizable picture of Marianne and him. She has her arms around him and it’s the one that was taken 10 seconds after they had completed their first skydiving jump. They were both drunk on the juice of the jump and had never felt so alive before or since. They never jumped again, but they kept the picture on their bedroom dresser.

“Who could have sent this to me?” he asked himself. “I don’t remember giving anyone a copy.”

And as he gazed at their joyous faces, he started to cry. The tears turned quickly to soul-wracking sobs and he found himself curled up on the floor bawling his heart out. After what seemed forever he stopped and then did the strangest thing he had ever done in his life. He closed the locket, put it around his neck and dialed his brother Frank.

“Frank hi. It’s Steve. Want to go out for a beer?”