My uncle would sit on the edge of the pond on a big rock, staring at the ripple of the water for hours. Before his death from a broken heart, he claimed he could see his wife’s face in the tiny waves. She had loved the pond, spending warm, sunny afternoons on the same rock, drawing inspiration from the stillness of the area surrounding it. The hum of the crickets, the sound of the water lapping against the banks. She’d write in her little notebook, filling its pages to the brim with her latest story idea.
My uncle spotted the half-soaked notebook on the edge of the pond, its pages clumped together, the ink bleeding. He found her body two days later, after diving in the pond to look for her. He found bruises on her neck, a gash from what he assumed was a rock. He couldn’t have imagined who would have wanted to hurt her, let alone kill her.
Every day after, he would go to Crooked Creek, trying to see what clues he could pick up, but the flood had ruined any evidence that could have been there. Rain or shine, he’d be at the rock, trying to channel his wife, seeing her in the ripples.
A little over a year after his wife was murdered, he had a heart attack on the rock, his body floated in the water, and he was found a few days later. I put memorials up for the two of them one afternoon and glanced out into the water. My uncle’s face glimmered in the middle of the murky water.