Closest

June 16, 2000

Her name is Christy Marksman, a woman in her mid-twenty’s. She has the face as sweet as roses in a greenhouse. She is about 5 foot 4 tall. She had a body that would marvel every man's sense of touch if they could only feel every corner of her body. She almost looks perfect. But there is something in her that could bother even the petals of the flowers that she resembles.

She sits at the shoulder of the street, by the gutter of Reynold Cor. Bluestone Ave. She sits their all alone every afternoon, 4:00pm. She does this every Fridays of the week. It's a small and quiet neighborhood. Everybody knows her story. They all want to help her but they don't know how. They are helpless. People just watch from the windows of their houses. No one even bothered to offer her a shoulder to cry on. Some tried but only felt as helpless as her. They could only share her grief.

She reaches for her phone. Dials a number yet never says a word. She only listens and burst into tears and does it all over again for the next thirty minutes. Then she reaches in her pocket and pulls out a news article clipping and cry some more.


"Hi honey! Me and the girls had a blast at the theme park. We are walking our way home."

"Daddy! Katy is running after the little dove." A little angel's voice suddenly declared in the background.

"It looks funny!" and burst into a giggle as ticklish as a feather to the ears.

"Don't you run off too far sweety. Stay close to your sister."

More giggles could be heard in the background as the other voice joins the other in the giggling spree.

"Honey, sorry about that. The kids and I are just goofing around. Hope your boss didn't give you a hard time at work. We'll be home in twenty minutes. Call me when you get home. Hugs and kisses to you!"


A tone. You no longer have any voicemail left unread.

Tears flow some more from her cheeks, rushing like lives depend on it. And she dials the voicemail number again, hearing the same message and crying some more. She reaches for the article and reads it again.

A father and his two children get killed in a hit and run.
John Marksman and his two daughters, Katy and Clarice, died after being hit and run at Reynold Cor. Blustone Ave. at 4pm. of June 13, 1999.

That is as far as she could bear to read. Everytime she does that, she hurts herself some more. She knows it. But she never really minded. Maybe she wanted to get numb to it. Maybe she just can't for her loss has left her so shattered and lost in the wilderness everybody calls life. No one would ever know because not even her knows the answer.

A man then sits beside her. Never says a word but just hugs her tight and holds her in his arms. At first glance, he would seem like a stranger for she never turns towards him nor acknowledges his presence, yet not. He was not a stranger.

His name is Greg Stevenson, a 5 foot 7 man, in his early thirty’s, quite attractive for a man as most woman in the neighborhood thought. He has vowed to offer his second life in taking care of the woman that John has left her for he knows that he owes his second life the night of June 13, 1999 to the same man she weeps for.

She rests her head on Greg's chest. She could hear a familiar sound, a beat she knows and has felt number of times more than the dirt on her boots. She listens and would weep some more as she felt the large scar on Greg's chest under his shirt. She feels angry. She feels like hitting him hard for reasons she could not quite make out of. But she knows that Greg is the closest that she could be with John for Greg now has the heart of the man she truly loved and will love forever.