She wasn't there when he died.

He stopped her on the bridge on her way out. She was angry with him; she couldn't even remember what for anymore. She yelled at him, told him she was leaving and never coming back and there was nothing he could do about it. He said nothing. He handed her a folded piece of paper and walked away. And she had walked the other way, out of town, and she didn't look back.

When they found her again she was still angry. Until they told her he was dead. Then she raced back home.

She wasn't there for the funeral.

She stood alone by his grave and cursed him. If anyone came near she would snap at them, make them leave. She stood on top of his body six feet below, and she was angry with him still.

"I opened your note when I heard. Very funny, old man. You knew this would happen, didn't you? You knew I wouldn't look until now. Until too late."

If she had been the type she would have collapsed there and started sobbing, but it just wasn't her way. Instead, she kicked his bare grave marker. There wasn't anything to write about him. He wouldn't be happy if he could be described in so few words. And he wasn't. There weren't enough words to describe him. He always was such an impossible man.

She didn't say goodbye.

She couldn't. Not yet. There was something wrong with all this. He wouldn't have died. He was fine when she left; he wouldn't just have died.

She stood on the bridge and kicked dust and pebbles into the river. No one dared approach her. And what could they say? she wondered.

"I thought you'd ask me not to leave." She muttered, glaring at his image in her mind.

The river flowed past below her feet, strong as ever, despite the tragedy that had passed on its shores. In all her life she couldn't remember a time when the river hadn't been strong and clear. The river had always been a constant in her life, just as she had thought he would be.

"You were like the river." She whispered. She looked up at the people standing at the edge of the bridge. Did they think it strange, that she didn't cry? Se had known these people all her life, but unlike the river they were always changing, slipping away from her. When had she stopped belonging with them? she wondered.

"He was like the river." She said loudly, almost shouted it at them. And then she was gone, leaving that place, just as he had always known she would.

And in her pocket, a note from her father. Two simple words, two devastating lines. "Come home."