I’m back at the fishing lake, the one you often came back from talking about the one that got away, and I see now how perfect it was for your plan; the long, rutted access road, the dock with only a few pilings solid enough to moor a boat, the rest leaning or collapsed into the water, no cottages or houses in sight. Today, clouds scudding across a sullen sky threaten a cold rain and I know I won’t be disturbed.

Even though you rarely hiked with me anymore, you kept pushing me to try a scenic trail you and your fishing buddies had found in the hills near the lake. You wanted to make a new start, you said, do things together again, this hike an apology after that last fight when the neighbours called the police. You could be so convincing, so loving, when you wanted to be. It had worked for a long time—the flowers, the hot sex, the abject it’ll-never-happen-again apologies.

But with that fight, our messy private lives aired in public for the first time, I was done fooling myself into thinking the good times between fights would last. We, as a couple, had to end; I just hadn’t figured out how.

Still, I finally agreed to hike; maybe we could share one last good memory. I hoped that you had decided the same thing. Or did you want payback, blaming me for hesitating so long before saying no when the police asked if I wanted to press charges? Were you afraid I wouldn’t say no next time?

You stopped often, pointing out the views as we climbed higher. I watched, becoming wary when you wanted me to take your arm as the trail narrowed. When you tried again, pulling me closer to a sheer drop to rocks far below, I knew. An instant of paralysis, then shaking off your arm, my leg kicking out and you, tripping backwards, grabbing for me, the panic on your face when I jerked my hand back.

Did you have time to see that proverbial brilliant end-of-life light as you fell, screaming?

I didn’t look down after the silence. I don’t remember how long I sat, shaking, before I scattered gravel near the edge and marked the spot with a bundle of sticks so searchers could find you. I don’t remember hiking out or rowing the boat back, shock not setting in until later.

At the inquest, they grilled me on my testimony about you getting dizzy when you looked over the edge and slipping on loose gravel. Apparently that last fight wasn’t the only one the neighbours heard. I don’t remember yelling that I wished I’d never met you, that we were done and I wanted you gone, but the neighbours did. They didn’t hear what you called me—bitch, airhead—your controlled voice for only my ears. “If you don’t like it, you leave,” you said, you could replace me in a heartbeat with someone smarter, sexier. Your words had cut deeper and hurt more than the physical bruises you left sometimes.

Three of the five jurors said accident, two said undetermined.

No one knows that I emptied the marvelous urn that I chose for your funeral. I walk now to the end of the dock and lower your dented fishing bucket. I watch it take on water, then a film of ashes rising to the surface and floating before dispersing and beginning to sink.

“Goodbye,” I say, “from the one that got away.”