She stood alone by
his grave, as he would have wished. No
other mourners bore witness to the box being slowly lowered into the
ground. No flowers proclaimed his
passing.
St. Anne’s was
holding a memorial service on the other side of town, presumably so the good
citizens of Serenity could say their last farewell to the city’s now-deceased
manager. They’d begged her to come, but
he wouldn’t have wanted them to gather in remembrance. Out of respect for his wishes, she’d politely
refused their impolite insistence. When
she drove by the church, large signs announced their service for him, the way
the corner grocery store announced a sale on toilet paper. The only difference was: the store was at least
sincere in their sentiment, and toilet paper at least served a purpose. There was no purpose in a memorial service
given by the upstanding citizens of a town that had driven her husband to an
early grave.
Long after his
coffin was covered with freshly turned earth, she remained staring at the place
where her heart lay buried, feeling like she could only leave the place if she
consented to leave the best parts of her behind. It wasn’t something she was willing to do. She wasn’t sure if it was ever something
she’d be willing to do.
They’d only been
married a year when the call came.
Scott collapsed
during a city council meeting. The heart
that beat so loudly against her ear as she lay drowsing against his chest had
betrayed them both. As he stood fighting
for his principles, the traitorous organ had given up the fight.
All around him stood
men who should’ve been able to help—four councilmen alone on the volunteer fire
department—but try as they might, they couldn’t bring him back. They worked
on her husband all the way to the tiny hospital, but Scott was already gone.
She was gone
seconds later. Alive but not. Driven immediately into a state of such utter
despondence, she barely registered when the city’s ambulance director offered
to ease her pain with something from his kit.
For an instant, she considered slipping into the unfeeling sleep he
offered, but in the end, she refused.
She never believed in better living through pharmaceuticals, especially
not when it came to clouding her mind or her emotions. In the end, she didn’t need their elixirs
anyway. Her whole being did an excellent
job of numbing itself.
She wandered
through the coming days doing exactly what needed to be done. Arrangements made, family contacted, her
husband laid to rest in the tiny plot she picked out for him. Everything was finished.
Still she couldn’t
move.
The wind whipped
up out of the north, splaying her long brown hair across her face. Despite the heat of mid-summer, chill claws
ripped through her light blouse. In her
mind, she could see the first few flitters of snow drift to land on his grave
and disappear against the warm earth.
Still she didn’t
move.
When a hand gently
touched her shoulder, she shifted only slightly, turning her head to look into
a face worn by the wrinkles of time. One
of the few faces in Serenity she could consider a friend, and the only one who
came to honor her husband in the manner she chose. She acknowledged him with a nod and turned
her eyes back to where Scott lay.
“He’s gone,
Jillian. It’s time to go home.”
She nodded again,
wanting to scream about her inability to leave, but unable to make words form
in her raw throat. The old man took her
hand, and gently pulled her away from her heart.
Lost in her own
pain, Jillian didn’t notice the old man gently help her into his car. She didn’t think to ask about her car,
sitting cold and alone along the tiny cemetery road. She didn’t see the flowering gardens now
gracing the homes they drove past, nor her own neglected lawn as the car pulled
to a stop.
The best part of
her was still standing in the cemetery staring at the rectangle of brown where
her heart now lay.
The old man helped
her into her house, no longer a home without Scott’s life within its
walls. He turned on the lights, and
fixed her a strong drink. Along the
edges of her mind, she could hear him talking to her, and she could hear
herself answering, but none of it seemed real.
When he let himself out, she stood staring after him long into the
night.
Somehow she must
have made herself to turn out the lights and get into bed. Somehow she must have gotten herself to
sleep. As she lay unblinking in the glow
of dawn, she unsuccessfully tried to remember doing either. The light shown brightly through the pretty
drapes she’d picked out to cheer their daily awakening. She shuddered at the sight of those drapes,
and longed to pull the covers over her head to hide them from her sight.
Instead, she
forced herself to look at them, and to remember they were part of the life she
had lived before.
Dragging herself
from the bed she shared with Scott, she realized she still wore the same
outfit—black except for where the cuffs of her pants were lightly dusted with
earth. If she’d had an entire wardrobe
of black, it wouldn’t have been enough to reflect the gaping hole she felt
inside herself.
In the back of her
mind, she could hear her husband’s voice, “Life goes on.” If it had been anyone else’s voice, she
would’ve spit in his face, but Scott could always get her to do things she’d
rather not do. Their entire marriage had
been a series of new adventures. His
try-anything spirit gently coaxing her bookish self to stretch for the heights.
For the first time
since that horrible night, she smiled.
After all, he had
been the only one in the thirty-six years of her life to coax her on one of those
damned motorcycles. She was afraid it
would kill her, but she survived the experience. She’d been afraid it would kill Scott, but he
survived riding on that hellish thing, too.
If only he could’ve survived one stupid meeting.
Scott was the
strongest man she ever met. Never took a
sick day; shrugged off injuries like they didn’t exist. Whether he was climbing Longs
Peak or brushing a rattlesnake out of her the path with a stick,
he did everything like he was going to live forever. Looking back, she realized he sincerely
believed he would never die, and as foolish as it seemed now, she believed right
along with him.
He never saw death
coming. Until it came and wrecked them
both.
For days after the
funeral, she went through the routines of life, without actually living
them. She got up every day, she dressed
herself, she ate, and then she went to bed.
Everything else was a useless blur.
When the food ran low, she ventured out into the town. That was her first mistake.
Walking through an
aisle of the town’s only grocery store, she was reaching for a loaf of Scott’s
favorite bread when voices drifted to her from the next row over.
“I hear you’re
having a devil of a time finding yourself a new city manager,” said a man she recognized
only as one of the farmers from outside the city. “Too bad about Underwood...”
“He was a pain in
the ass,” said Jerry Powden, one of the city councilman who was present to
witness her husband’s death. Scott never
talked much about the meetings she was never encouraged to attend, but she knew
enough about those monthly events to know about Powden and his drive to make
her husband’s job harder with every vote.
She gritted her
teeth and tossed the now-crumpled loaf into her cart. Whatever the bastard said was no longer of
any consequence. He couldn’t hurt Scott
any more, and as soon as his affairs were in order, she would never see
Serenity again. If the city council
wanted to run the town into the ground, so be it. As she turned to push her groceries away from
the offensive conversation, though, Powden’s next words stopped her cold.
“It was the best
thing for everyone when he keeled over like he did…”
“That’s a sick
thing to say…”
“Screw it. It’s not like anyone gives a damn one way or
the other what I say about him now. His
dying like that saved us all a lot of trouble.
Not that it matters anymore, but we were getting ready to fire him
anyway. We had the votes. Live or dead, he wouldn’t have been around
bothering us for much longer anyway. And
if you ask me, I’m glad it was dead.”
Powden chuckled and the sound dripped like acid along her nerves. “At least dead, he can’t whine about
‘wrongful termination’.”
For the first time
since that horrible night, Jillian felt.
Suddenly, she felt far more than she ever wanted to feel again, and what
she felt was hatred.
