Unseen, she had watched them; her daughter and the twins,
her grandchildren, unaware of her presence. Watched as the children played in
the park and pleasantries were exchanged between her daughter and other parents
by the swings. Not long ago it had been her chatting with likeminded parents as
her daughter had scampered around with her friends.
A lifetime ago now,
she sighed, as the autumn breeze scattered yellowed leaves about her. She
yearned to talk with her daughter, to play with her grandchildren. What had they argued about? It all seemed so
trivial and yet it had led her to this juncture. One of the children looked
over and spotted her, smiling as if in recognition, the child called out,
causing the daughter to look up from her conversation. No, not like this. She backed away between the trees, disappearing
between the trunks retracing her steps.
Everyday had seemed the same since the event that tied her
to this routine of secretively watching her daughter and children leave their
house. The twins would be going to school very soon and these park visits
become a memory just like her own, with her daughter. She sighed again causing
a passerby to look her way in puzzled questioning. You wouldn’t wish to know, she said to herself. The man gathered
his scarf around his neck with a shiver and hurried on.
She found herself drawn to the crematorium graveyard,
sweeping along familiar steps, once seen through a blur of tears, until she was
before the headstone that marked where her husband’s ashes lay. Her hand
traced, unfeeling, the words inscribed, his name, date of birth and of death,
so long ago now, beloved husband and
father. She wished she could cry, wished she could wash the stone with her
tears, but it was to no avail. She saw that the flowers had been replaced, her
daughter visited here regularly. No such visits for her. Why? She remembered then. The drinking, the self-pity, the arguments,
the hospital visits, the betrayal of broken promises that she had made. The
final straw the drinking while supposedly watching the twins, it had all proven
too much. No, no more visits for her.
She would have lingered there, yearning for a glimpse of her
husband’s ghost, perhaps he would have offered a path to redemption for her?
But he was long gone, leaving her, bereft in self-imposed solitude, walking the
same streets, day after day.
A feeling suddenly came over her, she needed to get home.
She hurried along back to her flat, very fast for the old
woman she was, the ache in her hips and back a mere memory, the urgency to get
home was all consuming. She could hear them banging at her door, the wood
beginning to splinter. As the door gave way she rushed past them, over the
piled post behind. She could hear them gasping in shock, hands clasped to
mouths. She rushed to the room, darkened by the curtains still drawn. She scurried
over the empty bottles of spirits that littered the floor to the form that lay
on the sofa. She implored herself to rise, to get up and face those that entered
her home, without invitation. But the dried and drawn face just smiled its
endless smile.
The invaders spoke behind her, their voices muffled by
masks.
“God, the smell! Poor woman, forgotten and ignored, how long
has she been dead, do you think?”
