The Clouds Aren't White

by Rachael Wright

  "I have no time for people who wish to suck me dry emotionally. These people," I say, gesturing towards the entrance, "they didn't know Hugh and nor did they love him. He symbolized power and connection to them. And you're no better.”

  "We must all be there for each other, Emmeline. Christ himself..." he begins before I can cut him off with a snarl.

  "Christ professed care for the widow and the fatherless child, for the most vulnerable of his flock...don't preach Christ to me."

  "You must not be afraid to come back. You're needed here," he says, folding his hands delicately in front of him.

  Quite suddenly I'm repulsed by the entire nature of this building, by the hypocrisy of how those in pain are treated here. Pain and anger and grief burst from my self-constructed dam all at once.

  "I came to linger in a safe place. I came to not be the dead man's wife for an hour. For just a few moments to worship in peace. You have stripped every good and godly thing from this church." I open the door with a flourish, catching the pompous pastor in the side.

  As I pull out of the parking lot the tires of the car squeal, the back end drifts, as I pull out of a turn.

  Tears run freely down my face as I drive home. The entire episode plays over and over in my mind and I swear off church entirely. We weren't avid goers to begin with and I realize now how fake they were, how every moment of concern was only to extract more information from us so that they might be able to tell someone else a tasty tidbit about the state representative and his family.

  After Sophie and I arrive home we go outside where I plop down on the nearest chair and pull out my phone. Maria. Maria who has been my stalwart friend through college, through children, through police life, through politics. Maria is everything I wish I could be. I envy her. She is full of grace and poise and nothing, from projectile vomit to a brush with unemployment, rattles her. I long for her calming influence in my life once more. She answers on the first ring. We talk for an hour before the conversation turns serious.

  "I have no idea what I'm doing, Maria. One moment I think she's doing all right and then she'll glance at Hugh's picture on the wall and then throw a tantrum over the smallest thing out of place. She started beating the ground with her fists a couple of days ago because she had trouble with a puzzle piece. If I was doing a good job, wouldn't she be...doing better..." I finish lamely, a short pause follows and I can hear crickets chirping from the rocks by my feet.

  I can picture Maria standing, back to her kitchen counter, face lined with concern. In my mental vision I watch her twist her fingers around the hem of her shirt, watching her eyes drift upwards as she thinks.

  "I haven't any personal experience with parenting a child who has lost their father but I imagine Sophie would be acting normally, given the situation. I'm not sure you should guilt trip yourself over Sophie not being the same as before.”

  "Aren't I supposed to make everything better? I've got to be doing something wrong," I say, sounding pitiful even to myself.

  "And what would that be?"

  "That's what I want to know," I say shaking my head. It’s a moment before I realize Maria can't see me.

  "You're not doing anything wrong. You're paying attention to her, anticipating her needs, letting her grieve in her own way, and being there to hold her when its overwhelming.”

  Sophie comes and lies on her stomach on the grass, a book propped up beside her.

  "Still," I say, plowing on, "I wish I could just make her happy."

  "It would entail forgetting her father, or not minding his absence, which isn't healthy.”

  "You're right. I suppose as a mom you wish you could spare them the pain."

  "But you'd be raising them to believe in a world that doesn't exist. People aren't inherently good, they get fired, and they have their hearts broken once or twice before they are through. Long term happiness, my dear, is what we are shooting for."

  I nod and realize again that Maria isn't sitting beside me.

  "What about you?"

  "What about me?" I mumble.

  "Tell me.

  "I needed to be normal, having my parents hovering around is exhausting. Church today was a disaster. No one dares to laugh or smile. There are only morose faces, crying, and general sadness. You start feeling as though you're slowly being suffocated by grief. Not in the normal way, but rather that there might not ever be happiness in your life again because all you can feel is the breeding of depression inside your house. So this is perfect. Being treated like a human being, like an individual instead of Hugh's widow. Having a moment to breathe."

  Maria and I talk long into the afternoon and I feel as though my world is collapsing in on me, that I am now and island, or on an island with no method of escape, no hope for a future and nothing beyond the churning expanse of grief, guilt, and despair.

  It's been two months. Six times longer than I've ever gone without seeing him. I've made four trips to the grocery store, Sophie's back in school, and learned to deal with bills and headstones with the same amount of detachment. By all the outward markers, Sophie and I look like we are doing just fine. I haven't shut myself away from the world, I don't make grand gestures of socializing but I'm not shut off.

  We even sleep in our own beds, unless Sophie has a nightmare. We are just fine, except that inwardly I'm a wasteland. I walk around the house expecting to see Hugh pop out of his office, to hear the moaning of the garage door as it opens, to feel strong arms wrap around me as I stand at the sink with soapsuds up to my elbows. If I close my eyes and shut out the peripheral noises, I can almost summon him in front of me. I can reach out my hand to touch the strong jaw line, look into his gold-flaked eyes, and feel the love flowing between us. The spell brakes every time and he slips away. I sink back into the mire. Sink back into the world without him.

  I'm in the kitchen; arms coated in suds with tears scooting down my face, one early morning, when the phone rings. Sophie's away at school and everyone knows I've recently been in the habit of going back to bed after she leaves. An odd number flashes across my screen, 01224 484462. All I register is the international code. I clear my throat and answer on the fourth ring.

  "This is Emmeline.” "Mrs MacArthur?" says a woman's voice on the other end, surprising clear, but with a distinct Scottish accent.

  "Yes?"

  "Hello, I am Maggie MacLeod, from the Isle of Skye Museum and Heritage Center," she says cheerfully.

  I'm silent for a shade too long.

  Maggie MacLeod clears her throat and speaks again, "Mrs MacArthur?"

  "I'm sorry, yes, what can I do for you?" I say, struggling to get the words out through the fog in my head.

  "Well, we received your application, Mrs MacArthur, and I have to say we are very impressed with you. The board thinks you'd be a great fit."

  "I'm sorry, what?"

  "The application from two and half months ago. Don't you remember?"

  I clear my throat again, struggling to piece together what is going on.

  "You know I have a letter in here that came with it...ah...yes your husband signed it. Said you were on a business trip and couldn't complete the application so he finished it for you," her voice is brisk and clear, light and bright as a summer's day.

  I listen to her words as my knees buckle underneath me, the cool stainless steel of the refrigerator at my back. All at once our last conversation floods back and I remember his words...his promise.

  "I'm very sorry Mrs MacArthur, is this a bad time?" Maggie MacLeod says.

  "No...no, I'm sorry. I'm all right. I had forgotten about the application."

  "Your husband said you were looking to move to Scotland."

  "Yes...yes."

  "Well there'll just be the matter of your visa and signing a contract and o'course finding you a place to live in Skye...if you're willing to take the posting."

  "Mrs MacLeod..."

  "Maggie, please," she interrupts.

  "Alright, Maggie, may I be honest with you
?" I say, hesitating.

  "Of course, lass."

  "My husband was killed two months ago. I'm only now able to function. I don't think I'm the sort of person you want at your museum."

  "And why would it matter, my dear?" she asks, her voice kind and melodious. She continues, "If you still want the job we'd be more than happy to have you."

  "I...I do of course, or I did. I'm not sure. We have a five year old daughter so it’s not just me." I'm not sure why I'm trying to talk her out of giving me the job.

  "Five...isn't that just a wonderful age?"

  "Erm...well yes. Yes it is."

  "Mrs MacArthur..."

  "Emmeline."

  "Emmeline," She stars, I can almost hear her smiling over the phone, "and I do not want to force you into something you may not be ready for yet. Just take a week or so and decide if Scotland would be a good fit for you. I know running away isn't a good for anyone but it might be good to have a new start," she says, her voice a soft comforting caress.

  I don't know this woman at all, but her advice is so sound. So logical. I find myself nodding along with her.

  "I appreciate it."

  "Don't let the Scottish winter keep you from coming either," she says.

  "Thank you Mrs...Maggie. I'll let you know my answer. I would have to give my landlord thirty days notice and it would take me at least a couple of weeks to get settled and moved and have my daughter enrolled in a new school," I say as plans start whirring along in my head before I've even given myself a chance to decline the offer.

  "Of course. If you accept the job we'll have you over for an introductory meeting, you can look for a house, a school, and then we'd give you two months to move and get settled. I look forward to hearin' from ye," Maggie says passionately, the soft Scottish brogue breaks its bonds.

  "Thank you. Is this number alright to call back?"

  "Yes it is. Good e'ning."

  "Goodbye," I say and hear the soft click of the line going dead.

  I haven't even put the phone down before I know my answer. There was never a choice to begin with.

  'I thought this was an amazing opportunity for you,' his words list back to me as though he's standing up against my shoulder, whispering into my ear. Why would it be running away if this were what Hugh wanted? I would be moving closer towards him...closer to the future he wanted for us, away from politics and the hustle of life in the limelight. I wouldn't be running away. I'd be honoring him, if anything I'd be running towards him.

  I jump up from the floor and run to our bedroom closet. Hidden in his safe, in a file folder with my name on it. The application is stapled underneath a picture of the museum. I fall in love in a moment. My eyes flit over the stone structure with its gleaming floor length windows.

  I get up and move through the house, trying not to disturb the silence. Images of what would have happened if Hugh were standing her flood my mind. I would have started shrieking after ending the call, we'd start making preparations to move, and Hugh would wax on about the joyous occasion of becoming a stay-at-home dad. The smiles on our faces wouldn't budge for weeks. That's all a dream, though, all a fabrication.

  I'm not smiling now. All I'm possessed of is an option. For two months my life has followed the same predictable path: get out of bed after another night dreaming of the same blank face, dress and feed Sophie, send her to school, pay bills, go back to bed, get Sophie from school, homework, cry, dinner, and then bath and bed. I am stuck in a cycle I'm not sure how to get out of. To move is that option, the way out. I stare out the kitchen window, watching the birds fly back and forth and the barren branches of the aspens waving back and forth in the breeze. I watch and feel nothing.

  "You're quiet, Mommy," Sophie says, holding my hand as we walk back from school.

  "Just thinking, sweetheart," I say. I bend down and kiss the top of her head, squeezing her hand a little in response.

  "What are you thinking about?"

  I look down at her, she's so much more subdued than she was two months ago. She'll start charging towards her friends or laughing hysterically and then in a moment she'll clamp her jaws together and stand stiff as a board, a horrified look breaking over her face. Then, with her bottom lip quivering, she'll absolutely refuse to start playing again.

  "Would you want to move?"

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  "Move? Move where?" Sophie says glancing around as though the house and place might present themselves in front of us.

  "Well..." I say, I'm not entirely sure how to proceed and at this point I rather regret asking her opinion.

  Is a five year old capable of answering a question like this?

  "I was offered a job at a museum today..."

  "Like the art museum Daddy took me to in Denver?" Sophie says, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

  "Yes, a little like it. Its a museum about Scotland."

  "Oh...what's it called?"

  "The Isle of Skye Museum."

  "What's sky?" she says with cocked eyebrow.

  "Its a large island that's apart of Scotland. Its beautiful."

  "Daddy says Scotland's very far away..."

  "It is..." I pause, waiting for some inspiration on how to proceed.

  "Daddy said he loved it there...He told me," she says conspiratorially.

  "Yes he did," I say.

  We step off the sidewalk and make our way across the street.

  "Ok.”

  Its just one word but her tone is so final. So strong.

  "Ok what?" I ask as she hops across the road.

  "Ok," she repeats.

  "Ok...move to Scotland, ok?" I say. I drop to my knees, on the sidewalk in front of her, my voices shakes.

  "Yes.”

  "I...um...sweetheart," I start, wanting to clear a few matters up for her, "we wouldn't get to see your grandparents every day, you would start at a different school, and we would move into a new house."

  Sophie gives me a deadpan stare, blinking owlishly.

  "What about Daddy's pictures?"

  "They'll come with us.”

  "Sometimes..." Sophie takes a deep breath, looks hesitantly at me, and lets the rest out in a rush, "I forget what he looks like."

  Her eyes glisten and she tightens her little hands into fists, her body trembling desperately. I know we must look a strange sight, me kneeling in front of Sophie on the side of a road with after school traffic whizzing past us. The agony reflected in her young eyes tears at my heart and banishes every other thought.

  "Sometimes I have a hard time remembering his face too. Its a long time to go without seeing Daddy."

  "I want to make him happy, Mommy, but sometimes I still cry for him," she says as her eyes mutinously fill up with tears.

  She wrings her hands and won't meet my gaze. When did she come to think that forgetting someone's face or failing to be happy was bad? Did I teach her this?

  "I cry for him too Sophie.”

  Crying is as easy as opening a door. I kneel on the pavement with my arms around her. I don't spare a thought for the crisp fall breeze or the hard cement beneath my knees. We hold each other, hoping the other's tether is a bit stronger than our own. Sophie relaxes against me. She gives me a shifty smile and we start again towards the relative comfort of our house.

  "You still cry?" Sophie says, gliding now across the pavement.

  "Yes I do. Mostly at night, when you're sleeping. I get lonely not having Daddy here.”

  Honesty, its what I promised myself. Sophie doesn't comment further but just walks along by my side with contemplative eyes.

  "A boy at school laughed at me for not having a daddy anymore,” she says simply just as I'm putting the key in the lock of our front door.

  I whirl around to face her with my eyebrows eking their way to my hairline.

  "What?" I say, whirling around to face her.

  My face burns, blood thunders in my ears.

  "I told him my Daddy went to heaven but he didn't want to leave me and that h
e misses me but wants me to be happy," she says, and as she speaks, I can see the pain recede a millimeter or two.

  The phrase is comforting to her, I realize suddenly, it makes reality a little easier to bear.

  "Did he say anything else?" I say, still endeavoring to control my temper.

  "Yes...he said he lost his daddy too. Only his daddy is in jail, he misses him a lot. He does write his daddy letters though."

  "Oh.”

  "I told him that his daddy probably didn't want to leave him either and his daddy would want him to be happy," she says it with an easy smile.

  "That was...wow. Sophie that was very kind to say."

  "He's my friend now. He doesn't get to see his daddy because his mommy moved them far away. Could I write letters to daddy?" she says, possibility dawning on her face.

  "Well...Sophie..."

  "Its ok," she says with a shining face, "I know he won't write back but I could still write! You could show me how to write the harder words, Mommy."

  Her face is alight with childish joy and I just can't say no.

  "You can write him as much as you want, Sophie...and we'll even put them in a special box so that you can go through and re-read them," I say, adding on the last part so she understands there's won't be a reply letter.

  "Oooh I bet a letter with owl stickers would make him happy!" she shouts and though I've only opened the door a crack, she tears off to her room to find the necessary supplies.

  I'm still not sure how we arrived at writing letters to Hugh and knowing full well he won't ever read them. Or maybe he will, in a way. I collapse at the kitchen table, a little dizzy from the barrage of emotions from the last half hour. I can't help but feel more than a little ashamed at my reaction to Sophie's story about the boy at school. My five-year-old daughter was able to handle the situation with more grace and poise than I could manage at thirty. Most mothers would like to think of their daughters as a 'mini me,' a smaller (more innocent version) of themselves. It isn't true in the slightest. Sophie's as different from me as the moon is the sun. She's calm and reasoning where I'll fiercely dive into conflict. She sees strangers as people themselves with hurts and stories where I (usually) see only obstacles. I feel as though I've been dealt a dose of humility and humanity along with a slap in the face. I sink my head into my hands and resolve to do better.