The Clouds Aren't White

by Rachael Wright

  "We should go as well. She's made up her mind," my mother says rising stoically from her place on the couch, not looking at me.

  I look at her though and feel, for the first time, a twinge of guilt at my behavior. I've wounded her. I've wounded my mother with no way of making it right.

  "I'll meet you in the car. Let me have a word with her," my father says lounging comfortably against the couch, altogether unperturbed.

  "Fine," she says with a snap.

  "You know," he says after she leaves, "that could have gone better."

  "What was I supposed to do?"

  "Joking. I don't think it could have gone any other way." He's not as outwardly comfortable as before. "Sophie, my girl, come here to Grandpa." Sophie scampers over to him and plops herself down in his lap.

  "They aren't ever going to speak to me again," I say, wondering whether I care.

  "Ah well your mom will come around, eventually. She's known something like this was likely to happen at some point," he says this with a smile.

  "Not the others. They're furious."

  "Yes, well...nothing you can do about it, I'm afraid. It’s not easy. While they've lost a son, I still have my daughter...though not an entirely whole daughter."

  "No I'm not whole at all..." I mumble.

  "You'll find a way back there. You'll find a way to live with the wound. This move could be good," he lays a heavy hand on my arm. I look down on the thick fingers and the long black arm hairs.

  "Thanks."

  "Ah well, you're 30. Rather unbelievable...but still 30. But parenting is bearing all sorts of pain in order to provide a better life for your children."

  We glance down at Sophie who has silently managed to get a hold of his phone, thumbing through pictures. Truth rings through his words. I go about my life, almost catatonic, and Sophie bears the repercussions. I am largely absent from her life, and that thought alone propels me forward. Worries fall from my shoulders like water off rock.

  "I have to do it.”

  I feel them. I feel the decision in them. The choice.

  "I know you do."

  I smile, laying a hand on top of his.

  "I've been wrapped around your finger since you were born and I just want you to be happy. Don't worry about everyone else they'll come round. I'd better go out to your mother or she'll read me the riot act," he plants a kiss on my cheek and squeezes Sophie to his chest until she lets out a strangled giggle.

  The moment we are alone, I dissolve into laughter. Hysterical laughter. Sophie looks at me as though I'm ready to be

  institutionalized.

  “Why are you laughing Mommy?" she says, staring at me dubiously.

  "I've crossed the Rubicon," I say, hiccupping.

  "You...what?"

  "Oh...well its sort of a 'no going back' thing."

  "Because of my grandparents?" Sophie says.

  "Yes and I'm afraid I've hurt people...or they've been hurt. There's not much for it now."

  "Are we still moving?"

  "Yes we are," I say drawing Sophie to my side, pulling her into the kitchen.

  We pass the rest of the evening more animated than usual. Over heaping bowls of ice cream we schedule flights to Scotland and book a car and hotel. The thrill of adventure seeps under our skin. I bask in the presence of her joy, but it makes me heart sick for Hugh. He should be here now, planning the future, looking at houses, bouncing Sophie on his knee.

  Later that evening, sitting in bed, I stare aimlessly at the ceiling. I realize that I don't remember much of the past two months. Memories of the first week are even sparser. I suppose I don't care to remember the last two months. Life without Hugh is difficult. I turn to him at the end of the day and find myself alone. I am alone. My bed is empty. My heart is empty. The house is empty. The emptiness echoes across my life, a constant and haunting reminder of my loss. I used to know how to parent and now I stumble blindly through the days, praying the mistakes I make aren't permanent.

  The next day we encounter a new hurdle.

  "Come on Sophie, its bedtime sweetheart," I say, pulling pajamas from her closet. I don't hear her move into the room and pop my head around the corner. "Sophie. Bed."

  "Mommy..."

  "What Soph?" I say turning back towards the closet.

  "What about Daddy? What if I forget him?" she says, her eyes wild and yet blank with fear. I move towards her, pulling her into my lap as I settle against the wall.

  "Why are you worried about forgetting him?"

  "Sometimes I think he will come home and it makes me remember him.”

  "I think that too. Its only because I miss him a lot and I wish I could see him. But we won't ever stop talking about him." Filled with sudden inspiration, I add, "Do you want to talk about him now?"

  Sophie jerks her head towards mine, her eyes shining. I can't tell whether its from tears or excitement, perhaps a bit of both.

  We settle against the wall of the hallway and start to talk. We talk about our wedding, our honeymoon, the jokes he would tell, how great of a cook he was, the care he took with his appearance, and the way he treated people. Sophie listens intently as I go on. As I flush out memory after memory guilt piles itself on yet again. Shouldn't I have thought that Sophie needed to talk about her father? Shouldn't I have realized this earlier? Even as I smile in remembrance of Hugh's delightful antics, I hate myself a little more.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The tickets are bought, the plans laid, and all the while I remain separate, cut off, from the vast majority of the people I love the most. No amount of pleading or contrite apologies was able to change the feelings of those I had hurt. Hugh's parents take Sophie on their weekly trips for ice cream and shopping and yet regard me as though I'd betrayed their son. Excepting my father, my own family behaves rather the same. On an apparent whim my father decides to come with Sophie and I to Scotland to help us look at houses.

  'You'll want a second opinion,' he tells me, business-like, as is his way. My mother makes no effort to conceal her thoughts on the matter and resolutely refuses to talk about it to anyone. I am filled with agony watching her, watching as she mourns our past. I've been too harsh with her; she's lost as much as I have.

  I look up from the list I'm perusing, one cold morning, two weeks later, trying to remember if I've forgotten to contact anyone to cancel services, tapping the pen absentmindedly against my cheek. There's still the IRS to contact (yet again). Then there's the house. It would be much less trouble to sell the lot of it and just take clothes, toys, books, and artwork. I'm contemplating this rather enticing prospect when the doorbell rings.

  "Haven't you showered yet? You're still in your pajamas." Maria's booming voice greets me as I open the door. She wraps me in a tight embrace.

  "I did get Sophie to school this morning. Doesn't that count?" I say.

  "A shower? Come on, I'll clean while you're in the bathroom," she says, waving me off like a pesky fly.

  I slouch in Maria's wake to the kitchen where my list and computer still repose.

  "Oh please don't. It's clean enough."

  "I don't think you've dusted in a month and the floor could do with a once over," she says twitching away some crumbs on the linoleum.

  "No one looks at my floors," I say with a sigh.

  "Oh just go shower, well first point me in the direction of the cleaning supplies."

  Maria isn't the sort of person you could manage to say no to even if you felt like trying. She reminds me of my grandmother, a clucking mother hen with an enormous heart. I surrender and hand her the requested cleaning paraphernalia from the laundry room.

  "Thank you," I say as she starts back for the kitchen.

  "You'll owe me, you know?" she shakes her head, hitches a winning smile on her face and, with a flip of her hair, saunters away.

  "So you came over just to clean my house?" I say, settling down on a chair twenty minutes later.

  "No. I was forced into the cleaning by the state of your
floors and your lack of showering," she rolls her eyes at me and continues wiping down the counters.

  "I lose all my energy when Sophie's gone," I curl my fingers around the teacup in front of me, talking more to myself than to Maria.

  "Tell me," she says tossing away the dirty rag and settling herself down on the chair next to me.

  Her round face is patient but her eyes are pained. I take a deep breath and try to steady myself.

  "When I'm alone I can feel him in the house and if I close my eyes long enough I can almost hear him walking from room to room. There are other times when it feels as though all our love and memories have seeped out through the foundations. I don't know which is worse. I'm alone and I don't want to be. I want something I'll never be able to have again."

  "You're in a hellish spot,” Maria says, the sentence no more than a whisper.

  I look up to see her eyes boring into mine. I don't reply I don't have the strength to argue. I find myself wondering, as we sit in silence, sipping our tea, what I'll do without Maria and her unannounced visits. I question, not for the first time, whether moving to another country is the best option. Taking a look around the house I feel the answer, echoing back to me. These walls hold ghosts. Not Hugh's. The ghosts of an old life, ghosts of a past, and of a future, which no longer exists. And like all ghosts they haunt and torment until the souls of the living ache to join the souls of the dead.

  "I have to do it for Sophie," I say after a lengthy silence. Maria shakes her head at me.

  "No. You're doing it for you," She says, smiling when my mouth drops open unbecomingly. "You have to take care of yourself or you'll never be able to care for her. She'll know, trust me, she'll know when you're faking it."

  "I think I'm searching for a way to not feel so empty."

  I don't mean for it to slip out. I don't mean for Maria to hear what I'm most afraid of-that I'm selfish and willing to do anything to feel alive.

  "Don't regret it. Build a new life. Smile again," Maria says lightly, but I wonder whether she's mourning me now even as we sit side by side.

  "I angry at him some days, you know. I angry because a voice in my head keeps up this dittany-he'd want you to be happy. I want to lose it and to cry until I have nothing left, another burden to carry, trying to please him. He's gone and I'm the one left behind to deal with this mess. I'd slap him if he were here and then I'd kiss him till my lips were bruised and I'd never let him go..."

  I collapse into Maria's arms shaking with suppressed anger. There's nothing left of me except a barren wasteland. This is what love does, it builds up the most beautiful garden-a garden you'd never want to leave, and then with death it disappears and all that's left is the pain of a life lived alone and memories which fade into dust. Lost love, the exquisite pain, pain you never want to pay the price for and yet accept the punishment when it comes. Maria holds me for a long time. My eyes dry out long before I find the strength to sit up.

  "I heard back from the detective yesterday. There's nothing...no leads...no movement on the case. They can't get the prosecutor to cooperate and all attempts to find the shooter have failed. Just nothing..." I say, trailing off into silence.

  "How are you handling it?" Maria asks.

  "I try not to think about it, him being apart of some conspiracy."

  "Hugh? Mixed up in something like that?" Maria says, clicking her tongue.

  "Not like he was apart of it...I...I don't even know what to think. He gets called out of the blue to a prosecutor's office and then he's murdered the same day. What is anyone supposed to think?" I say.

  There are so many questions careening around my mind. Questions I wonder whether I'll ever get the answers to.

  "There wasn't a reason for it," Maria says.

  I turn and stare at her. She's frowning. Looking at me, worry written all over her face.

  "It wouldn't make it any easier if there were," I say.

  "You're not going to find any sort of closure there," she says.

  "I might...if I knew...why."

  "You won't, because you can't understand the minds of people who do this sort of thing. Emmeline, don't go looking for peace down that road."

  "Why not? What else is there?" I say, hotly.

  "Accepting what's happened. Nothing is going to bring him back. I know you want an explanation...something...but there isn't one. There's...he's gone. And somehow you have to live with it."

  Maria struggles through the words, I know she feels like she's crossed some sort of line. We stare at each other for a long while. My emotions thrown into turmoil, like a giant mixing boil of anger and pain and confusion.

  "I don't want to talk about this," I say, taking our cups and depositing them in the sink.

  "You can't do this, Emmeline," Maria says.

  "Do what?" I hiss, rounding on her.

  "It's not going to change anything!" she says, rising from her chair.

  "Yes it will. I'll know! I'll know why!" I practically shriek.

  I can picture the moment in my mind, hearing why Hugh was killed, and I search for the peace in that moment.

  "So if he was killed because men in high places were doing something illegal that would make everything better?" Maria asks, leaning closer. Her eyes wide with pain.

  "It would give his death a PURPOSE. It wouldn't have all been for nothing..." I cry.

  There it is. I've said it.

  Maria stares at me, watching tears stream down my face. A vein in my neck throbs wildly. I wipe my sweaty palms against my jeans. I blink to get rid of the spots clouding my vision and the room starts to spin. I slip down the white cabinets before I know it and Maria is rushing to my side.

  "Emmeline...Emmeline," she calls.

  Her voice echoes painfully around my head. Bouncing off the walls.

  "I'm fine...fine," I say, waving my hand at her.

  "Have you even eaten today?" she says. Her voice is a half octave higher, and I find myself shaking my head.

  "No."

  "You can't do this. You just can't,” Maria says, half crying. "I know," I say wearily.

  Maria stands up, pulls a cup of yogurt out of the refrigerator and hands it to me along with a spoon.

  "Eat," she commands, settling herself down next to me on the linoleum floor.

  "This can't happen again. What if you were alone with Sophie?" Maria says.

  I nod along and promise to do better. Maria seems mollified. She watches me eat, like a hawk, her eyes shifting from the spoon and yogurt cup in my hands.

  "Promise me it'll be different in Scotland," she whispers.

  I lay a hand, placating, on her knee.

  "I'll be fine."

  That night, I go to bed and before I close my eyes the faceless man is there. His presence fills the room, intruding on my sanctuary. I can't control my breathing, it comes sporadically and my heart thumps painfully in my chest. The faceless man isn't the homeless man. He's dressed in one of Hugh's suits and stands there as if he owns my entire life. I try to swallow but can't get past the desert in my throat. I stand paralyzed before this unwelcome apparition. He raises a pale hand and points at me like a malediction...or a death sentence. But I blink and he's gone and it’s only my telltale heart that evidences the man.

  Moments after I've closed my eyes, or so it feels, an obnoxious buzzing fills the room. I try to lug my feet off the bed, but hunch over, barely able to move, the stress, the soreness that's radiating from muscles I didn't even know existed. I curse my father for vehemently asserting that a six am flight was the best possible option. Four in the morning shouldn't even exist in my opinion, I told Hugh so after Sophie was born. It rushes over me like a tidal wave. I don't have time to prepare. They come like this...taking me unawares and leaving me curled up in a corner of the room and desperate for the memory to dissipate and also for it to become reality. Love and grief, in their own ways, have changed me. I don't resemble the woman I was before.

  Scotland is black when we arrive. There's naught
to see but the glimmering lights of the city. I imagine the lights of Edinburgh Castle, picturing of the hulking medieval structure, but the castle is miles away, and the night too foggy to distinguish individual buildings. Dawn is a long way off in this northern corner of the world. We wearily make our way to the taxi line and crawl in the black car, heaving our luggage. Aside from the unmistakable British nature of the taxi and the driver on the left hand side of the vehicle we could be anywhere. We could have not left home at all. But of course we have. Four and a half thousand miles and a world away from our life in Colorado.

  "Time to get up, Mommy."

  "Ugh..."

  A pair of small but insistent hands is shaking me.

  "Grandpa said to tell you he's going to get the rental car while we

  get ready."

  "What time is it?" I mumble my head buried in a supremely

  comfortable pillow.

  "Its seven. Can I take a bath?"

  "Let's go for a shower today...and make it quick," I add and open

  an eye just enough to see Sophie half dance across the room. Ten seconds later she calls me again.

  "Coming," I say and stumble out of the too comfortable bed

  towards the sounds of Sophie's mutterings.

  "This isn't like our shower at home," she says with a snap,

  pointing at the shower dubiously.

  "It's alright Soph. Here we are," I say.

  After a moment's tinkering the water comes out in a warm stream.

  Sophie claps her hands, impressed with my handiwork.

  "Thanks," she breathes, rewarding me with a peck on the cheek as

  another cheek slips behind the glass divider and into the warm

  shower.

  "Mommies can fix anything," I say with a smile and a small tap

  on the door.

  Well, not everything. If I could I'd fix it so it was her own father

  getting the rental car instead of mine. I'd fix it so it would be Hugh

  who would be tucking her into bed every night instead of me. I'd fix

  it so she'd never cry for a man she will have to work hard to

  remember. I sit on the edge of the white-sheeted bed and stare

  blankly out the wall of windows. Though months have passed me by,