by Max Lockwood
"Grandma?" she called tentatively, stilling her hands.
Viola hummed.
"What are you thinking about?"
Her eyes shot up for a moment before she was looking down again, and in that time Clara had seen her eyes were still as clear as when she woke up.
"Oh, nothing much, honey. I guess you could say I'm reflecting on you and your sister's childhoods."
Ah. Grandmother had lived somewhere else, Clara didn’t remember where. Viola was always the one to visit them. The one time Clara asked her mother why they didn’t do the same, she'd mentioned something about it being hard for her, being where her father had died. No one could tell her about her grandfather, even Tessa who had been alive longer and must have met him. If she had at all, Clara didn’t remember him.
Not that their grandma had visited all that often, though. She and their mom were rarely on the best of terms, so even when it happened, it was usually a short visit, or when their parents wanted to go somewhere without them.
"What exactly about it?"
"Hmm. Just how different you both used to be. Tessa was the more outgoing one, you were more on the introverted side. You didn’t make friends so easily, you were always so quiet… It used to worry your parents, you know. But the few times your mother and I actually talked, I told her she had nothing to worry about."
Clara chewed her lip, looking at her dirt covered hands. For something to do, she tried to pick the dirt from under her fingernails, without much success. There was only one pair of gloves, and she'd let Viola take them. Thinking about her childhood could go either way for her, she would remember all the good things and be happy, or remember all the bad things and feel depressed. But with every thought, one thing always struck her mind.
"I wish sometimes that we could just go back," she mused quietly. "Before everything got ruined. I didn’t have friends, but I didn’t think I needed them. I had my own little world, and I had my family. Nothing was perfect, even back then, but… It was enough for me."
She would remember those times when things didn’t go her way and she would complain, and she would curse at her younger self. Clara still thought she was naïve sometimes, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as she had been when she was younger, expecting the world to remain this wonderful place for forever.
"I remember that about you. How you would go on and on about wanting to be a writer. You were such a precious child with such a rich imagination, you spent most of your time, the few times I saw you, with your face buried in some book or other. If you weren’t reading, you were working on your own stories. Where did those dreams ever go?"
She smiled sadly down at the ground. "Nowhere, Grandma. There just hasn’t been time for it."
Really, though, even with the teaching job, her main goal had remained to become a writer one day, though she'd had some doubts in her abilities. That, and she didn’t let herself have too much free time. She would write occasionally, but there were times when she'd spend twenty minutes looking at a blank document, or work started that she had no idea how to continue. Only to remember she still had papers to grade, and she'd push it aside.
Then one day, it occurred to her she'd gone more than a month without updating any of the stories she'd already started, or coming up with any new plots. She put her laptop away and all but forgot it. She didn’t forget her dream, just postponed it until later. She had other responsibilities that came first, and her inspiration to keep writing just dwindled with each passing day.
Not that any of that even mattered anymore. Besides a few notes she'd written down on paper, that was all lost. She hadn't tried her laptop but she knew if phones didn’t work, neither would her computer.
Besides, in the new world, there was little use it could be to her anymore.
"When you really love something, though, you should make time for it. It just makes me sad when I remembered how the two of you used to be. And then… then one stupid accident ruined it all for you. For all of us."
Clara felt her eyes widen when she heard the older woman's voice shake slightly.
"Grandma…"
"I hated it. That one moment could take away everything like that. Do you know, I talked to your mother right before you all went for that trip? If I had known… I was always lecturing her about what she had done wrong, when I was hardly the picture of perfect parenting myself."
Viola's hands had stopped, and Clara watched her grandmother, sitting so still, and wondered how she could soothe her. She supported the family financially, but Viola had been the one to support them emotionally. Having the roles reversed made Clara wonder what she was supposed to do. Before she could think of anything to say, her grandmother was talking again.
"It was okay in the beginning, but after I lost your grandfather, I lost the ability to move on, especially on my own. I shut my daughter out, and she didn’t hold it against me. But she let me back into her life and all I gave were criticisms. Your mother died angry at me, Clara, and you have no idea how much I hate that."
Clara had known, actually, about the argument. She only got to hear half of it, her mother shouting angrily into the phone. She wouldn’t let herself get involved, but when her mother got really angry, everyone heard.
"It's okay Grandma," she whispered, wishing she could touch her, but Clara's hands were still covered in dirt. "I hated it, too. Still do."
She rarely let herself think about it, or of the times before. Remembering how they used to be so happy only for it to be taken away. It took her a while for the memories of her parents to stop hurting, and that was the first thing Clara had come to hate. The second was the sympathy, the obligatory pity everyone thought she needed, people she didn’t even really know trying to apologize for her parents passing, like it would change anything.
Being the introvert she was, instead of acting out, she internalized it, and it drained her slowly for years until she could barely allow herself to feel.
She had hated how the accident changed everything for them. How she'd never expected to feel happy again. Once, she'd wanted nothing more than to build a family of her own, but because she was messed up from that moment in her life, she didn’t put all that much effort into relationships when she found herself in one.
Now, knowing what she knew, she hated that if they had just paid attention to Tessa's 'feeling,' that everything would have been okay, if only for a little longer.
Most of all, Clara hated how she could act okay one second, only to meet one of her triggers, and feel like she was going to shake apart. She particularly didn’t like open water, had an acute fear of it. She didn’t even like pools after the accident.
She'd been on a school trip when she was fifteen, not so long after the accident, but long enough that she was expected to have made some recovery, and they ended up going to a pool. Her school didn’t have one, so she'd had no way to realize beforehand and refuse to go. She just saw all that water, then suddenly her eyesight was blurry, her body was quaking.
Other kids thought she was having a fit. When one of the teachers tried to touch her, it shook her so badly she broke down and cried herself unconscious. The hyperventilation was what did her in, in between her crying when she felt she couldn’t get in enough air, but not able to stop.
She was sent to doctors to talk about the incident, recommended by the school, which really just meant they wanted to know if she was mentally sound enough to be around the other children.
If she'd had any vestiges of a social life, it was ruined then. The doctor she saw ruled it as something from the accident she'd blocked in her mind, or a fear developed from it. And then everyone, including her teachers, was back to acting stilted and awkward in a bid to be sympathetic, while the doctor was trying to get her to deal with it instead of 'hiding from it', stating it would be better for her long term.
Clara hated the whole episode. It was that which decided it for her, no matter how crazy Tessa sounded, she didn’t deserve to have to deal with that for who knew
how long. Her mental health may not have been in the best of state, but she coped, and that was all Clara cared about. And she closed herself off even more after that, and hadn't had a true friend until she met Cooper. And they were really only friends because he had refused to leave her alone, and she grew used to having him around.
She heard a sniffle, and looked up to see her grandmother giving her a shaky smile. There was a light sheen to her eyes, but she wasn’t crying.
"I'm so proud of what you've become, Clara. Proud of how you've taken over the family and looked after us all. When I… could not."
Clara squirmed, slightly uncomfortable with the praise. She hadn't done anything particularly great, someone had to do it, and no one else was equipped to, so she stepped up. Traditionally, it would have fallen on Tessa before Clara, but then her sister had always been a special case.
"That isn’t really fair, you know? I mean, it doesn’t always seem like it, but in her own way, Tessa is looking out for this family, has for longer than any of us really know." She remembered all that hoarded food and frowned. She still had to think about that, but she was putting it off for another day. "I'm worried that Tessa feels second best, like she isn’t appreciated just because she doesn’t seem to make the most effort."
After all, there was no reason for her to hide away from her own family like she did most of the time. Far from just alienating her, they never just talked. Clara sort of missed that, and wondered if Tessa wished she had someone to talk to about what went through her mind.
"Oh, honey, that was never it."
She glanced at her grandmother, confused. "What?"
"Remember, I'm the one who spends the most time around her. And believe me, that is not the case—she just wants to highlight your achievements."
Clara shot her eyebrows up. "What?" she repeated dumbly.
"It's true. I know she's been… difficult. But she cares about you. She just has unique ways of showing it."
Difficult was something of an understatement, but Clara agreed with the 'unique' bit.
She dug her fingers into the dirt, continuing her work in silence. Clara had her lips pursed thoughtfully, losing herself to the peace of the moment again.
"What's been going on with you, sweetie?"
"Hmm?" she frowned slightly. She'd talked to her grandmother after she got back last night and explained everything. Unless she had forgotten that part. "I don’t get what you mean."
That got her a chuckle from Viola. "I was thinking more along the lines of your love life, young lady."
Clara blinked, and then felt her face warm up in a blush. She didn’t talk to anyone about her love life. For a long time, there was none to speak of. She wasn’t happy with the time she lost her virginity, or any of the fleeting relationships she'd had since. Then there was Dante and he was, ironically, the man she'd been with the longest.
Like her grandmother knew who she was talking about, she mentioned his name, and Clara felt the blood rush out of her head, leaving her slightly dizzy.
"I know you've been seeing Dante, that lovely young man from next door."
She said it so calmly, she could have been talking about the weather. Clara wasn’t sure what to feel. She was surprised, and embarrassed, but at the same time grateful for her grandmother's tact for not mentioning out loud she'd basically had an affair with a married man. Knowing it was bad enough.
"Um, I had no idea…" she began weakly, only for Viola to start talking again, like Clara never said anything.
"He's not that bad, don’t get me wrong, but he's all wrong for you, dear. All looks, not a lot of substance. You can do so much better than him. You should date someone like Cooper instead."
For the second time in as many minutes, Clara was left gaping at her grandmother. Then the comment about Cooper sunk in and she sputtered for a moment, feeling like her face was on fire—or flushed a very deep red.
"We're just friends, Grandma," she said insistently.
"Please, Clara. I'm old, but not blind yet. Neither am I senile. I see how you are around that boy, how he is around you. It's been going on for a while, and I wish you would step up. Having fun is all well and good, but that man is the forever kind."
"Grandma!" she half-shrieked. Her hands rose to cup her face, hoping to dull down the burning, but she remembered at the last minute that her hands were covered in dirt, and ended up just flailing them around.
Viola shrugged, looking unconcerned. "I'm just saying, you should make a move with Cooper before someone else snaps him up."
Clara just groaned and repeated, "We're just friends."
There was a short silence.
"What are you talking about?"
Clara's head whipped around to face Viola, who was looking up at her with that look of confusion Clara was seeing more and more of lately. It became clear that she had forgotten their whole conversation, and Clara wondered just how much was gone this time. She felt her breath hitch, and tears sting her eyes, but she managed a small smile.
"We were just looking after the garden. Remember?"
The older woman looked down. "Oh!" she was surprised to find her hands still buried in dirt, and the sight made Clara's need to cry grow, but she just closed her eyes in a long blink.
"Yes. Do you want to stop now, go inside?"
"Oh, no. That's fine. We can just continue until we finish, dear."
Clara didn’t want to upset her, so she went along with what she wanted. They went back to working in silence, but Clara didn’t feel as calm anymore.
It scared her, how this disease was taking her grandmother away from her. They'd been talking for a while now, but in a second, it was like the conversation never existed. Would Viola even remember it? She didn’t know, and she didn’t think she could just ask. When she sniffled, and her grandmother asked sympathetically if she'd caught a cold, she just barely held back from bursting into tears.
Eventually, Cooper woke up and got the two of them to have a midmorning meal. It was barely a snack, and Clara took note of how little her grandmother ate. She knew better than to mention it, though. Cooper must have noticed she was upset, but he just gave her a look, likely not wanting to say anything with Viola there. Clara was grateful he didn’t, it took all she had just to keep herself calm and him trying to comfort her wouldn’t help.
Tessa hadn't joined them, but that was pretty usual for her. After the small meal, Clara went looking for her, and found her holed up in her room, which was also usual behavior. This time, she knocked and waited, getting the okay to go in before she did.
Tessa was sitting on her bed, staring out the window again. There was a sketchpad open in front of her. Clara got a look at the picture before she looked away, swallowing. Then she reminded herself she was trying to change her attitude towards her sister. She turned back, looking at the image, and seeing a real life looking depiction of a crashed airplane.
It wasn’t the image she saw every time she went to town, or that one time when she went out with Cooper, which was a good thing, because she didn’t think her mind could have taken that. It did, however, make her wonder if, somewhere out there, there was a scene that looked similar.
She shook it out of her mind and sat at the chair pushed close to the desk. She tried not to look at any more pictures, not yet.
"What is it, Clara?"
She startled, glancing up at Tessa who hadn't moved. She was positive she'd just imagined it, until her sister spoke up again.
"You love solitude as much as I do. If you came here it's because something is bothering you, right?"
Clara bit her lip, deciding not to think of what that statement meant. It felt too weird after believing, for a long time, that her sister had stopped caring about her.
"It's about Viola," she confided. "I'm worried about her. We had her on medication before, but it's going to run out if it hasn’t already. She's deteriorating, fast. Pretty soon, she's going to forget things, and we aren’t going to be able to bring her back.
"
It was inevitable, the doctors had said, nothing more they could have done. Clara wasn’t even sure if the medication worked, but not having it made her feel uneasy. She looked up to Tessa, who seemed… unaffected. She hadn't moved, her eyes still staring outside.
"It's 'survival of the fittest' in the apocalypse. It's unlikely Viola will survive in that world."
Clara couldn’t refute her claim, at least the first part. She was guilty of giving into the mentality herself, but hearing Tessa talking so calmly, announcing it like it didn’t mean anything, shocked her.
"We can't just give up on her, Merry. Not after all she's done for us."
She got a shrug. "I'm not discounting any of it. But think about it seriously, Clara. We're mostly okay now because everyone is trying to play normal. That won't last forever. Also, we've gone to other towns, but no one has thought of coming here. We don’t know what would happen then. Viola is already old, unable to take care of herself."
"So it falls to us to look after her," she argued.
Tessa snorted. "Sure. But for how long can we keep it up? And as I said, she's old. Even if everything keeps going smoothly, you know it's only a matter of time. Don’t worry about her mental health. Her heart might just give out before her mind does."
That wasn’t exactly impossible, though Clara wanted to refute it. It sounded so surreal, how Viola dying was being treated like a sure eventuality. Tessa wasn’t exactly young, but she could live longer. Instead of saying anything, Clara kept silent while thinking up what she should say to her sister's attitude.
Tessa looked at her out the corner of her eye. "You don’t have to believe me right now. I know it's not an easy thing to accept, but I've had years to prepare. Like it or not Clara, I'm thinking realistically."
