“Mum’s still sleeping,” Grace said in a whisper.
“That’s okay dear, no need to disturb her,” Mrs. Terran replied in the American accent that on most days amused Grace. But not today.
“I’ll just put this in the fridge for you,” she continued. Baby Abe gripped his mother’s dress and toddled to the fridge behind her. Hope followed them and smiled at the boy. The child studied her intently, then grinned back.
“Are you okay by yourself, is there anything I can do for you until your Mama gets up? Mrs. Terran asked.
“I’m not alone,” Grace replied, glancing at Hope sitting up on the kitchen bench beside the fridge. “I mean, Mum will be up soon,” she added quickly.
“Well, as long as you are sure. Your Mama has my number if you need me.” She looked around the kitchen, scooping Abe up into her arms. He reached out and touched Hope. She held his fingers for just a moment.
“Mama, Angel,” Abe said exuberantly.
His mother smiled down into his big round eyes.
“Let’s get you home and cleaned up, shall we,” she said, touching his button nose with her finger. “You take care, Grace, and don’t forget to call if you need anything…” She let herself out the front door, listening to Abe chatter on about another one of his Angel stories.
Grace and Hope stood in the kitchen watching them leave. They waved playfully at the grinning Abe.
Chapter 6—Music Box
It continued to rain all that weekend and the week that followed. It rained for nearly a month straight without any hint of stopping anytime soon.
Grace thought about death; it consumed her since her father’s accident. Death haunted her. Death punished her. Other than a conversation with her father once and the occasional dead gold fish that had been flushed down the toilet, Grace had thought very little about death.
Dead gold fish—that was all she really knew of death. Grace liked to believe that a flushed gold fish was happily on its way to a watery fish heaven. The death of a fish was bearable, replaceable by a trip to the corner pet store.
Her father’s death, however, was immeasurably different. It was unbearable and he was irreplaceable. Her father’s death had left her adrift. It punched a hole in her so big that she could hardly breathe. Later, she would refer to her father’s accident as the death of her childhood innocence.
The days that followed Brian’s death was made up of a continual blur of acute microscopic seconds, minutes, hours. There were the endless phone calls, flowers, cards, funeral arrangements.
Funeral.
The only other constant were tears and constant rain.
The days on the kitchen wall calendar rolled over quickly to a miserable Monday morning, the 26th of April. And under the cover of a dense grey sky, a child attended a funeral to say her tearful goodbyes to a father whom she had adored her entire life.
She felt like she had been abandoned in a tiny paper boat and left adrift without paddles or an anchor in a bottomless, unforgiving ocean of wretchedness.
A mass of mourners - some she recognized, some she did not - huddled together under an array of umbrellas in the drizzling rain. Grace saw Mr. and Mrs. Terran holding hands in the front row. The Palmer family, who used to live in the house next door where Angela now lived, was there too, dabbing their eyes with white tissues. They all gave her mournful smiles, even the people she didn’t know.
Did they all think of her now as the poor girl with the dead father? The little girl lost at sea in the sinking paper boat? Why not? She did. She did not comply with the formality of returning their sad desperate smiles. She simply lowered her head from prying eyes and squeezed her mother’s hand tighter.
A small redheaded girl caught her attention twenty meters away. The girl walked toward a stone park bench under a big tree and sat down on the wet slab. She was barely visible under the big black umbrella she held above her head. Grace wondered which of the mourners she belonged to. The girl looked up at Grace and smiled. Not a sad mournful smile but with a smile that radiated joy.
Grace was swept up by an incredible feeling of lightness and peace. She felt like she was floating. She could see her father smiling at her in the clouds above. She was on the verge of smiling back when a tall thin priest spoke, startling her. Stealing her away from the redheaded girl with the infectious smile and the promise of a life filled with joy and happiness.
She felt heavy now—pulled back down a life wrapped in sadness and death. Back to her tormented life without her father. Back into the tiny paper boat, bobbing up and down on a savage ocean.
She looked back toward the stone bench, but the girl was gone, just the priest now, as he raised his voice over the din of the pelting rain. And the louder the priest spoke the harder the rain insisted on falling. Grace didn’t want to listen to his words, words, words.
He continued. “In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ…”
She didn’t want to hear any more.
“We commend to Almighty God our brother Brian and we commit his body to the ground…”
She wanted to scream. You did not know my father, he was not your brother, he was my daddy!
The priest pushed on. “Earth to earth; ashes to ashes, dust to dust…”
Instead, Grace concentrated on the rhythmic drumming of the rain as it pounded heavily on the canopy of umbrellas and the white marquee that sheltered her father’s coffin and an array of floral tributes. But the rain merely mimicked the priest’s words. Earth, earth. Drip, drip. Ashes, ashes. Drip, drip. Dust, dust. Drip, drip.
“The Lord bless him and keep him, the Lord make His face to shine upon him and be gracious unto him and give him peace. Amen.”
“Amen,” mimicked the swarm of mourners.
Atop Brian’s coffin sat a wreath of red roses and white lilies, her father’s favorites.
“Grace…” She heard her name whispered as the wind swept through the tree branches somewhere in the distance; it was her father’s voice.
Blah, blah, blah. More shouted words from the priest as he moved toward her father’s coffin. Her mother sobbed gently by her side.
Hope was there now, standing at the head of her father's mahogany coffin. Raindrops glistened on the tips of her outstretched wings. They fluttered gracefully in a gentle gust of wind. Grace knew it was time to say goodbye to Hope, too. It was a day for goodbyes. A day to say goodbye to imaginary childhood friends. This was a day to grow up. Her mother needed her now. Hope would understand that, wouldn’t she? “I’m sorry, but you have to go now,” she whispered to Hope.
“Grace?” her mother asked, “what is it, who are you talking to?”
Grace glanced up at her mother, into her red-rimmed eyes. “No one Mum, just talking to myself.” She turned back. Hope was gone.
Torrents of rain continued to run off the fabric edges from the ocean of umbrellas and to the muddy earth below. The priest stopped speaking. At last, Grace thought. Just the rain now.
All stood silently by and watched as the flower-adorned casket jolted and then commenced its slow journey down into the sodden gaping hole in the earth, devouring the coffin that held her father’s lifeless body.
Kate wept for her husband and best friend. A little girl wept for her adoring father. Officer Wade stood solemnly by her mother’s side, sheltering her, supporting her.
Suddenly Grace panicked and made a quick dash toward the lowering casket.
Her mother gasped and tried to reach out to stop her but Wade took her hand and shook his head. “Let her be.”
Grace reached down and with her fingertips snatched up a long stemmed red rose off the lid of the casket before it slid completely out of reach.
Wade drove them both back home afterwards, in silence.
It had been a miserable day; it had suited the occasion of death perfectly, Grace decided.
When they eventually arrived home, Grace slid quickly off the backseat of the car and straight into
a puddle. Muddy water splashed up onto her leg; she didn’t care. She went straight to her room. She needed to be alone, for just a while, she told her mother. Her mother had nodded. Grace went into her room and closed the door quietly behind her.
She sat down on her bed next to a box she hadn’t seen before and opened it. She lifted out a small ornate music box with blue birds on the front and unlocked the lid with a tiny silver key. A small ballerina twirled. Tears ran down Grace's face as she listened to the melody it played.
‘Somewhere over the Rainbow, blue birds fly’.
Grace closed her eyes and said a prayer. “If there is anyone listening…I just wanted you to know that I’m just a kid. I’m not meant to know about this stuff…death. And I didn’t think it was too much to ask to keep it that way, until I’m a grown up, like when I’m fifteen or something. All I want is a mum and a dad. Birthday wishes that come true. It’s very hard to believe in blue birds and happiness without my dad. I just wanted you to know that. But most of all, please, please, please look after my dad. Keep him warm, he doesn’t like the cold much.”
Grace placed the music box down on her bedside table and curled up on her bed as she listened to the familiar melody. The mud on her leg left a brown stain on her pink bedspread. By the time the music box had wound down and the melody had stopped, she was sound asleep. She dreamt of her father and the time that he had spun her around and around in her pink ballet tutu. She dreamt of a beautiful angel who held their hands and danced along with them.
Hope pulled the bedspread up over Grace’s shoulders and wiped a tear from Grace's cheek.
“Goodbye my friend,” she whispered. “I shall miss you. But I will never be too far away from you.”
Her wings bloomed as she slowly faded, and was gone. Just a distant memory in Grace’s mind would remain of an imaginary childhood friend with wings, called Hope. One white feather is all that remained on the carpet beside Grace’s bed.
A few hours later, Grace awoke to voices, lots of voices. She rubbed her eyes, sat up and listened for a while. It must be the wake, she thought to herself. “Stupid word.”
She got up, brushed some of the dried mud off her leg and walked slowly down the hallway toward the voices. She lent against the wall, just out of sight. She smelled brewing coffee and the perfume from lavender candles. Her mother was sitting on the sofa, talking quietly with well-wishers. She looked awkward, as if she didn’t want to be there—Grace knew exactly how she felt. Officer Wade stood quietly behind her, protectively.
A gathering of people stood around the lounge room talking, eating. Some had spilt into the kitchen. Mrs. Palmer and Mrs. Thomson were making coffee and tea and passing them around the room. The kitchen table was pushed up against another one to accommodate various plates of food, flower arrangements and more candles. The tables were covered in an ivory lace-trimmed tablecloth. All prerequisites for the wake ritual Grace imagined.
A photograph of her father, in an elegant gold-frame, was the centerpiece.
Grace recognized it; it was the picture of her father taken on his last birthday.
Mr. Terran walked over and sat down beside her mother. His wife, he began, had gone home to take care of their son, Abe. Her mother nodded in response. “Kate,” he continued. “Beth and I are so sorry for your loss. Brian was a good man. And we shall all miss him.” He picked up Kate’s tightly curled up fist and held it. “If there is anything you need, anything, please don’t hesitate to call. We are here for you, and Grace, anytime you need us.”
Kate’s other hand choked a white linen handkerchief with her fingers. “Thank you David, I appreciate that. Please thank Beth for the food. I meant to call and thank her but…” her voice trailed off and cracked as she blinked back a fresh wave of tears.
“Beth understands that, Kate. She’ll come back tomorrow, help you tidy up and help you with anything else you might need.”
Kate nodded. “Tell Beth thank you for me.” A tight smile flashed across her lips, and then quickly faded.
David stood and pumped Wade’s hand. “I’ll head off now; I’ll be back over the weekend sometime to mow the lawn, weather permitting.”
Mrs. Palmer walked over to Kate with a mug of steaming coffee in her hand and a small plate of food in the other. Kate thanked her and took the mug of coffee; she declined the food with the shake of her head.
Grace turned away and headed back down the hallway to her room.
She saw the white feather on her bedroom carpet and lent down to pick it up, stroking it gently with her fingers. She lay back down on her bed, clasping the feather in her hand. “Hope?” she said in a small whisper.
‘Yes, Grace,’ she imagined.
“Nothing,” she replied, closing her eyes. And as the day turned into the darkest night, she waited for her nightmares to begin.
Chapter 7—Tick, Tick, Tick
The clock kept ticking on the lounge room wall—a constant reminder of the quickening time. Hours became days, the days turned into weeks, enforcing the knowledge that her father was not coming back—ever.
Grace wanted everything to stop, just for a minute, so she could take a breath. So she would have time to remember her father, before her memories of him spun too far away and out of her reach. But nothing stopped. Everything kept going and going and going.
She had the same nightmare every night. She was living on a spinning carousel. Dead flower petals fell from the sky like rain. Brightly coloured horses were racing faster and faster around her. The organ grinder’s music became louder and louder. She was losing her balance, grasping the thin air trying to hold onto anything fixed in place to balance herself. However, everything she grabbed onto kept slipping out of her hands.
There was a six-foot circus clown with a wide grin and gleaming yellowy barbed teeth riding one of the carousel horses, laughing at her. In a blink, he would vanish.
Then he would reappear, floating above her with narrowed yellow eyes glaring down at her. Then suddenly he fell, straight toward her. She spun around; it took forever that simple task. And then she ran—in slow motion.
She screamed out for her father, who was standing off in the distance, to stop the carousel, so she could get off. But he couldn’t hear her screams above the music and the laughing clown, so he never came to her rescue.
Every turn of the carousel bought a faceless, shirtless man carrying a bunch of balloons on a golden thread a step closer to her. The balloons were the most beautiful she had ever seen. They glistened like giant soap bubbles that reflected all the colors of the rainbow.
Finally, when he was close enough to the edge of the carousel she would reach out and grab the bunch of balloons from his outstretched hand. The glistening balloons would carry her up into the sky, out of the falling petals and into the clouds, away from the laughing clown.
She would look down from her vantage point above at the faceless man below as he walked away. On his bare back, she could see a fearsome eagle with outstretched wings.
She was too heavy for the balloons to carry her very far away, and one after the other, they would burst, and she would begin her descent toward an earth that was covered in a layer of dead petals. She would wake up just seconds before the deadly impact to find herself twisted in her bed sheets, completely exhausted.
With the passing days, the beautiful flower arrangements delivered following her father’s death started to wither and die. Petals faded, shrunk, let go and fell onto the kitchen bench. Then further still, until they rested on the tiled floor below. One after the other, they gave up their fight for survival, until all that was left was twisted, shriveled stems. Grace gathered up the dead flowers and put them in the trash outside and tipped the foul smelling water from the vases down the sink.
Blobs of the soggy stems and leaves clogged the drain. She jabbed her finger at them, pushing and squishing them until they had all passed through the plughole.
She could imagine her father’s body progressing in a similar state o
f erosion under the mound of dirt that separated him from her.
She collected up the horde of sympathy cards covered in angels and flowers and put them in a shoebox with a signed booklet from the mourners that had attended the funeral. Her mother would want these. She tied up the box securely with a white satin ribbon that she had removed from a decaying bunch of flowers.
Kate had thanked her and put them in the bottom of her wardrobe for safekeeping. She would read them at another time, when she was stronger.
The days continued on regardless. Tick, tick, tick shouted the clock on the wall as she sat and glared at it. She wanted to stand up on a chair and smash it. Instead, she remained seated and watched her mother dish up her dinner that had been supplied by the neighbors—again. Her mother did not prepare a plate of food for herself. Grace could not remember the last time she saw her mother eat. She chewed on her bottom lip; she started to worry about her mother.
Although Kate was now getting out of bed most days, she still didn’t appear to be coping with her grief. Even with all the extra food in the house, Grace noticed that her mother continued to grow thinner and started to fear that her mother might die, too. She began taking mental pictures of her mother for safekeeping. She paid more attention to the little things. Like her mother’s scent, the sound of her voice. Her laugh, if she was ever to hear that again. The warmth of her mother’s arms as she wrapped them around her, pulling her close. She would memorize them all, just in case her mother was taken from her, too.
She would imagine coming home from school one day, and as she came through the door, standing by the kitchen table, would be a policeman. He would say to her, “Grace, there has been an accident.” And she would just let herself fall to the floor, wanting to die, too.
Grace slid off the kitchen chair and walked over to her mother who was washing dishes in the sink. She wrapped her arms around Kate’s slender body, squeezing her, a little tighter than usual, just in case. “I love you, Mum,” she said, forcing back tears. A few still managed to spill over and run down her cheek. She quickly buried her face in her mothers un-ironed t-shirt to wipe them away, hiding them.
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