Authors: Ross Turner
Letting Go
Morning did not come quickly, and the darkness tormented Jen cruelly.
She rose early, more so to avoid sleep than out of any real necessity. In his concern, naturally, Deacon accompanied her, and his all-seeing gaze followed her as she swept slowly around the kitchen in a routine so solemn and ingrained that she didn’t even need to think about it.
Occasionally Jen glanced across at Deacon sat at the kitchen table, and he smiled at her affectionately. She returned his smile as best she could, but she found it particularly difficult that morning.
Every time, Jen couldn’t help but let her gaze drift across to the opposite side of the table, where Clare sat. Watching her younger sister, her eyes were filled with sadness and regret, as they so often had been these past twelve months.
“You okay?” Deacon asked softly, seeing Jen glance across to the empty seat opposite him for the fifth time.
“Yeah…” Jen lied, unconvincingly, as she laid out four plates upon the worktop for breakfast.
Deacon raised his eyebrows slightly, but didn’t say a word. After a moment of silence, realising all of a sudden what she’d done, Jen sighed deeply and sorrowfully, and placed one plate back into the cupboard, closing the door silently.
Jen panned bacon and eggs together, sliced tomatoes and grilled them, toasted bread until it was crisp and buttered it smoothly, all with a well-practiced hand. But her mind was not on food, and she wasn’t hungry in the slightest.
Finally, giving up, she groaned and placed down everything she was holding, leaning her elbows down onto the worktop and dropping her head into her hands.
“I can’t do this anymore…” She sighed, and in an instant Deacon was there beside her.
“You can do it.” He tried to reassure her. “It’ll be alright…”
But Jen just shook her head in denial.
Though, saying that, she had been in denial for quite some time now.
And even Deacon struggled to believe his own words, now that he knew the truth, and he glanced around the kitchen as if he expected there to be somebody else there with them.
Clare was still sat at the table, and she looked on at him with an expression painted across her face that was a mixture of so many different emotions it was all but unreadable.
Jen wrenched her head from her hands and looked across at her.
Her older sister’s expression changed and she smiled, her eyes comforting and understanding.
Finally making her decision, Jen’s mind was all of a sudden set.
“Deacon…” She started, and he looked back to her yearningly.
“Yes?” He asked.
“I have to show you something…” She told him, and as she did so she glanced across once again at Clare.
Her sister’s face dropped dramatically, as if Jen had just delivered the killing blow herself. Guilt ripped through Jen’s veins at the sight, but, in the end, she held firm, knowing at long last what she had to do.
“Okay.” Deacon agreed, not knowing what it was that Jen wanted to show him, but getting the impression it would be of monumental importance.
Without another word, hearing the sound of faint footsteps above them, Jen began plating up their breakfast.
Clare rose slowly and rather ominously from her seat, passing Deacon as she walked over to Jen.
He felt a shiver run up and down his spine at her gaze, but, of course, he had no idea what caused it.
“You can’t…” Clare whispered urgently to her younger sister. “You know you don’t want to…”
Jen nodded, knowing of course that Clare was right.
But this time, at long last, she could see reality more clearly. She knew now that, sadly, she had no other choice.
This was just what she had to do.
Clare nodded, in the end understanding as well, but tears stood heavily in her eyes, and she longed to hold her sister, to put her arm around her and tell her everything was going to be alright.
But, just as had been the case for almost a year now, she knew she couldn’t.
And perhaps simply that knowledge, more profound than the hundreds of other reasons, was why Jen had to finally let her go.
The morning was crisp and cold.
Fallen leaves whipped up off the ground in great flurries, swarming around the two of them as Jen and Deacon, hand in hand, paced down the narrow lanes.
Where Jen was leading him exactly, Deacon didn’t know, but he felt not the need to ask.
All the while, keeping a steady, level pace with the young couple, Clare remained.
Jen wore a thick hoody to keep the chill wind at bay, and Deacon wore his rugged jacket, for indeed the air was harsh.
As usual, Clare felt not the cold, and wore a plain, red dress that thrashed about her bare, flawless legs wildly.
Turning down a rough track then, one which Deacon had never before followed, Jen led him further and further past the treeline. The ground here was rocky and bumpy, and had clearly not been repaved for quite a few years.
Trees leaned in to grab them as they walked by, reaching over and down towards them yearningly. But when Clare swept by, all but unnoticed, they ignored her presence entirely, just as most did nowadays.
A tall set of black iron gates emerged ahead of them from between the trees, looming high and menacing in their path. Set deep into the ground beside them was a large, brick cenotaph, and upon it was bolted a bronzed plaque, worn and faded by the torturous passage of time.
Cemetery Drive
All of a sudden Deacon understood.
Jen glanced up at him with a wry smile upon her face, knowing there was no turning back now.
He stepped up to the huge gate and pulled the rusty iron bolt across that kept it closed against the wind. With an eerie creak he pulled one of them ajar so that Jen could slip through, and once she had, he followed, closing and bolting it behind them, leaving Clare stood outside gazing after them.
Jen steered Deacon through the oceanic maze of headstones.
Some were small and quite faded, with only very short inscriptions engraved upon them. Whilst others, enormous and towering, had giant sarcophagus bases and huge crosses that drove up towards the sky regally.
Finally, as they swam through the sea of graves, Jen brought them to a stop, and they began to slowly tread water.
Before them lay a single, grey headstone, relatively new compared to many of the others around it, and only just beginning to show the wear and tear of time.
Upon it was engraved but a few lines, the text plain and black and unmarked.
Clare Williams
23
rd
of March, 1996 - 10
th
of October 2014
Taken from us too soon
Forever in our hearts
And there, stood upon the grave, though not for all to see, was Clare, gazing at her younger sister once more with heavy eyes, but an indescribably heavier heart.
“I’m sorry, Jen…” Deacon breathed, not knowing what else to say.
She didn’t reply.
Instead, she just wrapped her arms tightly around him and he embraced her back, sharing his warmth with her on that bitter day.
Jen shuddered as she took a deep breath, gazing with her head rested upon Deacon’s chest at Clare. Her older sister, beautiful in her plain red dress, hands clasped together in front of her, stood upon her own grave as if all of this was just as bad dream.
But the look in Clare’s eyes confirmed brutally for Jen, for the last time, that this was no nightmare.
It was far too real to imagine such a thing.
“I don’t know if I can take this…” Jen whispered, talking to Clare just as much as she was talking to Deacon.
Deacon held her ever tighter, and Clare just pursed her lips and shook her head.
Neither of them could say nor do anything that would ease Jen’s suffering.
Only she could do what needed to be done, and that just made it harder.
“I’ll always be here…” Deacon finally breathed in reply, and Jen knew he was telling her the truth.
His words comforted her, a little at least.
Then, when he spoke again, for he could see that Jen was looking over at something, though of course he couldn’t see what, he sighed deeply.
“Is Clare here too?” He whispered.
In response, clasping her hand about his and interlocking their fingers, Jen began walking slowly away from the grave.
Clare didn’t move, and Jen knew she wouldn’t follow.
Not anymore.
Jen turned to look back, once and only once.
A single tear escaped her grasp and cascaded down her cheek, streaking warmth everywhere it went upon her cold face. She looked up and Deacon with brimming eyes, before looking back over to her sister, Clare, and took a deep, shuddering breath.
“No…” She finally breathed in reply, her voice thick with emotion.
And within an instant, where Clare had just stood upon her own grave, only a moment ago, now it was empty, and Jen’s older sister was nowhere to be seen.
Jen gazed at her sister’s headstone, all alone, cast into sudden shadow as a lone cloud drifted across the sky and blocked out the sun.
And Clare was gone.
Forever.
“She’s never been here…” Jen whispered, throwing her quiet words onto the wind that wasn’t there.
Squeezing Deacon’s hand tightly as she looked back up to him, Jen’s eyes were filled with immeasurable grief.
And so, without another word that need be said, between the endless seas of headstones the two of them departed.
Side by side, hand in hand, off into the new day they ventured.
Thank you for reading Albatross
I hope you enjoyed it
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