Lyrics: Shinedown – Crow and the Butterfly
Chasing Shadows
Elbert Hubbard once said, "One can endure sorrow alone, but it takes two to be glad." And now, at thirty five years of age, I think I finally understand those words as well as I ever could.
"I took all your pictures off the wall
and wrapped them in a newspaper blanket,"
Robotically stiff, my arms press into the biting itch of the Christmas sweater, years old and yet having retained the familiar smell of apple spice and ginger, in an unrepentant embrace. Even looking back in through the apartment, now, I feel my heart clench, and shut my eyes to the memories we would be closing the door on in only a few short minutes.
"We'll be taking them with us." She's pressed against my back, still cold from the outside air. It's not quite snowing, but the glorious spread of white frosting is predicted later in the week. "Come on, Henry's waiting."
And, just like that, it's suddenly impossibly easy to flick off the last remaining light in the apartment building and pull the door to a close. The keys go in a coat pocket after locking up, Emma's hand in my own, in the remaining pocket, fighting off Jack Frost's airborne poison. She's wearing her blue jeans, again, with the red leather jacket. It's the only thing I see her in these days.
Henry's waiting, just as she said he would be, in the back of the car. He's silent as we make our way to our respective sides - I drive, I always drive - and conversation is practically non-existent until the thick rubber tires of my gleaming Mercedes carry us out of town.
"I have friends here," he says, always his first line of argument.
"You'll make new friends, kid." But it goes ignored. He's sulking. It's been this way for weeks.
"Your new school sounds nice," I offer, and it's not a lie, "you know, it's situated just across the road from the library and the pool." He does know. I've reminded him several times already. "I'll be able to pick you up and take you, some days."
Henry's silent.
"Don't sulk," Emma commands, but her tone is light; I hear the smirk even without having to glance across at her. "You'll be able to show off your dives," she continues, always able to diffuse the situation, "I bet they have the big boards, too."
He doesn't respond. I catch his eyes in the rear-view mirror. He's scowling, still.
"I like it here." It was only a matter of time until that line came out again, and I know, even though 'here' is, technically, an hour away from the new house, he means our old street. Our old home.
"It'll be fun," Emma perks, and I see her legs jitter and shift as though she wants to turn in her seat to show him her excitable smile, "everything'll be new and different. And you know you can always visit your friends." He doesn't have many. Emma's next story is of her childhood, her constant moving around, the excitement of it all, and although I know just how traumatising and appalling those times were for her, I have to give her credit for sounding genuinely gleeful.
But the sulking continues.
We arrive, as expected, an hour later. The house - three bedrooms and charmingly quaint - is already furnished with the majority of our belongings, albeit not in their appropriate places. We have a lot of work ahead of us in the following week until Christmas. The moving van had gone ahead without us, carrying with it all furniture bar our beds. Those, we bought new, our old ones now part of the last remaining pieces of furnishings in our former apartment, most likely now already disposed of.
The house feels empty, even with our boxed lives filling each corner of every room, and we eat from small portions of fast food - an infrequent treat that's allowed, considering the situation. There's barely enough to feed three, but we manage, and my stomach lies full yet settled as I roll beneath the unfamiliarly fragranced bed sheets come night time.
"I haven't slept in what seems like a century,
and now I can barely breathe,"
I complain once as I feel the bed dip and shift, and a cold body press into mine, Emma desperately hoping to pry the warmth from me to steal for herself. But the sensation is recognised, like a dance we once spun to, and I remain quiet but for shallow, muffled moans as her fingers find their way to my bed clothes, stripping them from my body as she lies above me.
It takes only a few smooth thrusts, lips ghosting over a nipple, until I feel my body tighten and, seconds later, let go. And as I seep back into myself, hazy, blind from pleasure, I pull her body close and breathe Emma into me, consuming her, my soul ravenous for her gentle caress.
The bed, at last, is christened.
"Your words still serenade me,
Your lullabies won't let me sleep,"
It's a week later, sitting at the dining table, that a recurring conversation arises. We stumble upon it by chance - an accident, or a happy surprise - and share amused smiles at the idea of doing so.
"We'll have to talk to Henry," I say, smiling into the happy, green gaze that holds me from across the table, "see what he thinks of the idea."
Emma nods most animatedly, her smile infectious, and for a moment we merely sit and grin at each other. "So, we're really doing this?" Emma is the first to ask and I find a hand almost subconsciously creeping towards my flat stomach.
"Yes," and it's both a whisper and a sigh.
And its then, as it always is, when Emma's hand covers my own, that I choose to ignore all doubts charring the edges of this perfect reality, constructed by the love of my family.
"I've never heard such a haunting melody,
Oh, it's killing me,
you know, I can barely breathe,"
Henry's sitting in the living area at the time, a new book - a present from his grandparents, who he hasn't seen in over a month - spread over his thighs. The house feels empty in its silence, each creak of pipes cooling his spine, but the delectable aroma of slow-cooked turkey is unmissable in the air.
His head snaps up at a sudden intrusion, too quiet to be successfully deciphered, and he creeps towards the kitchen, thinking he hears his mother's voice.
He watches her from the doorway, picking at the splintered wood on the innermost side of the frame. She has that faraway expression over her face, again, a common occurrence these days, and her smile speaks of whimsical dreams and wonderful romances, the likes of which gloss the pages in his book of fairytales.
Her dark eyes are soft, settled on something he can't quite see, hovering a few feet above the opposite chair at the dining table. He thinks he knows what she sees - or who - and his stomach flutters with grief and fear. He remains unnoticed and wonders, for the briefest of moments, if she still has any tangible grasp on reality at all.
But this, he concedes, for now, is better than hearing her cry herself to sleep each night.