AN: Might be continued based on how I feel/views. ALSO LET'S NOTE that the girl mentioned as Jem's fiancee is an original character. Inspired after reading GSAW. Inspired by the song Yesterday Was Hard on All Of Us - Fink
-O-O-O-
A curl of smoke floated from her lips and she inhaled the scent through her nose, satiated. She'd had to get out of there. Out of where all their family were gathered in the living room, standing in stifling heat and airless proximity, swaying and shifting, silent like cattails. The bed, unslept in for years, was neatly made in a white quilt, crisp white sheets, and full pillows. It was only wrinkled where she sat at the edge, the Hospital Corners untucked slightly.
She had sat mercifully this morning while Aunty tucked and rolled and pinned her hair. She had even been so gracious to their visitors as to paint on some lipstick and powder her face. Now her shoes were at the post of the bed, her littlest right toe poking through a hole in her stockings. Her black dress was wrinkled, her mother's necklace draped delicately at her throat.
The funeral had been meant to be a brief one, but with so many of her brother's friends wanting to give testament to the man he was, it had trickled on through the heat of late morning. She stood unfeelingly by her father through the entire ordeal, not holding his hand, refusing hugs from anyone, and watching with her tongue bit between her teeth as Aunty tried to coral Atticus onto a bench by the end of the garden once she deemed—through all her superficial medical experience—that he had been standing too long.
In her opinion, she had been entirely civilized for long enough today. And if Aunty's fuse would blow if she dared unwind for two seconds, she'd retreat to her brother's room where no one would bother her, and finally…finally she'd have a moment to reflect by herself.
They had spent the last several years apart. She in college in New York, and Jem in his final years of law school in Montgomery. It was nearly comical how he'd followed his father. And wanted to (even since he was ten). And deserved to. There was no successor for father than his son. Though it was true that none of their friends or family mourned the loss of a legal mind, but a genuine and true person. Probably the truest soul in all the county. And she had lost a friend.
Around her, memoirs were glaring. Football medals draped over the top of the chest of drawers. A shelf full of books, a game ball testament to the last game of the season, triumphed by the Maycomb boys. Textbooks that had been brought home and forgotten as higher levels were achieved. Story books that he'd cut his teeth on. A stack of abandoned mail he'd brought from Mobile. A mess of stationary and uncapped fountain pens. An old, familiar cigar box that had remained unopened since a particular summer. It was all here. And though he'd been away from this place, it was as if he'd left yesterday.
Two fat tears dripped down her cheeks before she could stop herself, and the bedroom door creaked open all at once. She turned away from whoever it was, wiping at her face with the thumb of the hand that held her still-lit cigarette, now mostly burned to the butt.
Atticus sat next to her, his weight making the bed sink comfortably, reminding her of warm summer nights spent reading, of a faint ticking of the heirloom watch now left without an owner.
She wanted to say something to cut the desperate weight of the air around her, but instead let out a thin gasp and wiped at another tear.
She leaned over to stamp out the cigarette in the ashtray she'd brought and set on Jem's nightstand and watched helplessly as two shimmering tears dripped onto the rug.
She didn't listen, she didn't give any mind at all to the man next to her, trying to imagine that he'd never invaded her sanctuary. When she finally glanced to him, he was holding a fist to his mouth, eyes set on the floorboards. He moved only to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose, a movement she remembered well as the predecessor to a telling speech. But he did not speak.
She wiped her eyes again with the heels of her palms, willing herself to stop. It was ridiculous. She had not allowed herself the luxury of crying, not today and never in her life. And she wouldn't start now. She sniffled meekly, finally quelling the stream.
"I can't say anything to you…except that I'm certain you've gotten the wrong end of the…"
"Atticus, don't. Please, please don't…"
He cleared his throat. She glanced to the ceiling.
They lapsed into silence again. She heard Atticus draw a breath after several minutes. He seemed hell-bent on saying something, she guessed.
"Your mother," he began. "Was very, very ill. Since we were married, she had health issues. And she wanted a child…so so badly. We both did."
She looked away, staring at the chinaberry tree outside the window, its shadow growing fuzzy in the evening light.
"Sometimes in life, we must put aside our own desires for a greater good, especially when it concerns others. So I decided we'd forget about children, that it just wouldn't happen for us, and that was that."
Her eyes squeezed shut. Why was he…?
"But she'd made up her mind, and…well, you'll never have to wonder where you get your hard-headedness. So we tried. And we tried. This is something I've never…" Atticus paused.
She wondered if he'd finally decided against speaking, She drew a breath.
"There was a baby…before Jem, and before you…And after that I begged her to quit pursuing it. That one was all we needed, and we'd be fine. But she knew. I guess she knew that one day…One day it would be right. And you'd come into our lives, screaming and wailing, hellfire and all…."
She could've fainted. The room spun around her, though her eyes were closed.
"And when she passed, I wondered if I could even make it. Two children, a firm to manage, a house. But I knew my priorities, and I knew I needed to place the both of you at the front. The night she passed, I wanted to protect him. I wanted to protect the both of you, but I knew I couldn't. Again I had to put my own desires aside for his good. We talked, and he was so confused and angry and hurt…all of the things you'd expect. We read three whole books that night, and when he finally fell asleep, I stayed in his room reading to myself with him on my shoulder."
She heard the jumble of Atticus wiping his glasses on his shirt sleeve. She swiped at her damp face again, not bothering to calm herself anymore.
"And then there you were, not knowing what in the world was happening. Never going to remember her and never to have the mother you deserved. The thing about it all is that I've tried so much to justify death as a natural thing. As just a fact of life. For life is facts. But it leaves so many with grief they didn't deserve. Like Emmaline. And you."
She thought to Emmaline, Jem's girl, blonde curls whipping and frizzing in the morning breeze, her hands covering her cheeks, trying to stop the shock and fear and everything else from spilling out of her like an overturned basin, the gold band on her left hand glittering in the sunlight.
"I suppose its another way we give up our desires for those we love," he whispered.
The lace curtains waved in the evening wind through the open windows.
"Oh, Atticus," she choked, twisting to bury her face in his chest. He held her, patting her jet-black hair coming loose from its pins. And she knew that no matter how long she was away from home, how ever many people were lost, how ever much it hurt to have her very best friend taken, there would always be the wisdom of her father run to. And once the time came for him to follow her mother, Miss Maudie, Jem, and anyone else, the memories of adventures in the summer, of tires rolling down their street and talks on the porch swing, of meeting mysterious neighbors and reading books in the cool of the evening, would be enough.