Author's Note: Uh...The poem is actually about my mother, but I decided I could use it for this fic. I don't think I got the characters of Ruby and Ada anywhere near right and the changing POV will probably confuse everything. But hey, don't know until you try these things.
You want me
You want me to stop my crying
Right now
You demand me to dry my eyes
And start to smile
But I don't think I can
The air isn't as still as it once was. It has been whipped up in circles and hangs messily in the sky; Ada would say something metaphorical and profound about the imbalances this war has caused, the bloodshed that's sunk into the air like potato roots in the ground.
Ada sits by the window with her head against the glass and cries; her eyes are so red their blueness has almost faded away. The war is over and Inman's body is buried beneath the ground on a little hilltop somewhere amongst the new spring grass. I can see the tragedy in that, I can see the bittersweet tragedy in their only night together, but I still tell her to stop her crying. I say to her, 'That Inman wouldn't want you crying for the rest of ya life now would he?' but she doesn't answer, perhaps she's lost her voice from all the harsh sobbing or perhaps all those wives tales about broken hearts are true and you forget how to walk and talk.
You made me
You made me promise all these things
For you
I've got to be brave and I've got to
Wake up tomorrow
But I don't think I can
The now used to fall like seeds on trees past the windowpane. Falling so softly before being tickled and taken up by the drafts of wind; Ruby curses and complains about the snow spoiling the soil and being the ruin of us in the winter with no money and hardly any place safe with this war going on.
I remember the times when we'd be lying by the fire as it's last pieces of wood burnt out and the day turned to the next and I'd read chapters upon chapters of Wuthering Heights until my eyes began to go blurry and she had listened to my voice until her ears had gone numb and irresponsive to any sound at all. It was those times, when the night was at its deepest and slumber had almost taken us into its arms when I felt the bravest I'd ever felt since ending up alone on the farm. I felt brave and hopeful of the new coming day inside the walls of the house amidst the warmth of a dying fire beside a sleeping friend.
You know what I think?
I think you're the most perfect thing
Ever made
And you're not supposed to be poisoned
By life
You ask me if I understand
What's wrong
But I don't think I do
Cheekbones carved so perfectly you could believe she'd dropped out of the sky, that Ada. I look at her face sometimes and wonder why sometimes people are made and carved and moulded perfectly like her and others are mismatched and imperfect and look as though they've run face first into a barmy cow.
There's not enough tears to be cried, not enough harshness in the world or battering from life to break Ada's face. She'll always be that perfect portrait of a lady, hiding nothing and hiding everything else at the same time. That Inman would rest peacefully with that thought, knowing that his lady will never change with age or wearing or the catastrophic events life mushes around in your face sometimes.
You tell me
You tell me you're sorry and you won't
Let go of me
You act as though nothing's wrong and wish
I would too
But I don't think I can
Inman is still walking home to me. Walking with me through the fields and the hallways of the house, just waiting, waiting, and waiting until we can touch again. Ruby doesn't believe in ghosts and tells me so every time I pause as though waiting to feel something in the air beside me.
Ruby acts as though Inman never existed, that the child in my belly perhaps just appeared there overnight. Maybe it's just her way, maybe for the first time, Ruby Thewes has got nothing to say, doesn't know what to say. She buried the man I loved because I was too much of a wreck to move, perhaps that's something no one would talk about.