The musty smell remained in the apartment when she got in. It was weird, feeling the frozen air once inside. As she was walking through the corridors, her muscles stiffened up more and more, almost like a reflex that prepared her to run, or even worse, to shrink and suddenly fall down.
She reached the main room. The bed sheets and the paintings were already removed, but there were still stuff in the closet. When she opened it she saw the clothes were still hanging there, the shoes were out of order, and she saw her bags and boxes where she kept her notebooks, pictures and personal things. She always said that tidying things up calmed her. In fact, when they had a fight, she always engaged herself in some cleaning and she would organize her staff. But this time it was different. It was the first time that this defensive mechanism rebelled against herself.
Her shirts, her skirts, her trousers, she knew them all. The t-shirt she first met her with, black with red pattern; the flower patterned dress she wore when she first kissed her.
'It's funny' she had told her 'In this city people has already kissed on the second, third date, even the first one'
'I'm not sure you want to kiss me'
'I think you're pretty wrong' they had laughed and seconds later she had gotten closer and kissed her.
She put her clothes in the plastic bag and started with the boxes. She couldn't help opening and taking a look at the pictures of the trips they'd been to, the postcards she liked to collect, the piano scores, the tin boxes where she kept buttons and small objects she didn't want to lose. She was a lover of memories on the path of extinction. She put all of it inside the boxes she had brought.
Her chest hit her with every breath she took, eminent desperation make her feel dizzy. She got closer to the living room. There they had spent most nights watching TV, having dinner, despite the table they had for it. It was in that table where she sat at whenever she played the upright piano that was placed against one of the walls. She would watch her putting her feelings down on the keys; it would thrill her seeing her in that state of harmony she got in when she played. She walked towards the piano. She started brushing the keys.
'Stop looking at me! You're making me nervous!' she would say.
'I like the movement of your fingers and your concentrated face. Your nose wrinkles and you frown. You look…lovely'
She had had it delivered to a music association; it will be more useful there.
The TV cabinet was full of pictures of both of them: in Toronto, visiting some friends, in Chicago, London, Venice and the rest of places they'd been to over the last seven years. She looked at them, remembering those moments, and put them carefully along with the rest of the pictures, in one of the boxes.
The doorbell rang. She shuddered. It was her sister. She came to help her taking out things.
They carried the boxes and bags and got down to the car, parked in the same street. Her sister got in the driver's seat and she went back to lock the apartment close. She took a last walk through the rooms, the bathroom, the living room, the kitchen…
'Doctor says that chemo is the best option in my case' she'd had informed her when she'd known the results 'The sooner I start, the more changes I'll have to recover'
She closed the windows and the doors of every room. She got out of the door, looked at the keys and choked a gasp as she locked the door. She felt cold sweat and her muscles stiffened again while she got out of the building. Her sister was waiting for her in the car. She sat in the back seat beside one of the boxes. She checked it during the journey, caressing the memories and photos she'd kept inside. Her hands started shaking.
'Hello?' she'd answered the phone. That sound had become one of her worst nightmares.
'Mrs… Fabray?' replied a serious voice.
'Yeah… that's me. Who is it?'
'I'm calling from the Presbyterian Hospital. I'm sorry to inform you that your wife suffered a heart failure… We couldn't do anything to save her…We're terribly sorry'
She kept on contemplating a picture in which they held one of their nieces. Tension gave way to crying and it gave way to anguish and rage. She burst into tears and hit furiously and helplessly the back of the front seat. Her sister pulled over and hurried out of the car.
'I shouldn't have let her alone…' she regretted in between anguished sobs 'She… she didn't deserved this…It wasn't her fault… none of it was her fault…'
'Look at me! It's not your fault either, you hear me?' her sister told her, while she curled up in a ball of flesh 'It's not your fault…'
All of her relatives and friends were gathered at the cemetery. The priest made noise, just like the rest. She was deaf during the service. The words of her acquaintances resounded in her head, but she barely could recognize the meanings. They shook her hand, but her gaze was lifeless.
They say routine is the only weapon capable of destroying love. But it was a metastasis that took care of the dirty job. It killed an entire life and almost seven years of another one. It killed the view of the future, the shared dreams. Once again, death beat hope.
Sorry I wrote such a sad story. Actually, I wrote it a long time ago and just wanted to post and share it. I know you already hate me for this, but if you read it while listening to Dave Thomas' Our Story, it will be better (indeed, you'll hate me even more, because it's such a beautiful and tear-jerking song).
I promise the next fic will be a happy one :)