A/N: Sorry for the late post, I'm a busy girl. By the way, True Blood season finale yesterday! What did you think?
Ch 7
Claire wasn't sure how long she had been laying in her bed, not knowing if she was awake or asleep. Her body felt numb, almost hollow. It was as if she were just a head, or less, a consciousness. She didn't have any thoughts, any words or images, she was just a hovering ball of disbelief.
Her sheets were tangled around her legs from her restless sleep. She laid there for what felt like a lifetime but in reality was just a few minutes. She blinked, the action reminding her of her body. A ball of emotion seemed to fall out of the air and slide back in her body through her pores. The ball filled her hollow shell, making her feel heavy, like wet sand held by a skin casing.
Beep… Beep… Beep…
An aggravated breath of air escaped from Claire's lips as another day officially began. She slowly lifted one of her impossibly heavy arms to slap at her alarm, and once the infernal noise stopped, she moved her other arm to her head, where she attempted to rearrange her face into an expression that looked more awake. She grimaced as she pulled her fingers away from her face; they were sticky and slippery in some places, then dry and crumbly in others. She rolled her eyes as she realized she must have makeup smeared all over her eyes and probably across her pillow from crying.
Claire pushed herself out of bed, feeling less like a bag of wet sand and more like a human shaped piece of solid lead. Her joints seemed to creak and groan in protest as she bent them, her ankles in particular as she shifted her weight onto them. She stood there for a minute, swaying as she got over her lightheadedness from being horizontal for too long. Turning around to face her bed Claire emptied her pillowcase, and then balled it up before tossing it on her bed.
I'll take it down later, she thought, can't let mom see me like this. She found the bathroom and began running the water. She only turned the knob halfway as opposed to her usually 360. She thought that perhaps a colder shower would make her feel less sluggish. After sliding her foot to the ice water, and promptly pulling it out again, she quickly abandoned that idea.
After her shower, Claire pulled a loose t-shirt over her head, stretching the collar to fit over her towel turban. She bent her back to pull on the pair of sweat pants she had found yesterday making her towel fall off her head. Grumbling, she grabbed the towel and wrapped her head again. When it was securely on her head she grabbed her pillowcase and made her way down the hallway to the main staircase that led into the entryway.
As she walked down the stairs, an unfamiliar symphony of sobbing mixed with violent trumpeting hit her ears. Wrinkling her eyebrows, she finished the flight of stairs, turning left to face where the noise was coming from.
"Oh Claire," her mother sniffled, lifting her puffy red face from a dripping tissue, "oh my baby."
The couch springs squeaked as Ms. Winfield got up to hug Claire. She wrapped one arm around Claire's neck, and the other around her lower back, two places she knew weren't as heavily scared and wouldn't cause her pain. The thought that just a hug from her own mother would cause her daughter pain brought a fresh set of tears from Ms. Winfield's eyes. Claire tried hugging her back, but found it incredibly awkward as one of her shoulders was under her mother's armpit despite Claire being taller than she is. She had to bend her knees and give her a squeeze around the waist, a position that would place Claire's face directly in Ms. Winfield's bosom. Awkward….
Ms. Winfield released Claire and brought her hands up to Claire's face, cupping her jaw. She brushed Claire's bangs from her eyes, sniffing.
"Oh my sweet sweet baby," she cooed, pulling a hand away from Claire's face to brush a tear from her cheek.
"Mom, what's wrong?"
"Oh sweetie, it's Adele," started Ms. Winfield, her voice squeaking when she said the name.
She sniffed again, rubbing Claire's cheek with her thumb, and then said, "She passed last night."
Claire paused, trying to remember who Adele was. The name was faintly familiar, but she couldn't place a face to the name. Claire guessed that they must have met after she lost her sight.
"Oh, oh my god," said Claire, realizing she had waited too long to say something. She heard her mother make her way back to the couch and blow her nose.
Claire felt like she should be as upset as her, but she wasn't. She began to feel uncomfortable, like she should do something. She made her way around the coffee table and sat down next to her. She placed an arm around the trembling figure, and began rubbing her back. The position reminded Claire of the nights long ago when she would wake up and forget that she was blind, and how her mother held her close, and rubbed small, soothing circles into her back. She began to move her thumbs like her mom did, and passed on the words that had been whispered to her on those awful nights.
"Shh," hushed Claire, "It's alright."
Claire's mother had stopped crying after a few minutes, saying that she needed to get started on baking "something" for the wake. She let her leave, but had a feeling that she just wanted to be distracted. She would probably cry again later, when Claire wasn't around. Claire picked up her pillowcase from the foot of the stairs where she had dropped it earlier and went down another set of stairs to the basement.
She shuffled across the cold cement floor, small bits of dust and other crumbly things collecting on her bare feet. She accidentally kicked the thick strap to a dusty violin case, evidence of a failed attempt by Ms. Winfield to get Claire involved in music. She turned to where she remembered the laundry machines were, dropping the crumpled pillowcase in a basket sitting atop of the dryer, then tossing the clothes that were in it around a bit so that her mother wouldn't see the make-up smeared pillowcase and ask questions.
Back in the kitchen, Ms. Winfield was looking through her cookbook with blurry eyes for a recipe that she had all the ingredients too. A tear dropped on the picture from a recipe for Banana bread. She whipped the tear off the page whilst scanning the counter for the two half-rotten bananas that were sitting there yesterday. Spotting them, she rubbed her eyes and turned back to the recipe to find the rest of the ingredients.
The soft padding sound of two feet drew her attention from the cookbook again. She looked up to see Claire walking over to the cabinet next to the sink, one that held various cooking instruments and some boxes of cereal. Ms. Winfield wiped her eyes again, grateful that Claire would never be able to see her like this. She remembered the first time she had seen her own mother in tears and it was scary, to see a woman whom she thought was so strong be so terribly fragile.
She watched Claire find the box of Froot Loops, her favorite cereal since she was a kid. Memories of her as a small child, a happy sighted toddler with no scars came to her, and brought a fresh set of tears to her eyes. She quickly sniffed and wiped them away, going back to distracting herself with reading the recipe.
Claire was in her room, looking through her bedside table's drawer for her sunglasses. Ms. Winfield had left for the wake an hour ago, wearing waterproof makeup and carrying a fresh loaf of banana bread. She had given Claire the option to come with her, but she declined. She would feel guilty going to the wake of a person she barely knew, not to mention how awkward it would be surrounded by a group of people you barely know. She felt bad, leaving her mother alone when she was grieving. She tried to convince herself that her mom wouldn't want her daughter to comfort her, and that she would only be a burden to her.
Claire promptly slid on her wayfarers upon finding them, adjusting their thick black rims so they comfortably sat on her nose. She usually was fine with staying home alone all day with nothing to do, but today she couldn't handle it. The lack of stimulation put her on edge, made her jumpy and irritated, so she decided to take a walk. She hit a large button on her clock and listened as it told her the time was 4:47. She began running her hands through her hair while walking out of her room, untangling the mess.
At the front door, she picked up her white cane from its reclined position in the coat closet, sliding her hand through the loop at the end. After slipping on a worn pair of leather flip-flops, she opened the front door and embraced the late afternoon sun. She followed the stone path from her front porch to the driveway, then made her way to the sidewalk. Swinging the cane in an arc slightly wider than she was, she began walking away from her house. She focused for a minute on getting a rhythm going, but once she had it, her mind began to wander to last night.
This wasn't this first time she had thought about the events of last night. During her shower, while she was eating breakfast, lunch, and the time in between she had thought about his questions, wondering why he asked them, why he was so interested. She thought that the vampire who tried to take her in the bar had sent him, to find out how she knew about the police raid. Claire guessed that the vampire probably owned or managed the bar due to her concern about minors, so maybe she sent an employee. The only other employee she knew was the bartender, but his voice was not the voice of the man she met last night.
The nameless man, she thought. For some reason it irritated her how little she knew about him. It felt unfair that she didn't even know his name, while he knew her biggest secret.
What did he mean when he said he would come back? Did he mean tonight, tomorrow, next week, or was it just to keep me quiet? Will he come back to take me away, to kidnap me?
Claire didn't really think that the man would try to kidnap her; he would have done so last night if he hadreally wanted to. But what she was concerned about was what he would do when he "came back". She tried to come up with a scenario, something he might do, but she drew a blank.
"I will come back…"
Claire repeated the memory in her mind, his definite tone making her heart flutter as she was reminded of his promise. Her cane suddenly hit air as the sidewalk ended and a street began. Claire stopped walking, surprised at herself for reaching the limits of her neighborhood. She had the sudden urge to just keep walking, to leave this place and the man with it. She sighed, dropping her shoulders that were stuck to her shirt with sweat. She lifted her hair from the back of her neck to let it breathe before turning around.
He found me once, he'll do it again.
Claire entered the front door, sweating a bit more than she would have liked. Louisiana heat was brutal, and the mosquitoes that had come out on her way home were even worse. She scratched at a fresh bite on her ankle before propping her cane back up in the closet.
"Hey Claire,"
Claire jump out of her skin at the noise, making her sunglasses slip down her sweaty nose. The voice began chuckling, and in those chuckles, Claire found her mother.
"You scared me half to death!" exclaimed Claire, pulling her sunglasses the rest of the way off her nose, folding them up in her hands.
"I'm sorry sweetie," said Ms. Winfield, setting down the book she had been reading. "Where did you go?"
"I went on a walk. To clear my head," she added. "Why are you home so early?"
"We were, umm…" started Ms. Winfield. She didn't want to say what she was thinking, which was that everyone was kicked out of the Stackhouse estate by the loud Tara Thornton after the peculiar Sookie Stackhouse had an outburst. "We were asked to leave early."
"Oh,"
"Tomorrow is the…is the funeral," said Ms. Winfield, gently. "Are you o.k. to come with me?"
"Uhh, yeah."
"Pick out what you're wearing tomorrow when you go upstairs then, alright?"
Claire nodded eager to leave the awkward conversation. She turned to leave before Ms. Winfield could continue and, upon seeing her leave, Ms. Winfield returned to her reading. Claire continued walking into the kitchen, trading her sunglasses for an apple from the bowl sitting on the island counter. Taking a bite, she went up the hidden stairs, heading towards her bedroom. Opening the door she encountered a smell, one that was slightly musty, like an attic, but with a hint of spice to it.
Did his smell linger from yesterday? Did it smell like this this morning?
"Hello Ms. Winfield."
Claire dropped her apple.
