Everyone wants a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next.
Gilda Radner
--
Knock.
Knock.
Susan stirs in bed. The knocking sound continues, reverberating through Susan's exhausted mind. She distinctly hears dry sobs from outside, and liquid sloshing around in a bottle. 'Open up!' someone shouts, and Susan cracks open her eyes. She looks at the tiny clock on her nightstand, and sees that it is four in the morning, hardly a time for anyone to be visiting.
Susan is suddenly terrified; what if it was a thief?
'Susan!' the person yells loudly, voice thick and choked. Susan recognizes the voice.
Susan gets out of bed, shivering. She hobbles over to her front door, and the wild breathing gets loudly. Susan opened the door after unlocking various locks, and there Mrs. Portman was, holding a green bottle labeled 'Scotch' and wearing her nightgown. Her eyes are bloodshot, and her hair is flying everywhere. She is swaying slightly on her feet, and she stares blearily up at Susan. Susan notices that the scotch bottle is half-empty.
Susan feels rather disoriented; why would Mrs. Portman come and visit her in the middle of the night? She gapes at Mrs. Portman for a while before the drunken woman forcefully barges in Susan's apartment, banging her shin on the door frame in the process.
'Mrs. Portman!' Susan exclaims, and shakes the sleep from her body.
'Susan!' she slurs loudly, and her voice bounces off the walls of Susan's cramped apartment. Susan notices that there are tear tracks on her wrinkled cheeks; it is evident that she had been crying.
Mrs. Portman stumbles to her living-room, and Susan hurries after her, stretching her arms out, alarmed, when Mrs. Portman twirls around and nearly falls flat on the floor, a trip that would certainly cause a lot of damage to a woman her age. Susan flips open a switch, and the living-room is illuminated.
'Susan…' she croaks, and sinks down on Susan's red couches. 'I have something to tell you.' she closes her eyes, and motions for Susan to sit down too.
Susan is still in a state of shock, and she attempts to negotiate with Mrs. Portman; she obviously had no idea what she was doing. 'Why not tell me tomorrow, Mrs. Portman?' she wheedles, and walks over to her stationary form. 'I'm sure it could wait until tomorrow.'
'No!' Mrs. Portman says loudly. 'This is important… I want to…' she slurs, and slumps down on the couch. For a moment, Susan thinks she might have fallen asleep. She tiptoes over, and Mrs. Portman's finger lifts up wearily, pointing towards the char opposite of Mrs. Portman. Susan sits down reluctantly, and waits to see what Mrs. Portman had to say.
This is ridiculous, Susan thought fleetingly.
'Have you ever done anything you've regretted for the rest of your life?' Mrs. Portman utters, and she lifts her head up, looking at Susan straight in the eye.
Susan feels her heart stop, and she closes her eyes.
'Yes.' she says.
'Well, whatever you've done, it's nothing compared to me.' Mrs. Portman says darkly, suddenly sober.
If only she knew.
Mrs. Portman takes a swig of scotch. She gulps it down noisily, wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. Susan waits patiently, heart thumping. She gets the feeling that this conversation might not turn out the way she thought it would.
'I was born on the fourteenth day of March.' she begins. 'My mum went to hell and back with me; she said that I didn't want to come out.' she chuckles humorlessly. 'The second one came out after me.'
Susan stares, brain working furiously.
'Yes, I had a twin.' Mrs. Portman blinks rapidly, eliminating salty tears from her eyes. 'Her name was Geraldine, and I loved--no, love-- her.' she let out rattling breath. 'We were the very best of friends. We dressed alike; we had the same hobbies; we loved the same things… I still remember how we used to fight over the grape flavored sherbets we bought at the local candy store. Candy was dirt-cheap back in those days, you know.'
Mrs. Portman is on a roll now. She falls silent for a while.
'Then…?' Susan urges.
'She died.' she gasps, and starts to cry. Her weeping wracks her entire body, and she buries her face in her hands. The bottle of scotch falls to the floor, Susan watches as it splinters into a million green pieces, some of them glinting in the white light. How easily things break.
'She got cancer when we were twenty-six, and she died when she was twenty-eight. She was so young. Oh, Geraldine.' Mrs. Portman moans through her tears. Susan stands up, and finds that her own eyes are filled with tears. She hugs Mrs. Portman, and cries along with her. They share both of their sorrows, their regrets, and pour them out.
'There's more.' Mrs. Portman wipes her face roughly. Susan leans back, kneeling on the hard floor. 'You saw those trophies in my apartment.'
Susan nods.
'Geraldine was always the one who encouraged me to join all those competitions back then. I was the shier one, and Geraldine was the more outgoing one, but I never resented her for it. I only used to draw for her. Then she died, and I simply… stopped drawing. After her funeral, I tried to sit in front of a blank piece of canvas and try to paint again, but all I came up with was a shiny casket. I threw the canvas away; it was the very last picture I ever painted. I've never touched a paint brush since.'
Susan wants so much to squeeze all this pain out of Mrs. Portman's life right now; and the fact that she still kept all those trophies after all these years hurt even more. She pats her withered hand, and hates that this is the only thing she can do right now.
'I'm so very sorry for your loss.' Susan whispers. She debates telling Mrs. Portman about her own losses, but then decides that she already has a lot weighing down her world-weary shoulders.
'I had a baby daughter. She was born out of wedlock.' Mrs. Portman states abruptly. 'She was six when Geraldine died--' she chokes on the word "died". '--and she suffered the most. I retreated into myself after my twin sister died; it was as though nothing in my life mattered anymore. I neglected her, and both of us grew further apart. I stopped cooking entirely, and the house was in shambles. It wasn't long before the neighbors started prying, and they found out how I was treating my only daughter. The authorities came, and they took her away from me.' she sobs. 'The worst part was I didn't even try to stop them.
'I still remember the look she gave me when she left. I was sitting down in the driveway of my house, and she turned around. She gave me a look full of-- of everything. Guilt, accusation, blame, fear, uncertainty. It broke my heart. I never heard from her since. The authorities phoned time to time to tell me how she was doing, and they even sent pictures. I never looked at them.'
Mrs. Portman falls silent this time, alone in her grieving.
Susan is utterly horrified. To have a child taken away from you like that… it was inhuman. Susan tried to imagine what life was like for Mrs. Portman for all these years: alone in her apartment, trying to fend for herself in this world.
Susan strokes her hand in comforting circles on Mrs. Portman's back, and hopes that this helps a little bit. Mrs. Portman's sobs lessen, and twenty minutes pass.
'I'm sorry if I've been a nuisance.' Mrs. Portman speaks, her voice gravelly.
'No… I just wish I could do more.' Susan says truthfully, suppressing tears.
'I'll best be going now. And thank you for letting me in your apartment.' Mrs. Portman thanks her, her voice full of emotion.
'Not at all.' Susan insists.
She opens the front door for Mrs. Portman, and she exits.
Susan is struck with a question, and she calls out hurriedly before Mrs. Portman disappears down the stairs.
'Mrs. Portman! What was your daughter's name?'
The old woman pauses, her right leg out. 'I named her Majorie Portman. The authorities phoned me a year later and told me she had changed her surname to Preston, so that she could deny ever being related to me.' she sighs deeply, and continues down the stairs. 'Goodnight, Susan.'
Majorie Preston.
Majorie Preston.
Susan is bowled over by the coincidence, and she smiles widely. An unfamiliar joy rises unbearably somewhere in her chest, and she rejoices at the fact that she might actually be able to do something for Mrs. Portman.
Author's Note: Please tell me what you think. Is the fact that Majorie Preston is Mrs. Portman's daughter a little too cheesy? Or is it fairly okay? The next chapter will feature Majorie writing an extremely confused letter back to Susan, demanding just who this is (she knows that Lucy already died in the train crash). Susan writes back, and… dun dun dun! Oh, and thank you to all those who thoughtfully sent me Majorie Preston's full name!
Oh yes, and I've started a new fic, Deadly Happenings, and this is the full summary.
The four Kings and Queens have ruled over Narnia for three years, and the land is at peace. But when a chambermaid is found brutally murdered in Cair Paravel, Susan sets out to solve this mystery. But how long will it take for Susan to realize that she might be the next victim of the vicious killer?
Well? Interested? It should be out in the next coupla hours so keep an eye out! I've the whole plot completely mapped out, so you can bet I'm going to finish this! Don't worry, I won't neglect this fic. :)