I'm finally back! Yass! Translating is a pain in the ass, but a necessary one (?).
I'd suggest reading this while listening to Daughter's Departure, or Flaws, or Glass, or any song of "Music from Before the Storm" album.
A huge thanks to SheAlwaysDies, for helping me with this chapter and showering me in compliments. This wouldn't be out as fast if it wasn't for your enthusiasm. And to my dear friend Scampy, The Queen of Angst(TM) for helping setting the tone for this chapter and supporting me even if I taint her favorite franchise with my angst, lol.
It was both a haunting and overwhelming feeling, to enter the house again and be welcomed with silence.
In the past five days, every time Elsa climbed the three cobblestone steps and went through the double entry doors, she never knew whether to feel relieved or disturbed that the pictures on the wall weren't broken to pieces on the floor. And if it weren't because she was usually accompanied by a relative, her parents' mugs would continue to gather mold in the dishwasher. Colors waiting for owners that would never arrive.
It was silent and peaceful. Unchanging quietness. Sunlight streaming through the window and bathing in heavenly light all the empty spaces, the gaps, the obvious absence. While the birds sang in their little nest by the backyard tree, as it was usual during summer.
Leaving the keys over the hall coat rack, the one made of oak where they used to make faces with Anna by its mirror, now felt like the action of a stranger invading someone else's space. But very similar to her own, at the same time. This was her home, after all. It still was, right? All her things were here, and her parents' and Anna's. Memories of quiet childhoods in cardboard boxes in the storage room by the garage. The smiley face made of stars in one of the bedroom corners, with her desk, her built-in wardrobe, and the bathroom that was practically hers.
This was Elsa's space. Even if privacy was more of an abstract concept than practical reality. These were her corners, her little spaces, her cushions to hug when she wanted to watch TV, or read a book.
The only thing of her own that remained.
However, the second she was left alone, the walls would begin to speak. Tranquil, increasing whispers that started with remembering the most mundane things. Afternoons of fun and games, holidays, family outings. Each step to the second floor made them stronger, uncovering the layers to reach reality. The trot became a gallop that set the heart rate pounding in the ears. It got colder, volumes went higher, and a lot of why's soaked the skin with bad memories. Memories that reminded her of the reasons why she did many things. For which she took many risks.
The times she woke up with bruises at six in the morning to turn off the alarm and get a few more minutes of sleep. Or the times where not even the red marks from the boiling water could rip the cold off her skin. Or those in which her eyes wandered to the stars and mentally repeated the reasons why she shouldn't force herself to stop breathing. The consequences that it would have. The times the humid cold took her breath away and there seemed to be no way back.
Elsa hated this place.
Right?
No, no. She didn't hate it. She hated the part of her that appreciated it.
Elsa liked the space in itself, the house. Its decoration was a mixture of modern with furniture of waved edges, dark colors, and gold handles. It accompanied the space instead of overloading them, accentuated those corners that Elsa knew well. That allowed her the luxury of disappearing a few hours before reality appeared from behind without warning and concealed footsteps.
At the same time, her aunt and uncle's house meant sharing a room with her little sister. To live with her again. Share the same spaces. Share time. Without fears or any alerts. To the point that sitting down to watch the first low-budget movie they saw on Netflix required no questions. It was simple, mutual understanding.
Until she noticed how Anna sometimes seemed too afraid to let her go. As if she was scared Elsa would disappear too.
That's when all those why's became apparent. When guilt found another excuse to gnaw at her from the inside, once night fell and Elsa found herself in the company of silence, trying to remember what she did in the day.
Or trying to figure out how she felt about what happened on Saturday. Or Wednesday. Or Sunday, for that matter.
However, today was not one of those days of inevitable disaster. Today was Thursday.
Today was the day where the entire funeral process took place.
Elsa learned a lot of things, these past five days. Many that she wished she never had to know about.
Turns out that wakes can be held during the day, instead of following the tradition of a whole night vigil and a burial the following morning. Funeral homes adapt to any type of situation. So when that turns to be too expensive, the solution appears as short wakes of five or six hours.
Neither is it necessary to dress in black. Another lie by films of Anglo-Saxon customs that only created false expectations. What was expected were sober outfits, leaning towards formality, as a way of showing respect. Still, Elsa found herself in black pants and a matching gray blouse. Clothes that perhaps now would be stained with too many memories to be worn a second time.
It was all part of a spontaneously coordinated plan, as they knew the dates since Tuesday, and then it was a matter of Elsa being the carrier pigeon between both sides of the family to reach an agreement. Everything was planned down to the last detail. The wreaths, the ornaments, the materials, the place, the schedules. And sometimes, when her mind let her take a break and she fell between the empty spaces left by the cold, Elsa couldn't help but think that all of this felt forced.
Who decided when to cry or when it was the right time to say goodbye? Who said what was real and what contempt if a certain amount of money was not spent? The death business? The hospital protocols? The relatives' whispers behind their back?
Despite the gaps and the contradictions, Elsa didn't dare say a word about it. There were customs to follow, general rules, and in any case, her opinion wouldn't be worth much.
Elsa wasn't even sure she said a word during all that time between the first porcelain stone step of the funeral home and the last marble step of the cemetery. No, no. It couldn't be. Yes, she did accept condolences, as expected. Her parents wouldn't have liked her to be impolite at a time like this. They would have let her know with a disapproving look, or a slight gesture, or a pinch on the arm if necessary.
Elsa always acted the way it was expected. Empty doll and paper mache stage.
And despite the number of people she was surrounded by, she felt alone amidst blurred faces. That played with time and kindness, with her struggles to process voices. As if this was easy. As if Elsa could come and go from the regrets just like them and everything would be solved once the caskets were closed and meters underground.
But it was Elsa who was left standing, at the edge, looking at everything that was and everything that was not. Alone.
Alone, with the condolences etched in the unconscious. The tones, the words, the intentions. Not the common ones that went over her head. The ones that didn't make an effort to hide their grief, that came with physical contact that burned like the little scars Elsa hid under layers of clothing. All of them had a common factor: a comment, an anecdote, that something else completely unnecessary. As if reminders were needed. As if there were doubts.
As if it were implicit, hidden under the phrases, that "you see that you were exaggerating, Elsa? Wasn't everything you already did enough that you had to go and kill them too? Was it necessary?"
Was it, really? Yes, it was. Somehow.
Because of unconscious desires or ideas. Or the things she needed to get rid of. Or the slightest spark of joy at the idea that was still there to this day. Shining with guilty luster every time Elsa realized this wasn't an eternal vacation at her aunt and uncles' house.
She sought to be there for her younger sister, as she knew Anna needed consolation for parents she hardly saw in recent years. Elsa was with her to take the first step into the rooms, watching her left hand get squeezed by Anna's right. Winter paleness of pinks, lilacs, and blues, wrapped in summer with orange freckles and golden tans. Elsa didn't feel the pain, nor the cold, nor the trembling of her hands.
She looked around for her, from time to time. Making sure Anna was surrounded by the people who protected her from all the truths. With whom Elsa would be grateful for life, for taking care of her sister when she could barely take care of herself. Anna was fine with competent people nearby, and with Elsa doing her part from a distance.
But that would no longer be necessary. It was the reason they were here today. Why she was here today.
Both sides of her family agreed that while in the same place, the wakes would be held separately. The idea of their parents as one single entity, finally split in two. It felt somewhat strange, but it was better than going through this whole process twice.
Even though Elsa would have liked this to stay on the logical-yet-impossible list of wishes.
Her mom's room is where she entered holding Anna's hand, where reality started to fall on her. Where the lines lost meaning, the heat became a foreing concept only for the cold fluttering on the skin. There was no need to repeat any mantra or to ask herself to stay composed. Maybe a tear or two fell through her cheeks, for all those things she never said to her, for all the hugs that she didn't reciprocate as much as she would have liked. Elsa wasn't sure. She wasn't there. She wasn't sure that she was there, or that she wanted to be.
Perhaps it would have been better not to be.
The room where her father was, the one where the light was white despite the stained glass windows, she waited until it was empty, amidst a crowd of people of blurred shapes and lines.
She came to within a safe distance, but not too close. Feeling the cold of white tiles and golden columns fall on her to burn her bones from the inside out, frosting her skin. Freezing the air and breaking the crystal of her lungs with each contraction, causing its edges to turn against themselves.
He was there, under the golden hue of Christ's Crucifix. Pale. Dead.
Cold.
Elsa didn't dare take another step. For the fear that it was nothing more than simple deception, an illusion. A dream that would end the second she stepped forward, made an idea of movement.
She thought that there would be no more sporadict history lessons, or anecdotes of her grandfather and their relatives from Northern Germany. Or those days of series and movies and spoiling her with homemade junk food.
Or the number of times he said he was sorry that turned out to be a lie.
Or those in which he spoke of affection and care that didn't really exist.
And the bile rose up to the tip of her tongue, when she remembered all those times that ended with Elsa turning into ice and breaking into pieces.
Would he know now, what it was like to feel like that? The pain of snow when it detaches from the bones, when it melts under the scorching heat and only the threads of steam remain as proof of its existence? Had he ever come to understand it?
For a moment, an instant, it occurred to Elsa to stop digging her nails around her elbows. Rest a hand with purple nails over his, placed one on top of the other at the stomach. Border white knuckles with dead colored digits. Prove if it would really feel like touching the arctic.
But Elsa discarded the idea as soon as it appeared. She wasn't going to take responsibility for the cold that managed to freeze his heartbeat, no matter how many times she wished otherwise.
Elsa didn't want it to look like an act of affection, either. She already acted too many, forgiven too many.
How could this be a closure?
How could it not be, at the same time? If everything that had to be done was already done.
"People make mistakes.
Living in resentment ruins your life."
She saw them. Both of them. Her parents. Saw their caskets close under faces full of lament. The never ending caravan that accompanied them to the cemetery. The world that kept spinning in the background with it's midday traffic. She saw the priest in the chapel give his blessings. The caskets go down until the only thing left were temporary wooden crosses and removed soil.
Elsa saw all the things that could never be again. The obtained freedoms and the weights lifted off her shoulders. The nice childhoods that would remain in the memory and the unbroken photographs in an empty house.
She saw the hope of stop pretending and being able to be.
Perhaps that was the other reason they were here for, too. Right? To be, at last.
It was the easiest way out. The one that brought no consequences and left room for all its perks.
And now, under the guardianship of the stars her sister put up on her own, under the strong glow that fascinated them the first time they turned the lights off when they were little, full of innocence. Now, she couldn't help but think that perhaps it had also been the best option. The best way out.
Elsa thought about the first stars, the ones in the bedroom of a ghost house. In that smiley face on a corner that lost its meaning. In how old and weary the plastic looked like from all the horrors they witnessed. And she liked the idea of them falling off the ceiling and covering the floor, having served its purpose of offering comfort in tough times.
Maybe these stars would shine under all good memories, good times. Carefully padded shoulders.
"Annie?" whispered Elsa, hearing the hoarseness in her own voice. It was obvious she had been crying until recently. On her own and in silence, as she knew how. Anna dragged her to her bed when she noticed, like she did when they were children.
"Hm?"
It's not that Elsa didn't want to, she just didn't want to be a bother. But Anna was more bothered by the fact of her sister crying alone than in a shared space. She was like that, involved in the needs of others with all the affection it implied. She was always there.
Elsa looked for her sister's hand under the covers, the one that wasn't hugging an old teddy bear. She held it and gave it a little squeeze, hoping it would say everything her vocal cords couldn't make the effort to pronounce.
"I missed you. Lots."
She was going to miss them. Her chest ached just thinking about it.
But she missed peace more.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the spark in the eyes of her little sister, the one Elsa did everything to protect, the one with cotton shoulders. The one who was happy for both of them.
She felt a hand squeeze hers. Strong, warm, comforting.
"I missed you too, Els."
Perhaps this was the end of all the bad things, indeed.
I won't say anything except that whatever your theories are, they might be right. Or not. Who knows. Not me. I can't confirm or deny anything. But I can confirm that comments are an author's serotonin :).
Wanna read discarded drafts? The location of this story? Clothes headcanons? Anna with short hair? Check out the hashtags "Whats left unsaid" and "yes yes this is wlu" on my Tumblr, Snowmanmelting *finger guns*