I didn't say a word. Not through the service. Not through the wake. Nor through the watery smiles and tearful condolences of the people who'd attended Jasper Midford's funeral. The old history professor had died at eighty four years young as he called it, quiet suddenly, at least to everyone else. What Grandpa had failed to tell me was that for months now, his heart had been giving him trouble. Maybe he hadn't wanted to worry me…Maybe he'd just been too stubborn to admit it even to himself. I had noticed him becoming less and less lively as the school year slowly faded from winter, to spring and slowly into summer; odd, since the old man was typically a spitfire. Then just a week after the spring semester at the local college had ended, his heart had finally given out. It almost didn't surprise me… He never let anything interrupt his class schedule, not even his own failing health.
I walked back toward his-my…house, tucking a loose lock of dark blonde hair that had been blown out from its place in my long braid because of the wind. In our small town, most people drove, but the cemetery was close enough to the house that I'd elected to walk. The trek gave me plenty of time to think without the pitying looks from Grandpa's colleagues and friends. The "He was such a good man"s and the "Don't worry Sera, it's going to get better"s. I was almost upset at the weather…how dare such a horrible day be beautiful? The sun was shining in a bright blue sky, warming the earth but the breeze, left over from spring kept the air just cool enough to be comfortable. Birds chirped and sang, and squirrels ran through the branches of the big oak trees that lined our brick laid driveway.
Almost all my life I'd lived with him in that big wooden house, just the two of us. Mom had passed when I was four from a car accident. In an attempt to miss hitting drunk driver, she'd accidentally swerved and hit one of the trees on the side of the back road they'd been on. The guy didn't even stop driving. I didn't know where my father was, and I didn't care to. He'd never been around, not that it really mattered. He knocked up my mother when she was twenty three, skipped town and never looked back. Good riddance. Grandpa…he was all I had.
I let out a shaky breath as I closed the big pine door behind me, the ever present key stuck in the interior lock, sticking as always. The dark house was illuminated only by the sun that poured through the big colonial windows. It seemed so empty without him here. Usually, when I got home there would be old music playing from his office, just off to the right of the entrance hall, his door closed if he was grading papers or tests or working on his latest book…examining the latest ancient text or artifact…on the phone debating with his peers from other colleges about the latest discoveries and theories…Now it was just unnerving silence. The house had never felt emptier despite everything in it.
I kicked off my black pumps at the door, putting my purse on the small side table. It had been a long day, and still it wasn't over. I still had many things I needed to do so that I could put this all behind me. Tomorrow I was going to go to campus to clean out his office; I figured that the sooner it was done the sooner I could mourn his loss in peace without the condescending condolences. I walked up the creaky old stairs, the slightly rough feeling of the worn-out oriental rug that ran down the length of the upstairs hallway a familiar comfort. I could vaguely remember running up and down it when I was little, playing pretend that I was like the heroes in the legends that Grandpa used as my bedtime stories.
The hall was lined in old photos from all over, with more faces than I could ever hope to name. Extended family, old and current colleges and friends of Grandpa's and so many locations that it was like looking through windows into other worlds. In each one was the big mustachioed smile that had been my comfort for the last twenty years. I pressed my lips into a thin line and screwing my eyes tightly shut, silently willing tears not to flow. I could cry when all of this was over.
The old hinges on my door at the end of the hall creaked as I opened it. It would be impossible to ever sneak out if I'd ever tried. Not that I did, I preferred my books than going out with other people my age. Frankly I found social events uncomfortable. I'd always been a loner in high school since no one had really shared my interests, save for a brief period in middle school when everyone had been obsessed with Percy Jackson books, something I never really got into. College was no different. I kept to myself and preferred to come home to my comfort zone. Of course, it didn't help that Half of the people I would have talked to in my classes knew I was related to our history professor. I was following in his footsteps, a history major with a literature minor that I admittedly had no idea what to do with.
My back popped as I stretched out on the firm mattress, closing my eyes one arm draped over them in exhaustion. My room was simple. Faded blue wallpaper was decorated with various pictures, both photographed and sketched, though the latter were admittedly not very high quality. I loved writing in my spare time, and I found that drawing out the places and people for my ideas made them easier to remember. When I first started, I'd hated them, having every intention to throw them away when I was done, but Grandpa had insisted that I keep them.
'All art comes from the soul. As you grow, your talents grow with you. You wouldn't throw away your old baby pictures, would you?' He'd say, taping them up despite my protests. It had eventually become habit and I began keeping anything I sketched that spoke to me. Looking back, he was right; he often was. The first batch were awful. But the more I did it the better I got, and my progress was on full display around the tiny computer desk that was up against one wall near the window overlooking the back yard.
Most of them were from his stories though. As a history professor, he had one for every mood I could have been in, both about real people and their myths, though he specialized in regions in Europe. These were the stories he had been most passionate about, and the ones that were cemented into my memory.
"Ya know hun, Dr. Midford was such a nice old man…Always had kids coming in and out during office hours. The poor things would go in lookin' so stressed and come out lookin' like he'd given them his exam key." Ms. Jordan was a tall thin lady on the later side of forty but the kind who dressed like she was a twenty something year old herself. She was one of the aid's in Hanson Hall, the history building where Grandpa's office was. She was the type of lady who I could have seen trying to be a "cool mom" if she had ever decided to have kids. She was nice enough, but she had the type of personality that made my skin crawl.
"Um…Yeah." Looking around at the fluorescent lit hallway of the third floor, I tapped my foot against the white tiles as she fitted the spare key into the lock an armload of folded cardboard boxes the only thing I had been able find in the dusty old attic to transport his things in. I'd spent most of the morning riffling through the desk in Grandpa's home office looking for his key. Unfortunately, the esteemed head of my college's history department was in no way, shape, or form organized and my digging only made things worse, so I was reduced to asking for help getting into his office. The University had assured me that I had plenty of time to get everything, but I had figured the sooner I got it done the sooner I wouldn't have to come back.
I was going to Athens in a week to escort some artifacts Grandpa had been meaning to take. Before I was born, Grandpa and my Granny had been doing a lot of work trying to reclaim privately owned artifacts and return them to museums. They'd go to for a couple of months to visit Europe every few summers or so. It was an opportunity for him to be immersed in the historical locations they had loved so much while also going some good. There was one time when I was maybe nine or ten when I had compared him to Indiana Jones and received a lecture about the inaccurate representation of archaeology in media that had put an end to any plans I may or may not have had to go running around with various treasures and whipping bad guys.
According to him, they had spent a lot of their savings to reclaim said items. It was why she worked until she died a couple of years before I was born and he had put off long as he did, though he would have denied it, claiming it was love of the job or that he 'couldn't stand sitting on his ass in front of a tv somewhere when there was work to be done.' It was just the kind of man that he was. He had always said that the history of a people, belongs to the people. He believed that no one person should own history because history was never about one person. The last round of artifacts they'd reclaimed never got back to Greece, though I never really knew why. I imagine that he would have taken everything back sooner if clearing customs was easier or if he was a decade or so younger.
I wouldn't be going for long. Just two weeks to make everything got to the right place. There wasn't much to get, two amphorae, a statue of a bull, one sword that looked like a kopis with a more curved blade, and about a dozen obols. Just enough to make me nervous about not supervising. I was lost in thought, not paying much attention as I mechanically unfolded and filled each box with various papers, pictures, several mugs that had missing from the house and a dead succulent that looked like the last time it had been watered was the day he'd bought it. Neither of us had ever had much of a green thumb. My thinking was periodically interrupted by the irritating snapping of Ms. Jordan popping her chewing gum. The woman was just standing in the door, scrolling through an iPhone that, judging by the scratches on the case, had seen better days. I wished that she would leave or at least help but the trickster gods of old myth and legend were no help in modern America.
I folded up the last box, having periodically made trips down to put them in my old 2012 Honda. I was thankful that it was going to be the last trip because the one elevator in Hanson was notorious for getting stuck between floors, so I'd never made a habit of using them. It was exhausting, but two years of walking up and down the history building stairs kept my legs in nice enough shape to flatter my petite frame. At a whopping 5'2" I had never been considered tall so staying in decent shape was about all I could do in my comfort zone to not look like a fourteen-year-old. I hoisted the box up onto my hip, walking toward the door when the aid sighed, pulling me into what was, in my opinion, the most awkward hug of my young life.
"Ya know Sera…If you ever need someone to talk to, to go get pedis with, to go shopping with, I'm justa call away." She made an odd cooing 'ohm' sound, squeezing me tighter a moment, her thin frame jabbing my curved one painfully. The smell of hairspray on her shoulder length russet curls putting a bad taste in the back of my mouth.
"Thanks Ms. Jordan. I'll be sure to keep that in mind." I forced a smile, but she didn't seem to notice the strain. She beamed, closing and locking the door back behind us as we walked out into the empty hall.
Her heels clacked against the floor as we walked toward the stairs. Luckily for me, she was slowed down by having to grip the banister, carefully taking each step down as to not break an ankle. I could never understand her. Sure, she was nice, but our personalities were opposite. I had one pair of pumps for formal occasions and the rest of the time I was in boots, converse, flip flops or barefoot. I preferred comfort to style and function to fashion. I'd never been one for makeup, save for a little eyeliner and mascara to make my bluish gray eyes pop. Appearances had just never been that important to me and if living in a small town small midsized town had taught me anything it was that they were often skin deep.
I waved goodbye to her when I reached the ground floor, having to look up as she was still a floor and a half above me on the landings. Yeah, she was nice enough. But I simply couldn't see myself every being close to anyone but Grandpa. Now that he was gone… I managed to get to my car before the I lost it. My eyes stung, my forehead leaning forward on the steering wheel, surrounded by boxes, Thank God exams were over and all of the students had left for the summer. Before I was a loner, but now I was completely alone.