English is not my first language. Forgive my typos and grammar mistakes (or bad word choices). I just write for fun.
"I'm leaving, are you coming?" Siegfried asks only for formality.
"Just a minute!"
He watches while Mrs. Hall performs her rituals. First she looks around the kitchen giving that usual last check that everything is in its proper place. Then she takes off her apron and places it on the hook by her bedrom's door. She puts on her hat, puts on her coat, hangs the bag on her arm and finally puts on her gloves. Always in that order, invariably. Sometimes he wonders if she does it consciously. Probably not.
Siegfried doesn't wait for her and strides down the corridor. It is a beautiful spring morning, still a little cold, but perfect for a walk. He stops at the exam rooms door, Mrs. Hall is right behind, and announces to James and Tristan he is going out. They nod and he deliberately ignores his brother's concerned look.
It is easy to chat to Audrey Hall, that was something he learned in the same week she arrieved at this house, and they talk about their banalities from home and the boys all the way to church walking side by side.
The sermon is satisfactory. He prays out of habit. He did it all his life and continues to do it, but he doesn't have her faith. His eyes are drawn to her, especially in times of prayer, when she joins her hands, closes her eyes and concentrates. She prays for her son, for Tristan, for James, for himself, for the Alderson girls and whoever needed it most. She didn't focus on herself even on her prayers, because she is good like that and he knows it.
It wasn't uncommon for him to pray for her, for her and her son to come closer, for her to be happy, for her to stay with them at Skeldale House. But today he doesn't do that. Today he just focuses on watching her and tries to keep his hands still until the end of the mass.
He never invited her, or anyone else to be totally honest, to accompany him in that last step, but when people leave church and they find themselves alone, he gets up and looks at her.
"Come on then, Mrs. Hall."
Usually this was the time when he would go alone and she would wait for him to return by the church door, but that morning she just watches him closely and follows him with her head down as they walk by the side wall of the church and arrive at the small cemetery.
Five years ago in that same day he stopped completely numb with pain beside a hole in the ground and saw Evelyn being buried. Today, however, when he stops there he sees a well-kept headstone with fresh flowers. It is easy to know who placed the small wild flower arrangement there, they are her favorites and she sometimes buys them. He had seen the small vases and one usually was placed on the kitchen table.
Siegfried looks over his shoulder, but Mrs. Hall is still with her head down, her gaze fixed on a random spot on the grass, oblivious to him. Siegfried would like to thank the gesture, but while she gives him space to mourning his wife he is more attentive to the living than to the dead.
Carefully he puts the arrangement of white lilies, Evelyn's favorites, next to the headstone and smiles. Longing is what remains at the end. The pain passes, it doesn't matter how hard we cling to it. The pain vanishes like grains of sand until it disappears. All that remains are the good memories and the longing. That's how he feels.
"Hey Eve..." The thought comes to him, but he doesn't know how to continue. In the early years he was unable to articulate anything even in thought. He just lowered his head and let the tears flow for a few minutes. With time... Well with time he managed to at least talk to her a little. "This is Audrey Hall, she..." She takes care of the house? She lives with me? She keeps me company?
He understands that he brought her there to introduce her to Evelyn, even though she probably already knows her from wherever she is. He brought her there to make it official, to get Evelyn's approval and to finally be able to give himself a chance to live again.
"You told me to find someone, do you remember that? We had this ridiculous chat about how life would be if we one of us died and you said to me that I should find someone, that you would be happy if I did. Well, I didn't find someone, she found me instead and I'm glad she did."
"I miss you, sweetheart." His fingertips slide over her name marked on the stone and he smiles. "And I'll always love you."
Love is a funny thing. We are conditioned to think that to be real love has to be unique, but sometimes life teaches us just the opposite. He loves the wife with whom he once shared his life and was happy and yet...
Siegfried gets up and when he turns his eyes finally meet Audrey's. She looks at him with that respectful curiosity, as if she is afraid of exceeding some limit and he would like to say that there is no reason for her to fear anything. She had already broken all limits by sneaking into his heart and taking deep roots there.
"Let's go home, Mrs. H." He says at last and they go the other way around the side of the church.
Everything is peacefull around them and there is no one left. When they reach the sidewalk, he offers her his arm and Audrey studies him hesitantly for a few seconds, but finally relaxes and accepts the arm with a small smile on her lips.
Her eyes have a much bigger smile, he notices.
Their walk home is silent, although they are arm in arm. There is a first time for everything, she supposed.
Audrey felt like an invader witnessing Siegfried's mourning. That was an intimate moment and the kind of thing they had avoided sharing as much as possible until then. He doesn't talk much about Evelyn to her, and she understands, because she doesn't talk about her marriage to him either.
Some things just need to stay in the past and that is exactly the certainty that she has when she sees him offering his arm. The past will finally stay in the past and the future is a blank canvas full of possibilities for both of them, if they want it.
He seems to be calm, almost relieved, as they walk. In the previous year he had been more distant, reserved, introspective. Now, however, he guided her through the streets and she could close her eyes when the sun hit her face directly and take advantage of its warmth for a few seconds to find him watching her when she opened them again.
Audrey just smiled when she caught him and he responded in the same way, with a small smile and that look full of mischief that she perhaps liked a lot more than she would ever admit. And there it is, the future, in that look, in their intertwined arms, in the way that they walk next to each other.
The rest of the day goes like this, quiet and silent. Siegfried spend his morning thanking care of the cash book, she do her house chores and the boys attend the clinic. Everyone gives him space to deal with all the memories and feelings that day brings and she finds herself thinking about her own wedding, that she has also spent years mourning in a way.
She kept her wedding band on her finger partly as a shield and partly a constant reminder that she had a different life. That despite everything there were many happy moments between her and her husband. She was happy until she stopped being happy and letting go of all the bad memories is a process. She misses those happy moments, when they were a family, but those memories no longer hurt her. And although Edward's absence still hurts, everything else is just memories.
Happiness was once again part of her life there with the Farnons, James and Jess, at Skeldale House. She was happy taking care of them, she was happy in their company and she was happy keeping her domain in order. Siegfried Farnon can be irritating and moody, but she was happy beside him and that is why that afternoon, when she takes off her wedding ring to bake some biscuits, she does not put it back.
It is a relief to get rid of that last one tie.
In other years after dinner he would sit down with one of his best whiskey bottles, because that's what he did on those dates. He drank a bottle throughout the night and let the memories flow freely. First the most painful ones, the ones that hurt him deeply and that he cannot cure, but as the drink goes down, the memories become lighter, sweeter and finally diffuse. Usually he found forgetfulness when he reached the bottom of the bottle.
That night, however, he won't do that because those days whenever he sits down with a drink in his hand his thoughts turn towards her. How she walks around the house; how she gives orders and how he obeys them; how she cares for him and how she loves his brother as a son; how Jess became her companion and practically left him aside (until James arrived, so she was also left aside); how she smiles so briefly most of the time and hides the smile within her eyes; and she how her expression totally changes when she allows herself to show her joy.
He finds himself analyzing the moments they shared and how they have fun in the most foolish ways playing scrable, playing cards or even dominoes, like two elderly people; how their heated arguments suddenly end in silence because he knows she's always right and he will do whatever she says, even if reluctantly; how she cares about him and does it openly; how she is always around and knows everything that happens, including what he tries to hide and, sometimes, even what is on his mind; how she controls him with a look and how in the rarely occasion she touches him and nudges him with here elbow she does that with such naturalness as if they often touch each other.
Sometimes, late at night when they are finishing their last game in silence, studying each other for a possible bluff, the whiskey distances him from reality and he thinks about how he would like to touch her; how he would like to take the hair clips out of her hair and run his fingers through them; how he would like to hold her hand during dinner or those matches they played, perhaps even during mass; how he would like her to call him by his first name when she scolded him and how she would say it softly late at night on occasions like that; how he would like to pull her by the hand out of the house and go out with the car wandering aimlessly, just the two of them.
There is no reason for him to reach the bottom of a bottle when he already knows what he would like to say to her, to show her and to make her feel. Because is that what the bottom of the bottle brings him now and release those feelings is a torture that he leaves only for the most desperate moments, in the lonely darkness of his bedroom, when they drown happy pictures in which he allows himself to dive and live of dreams without her being able to capture anything in his expression or in his eyes.
That afternoon, however, he goes up the stairs and enters the main room of the house, the old room he shared with Evelyn and which has remained untouched since she died. Everything is clean and tidy, ready to welcome her back. Her clothes are in the closet, the books on the dresser, the novel she was reading on the nightstand. The room that had been theirs had become hers alone and now it was time to be someone elses.
He's still there when Audrey finds him, half an hour later. Sitting at the foot of the bed, he watches the room through the mirror reflection of the dressing table. When she carefully opens the door, their eyes meet and the smell of shortbread biscuits invades the room.
She doesn't say anything, she just studies him with an allegedly carefree expression, but finally relaxes when she notices he's fine.
"I spent the last week in fear of today and for the first time it doesn't hurt." He says bluntly, touching on the subject he has always made a point of avoiding. "I miss her, but it's not like I don't want to live anymore."
"I think we can say that your grief is over." She says and sits down next to him. "Now there are only the memories of the good times and the loging." She gestures indicating the room.
He nods in agreement and looks at their reflection in the mirror. At any other time he would blame himself for being there with her, that would be a betrayal of Evelyn's memory, and yet, now, he could only notice how suitable they are together.
"It's time to collect all these things and give the room for one of the boys. This room needs life and new memories, and so do I." He says.
"Are you sure?" She looks at him with curiosity, attention and hope.
"Absolutely."
Siegfried watches her closely. She opens her mouth to say something, but then closes and shakes her head. Whatever it is he respects her decision not to say anything at that moment. Another time she will definitely comment whatever goes in her head. There is much to be said, but not there, not today
He wants to spend every night in her company, wants to wrap his arms around her and curl up with her, wants to invite her to dinner and tell her how he feels about her and make a fool of himself, because of course she knows and will say it to him, but he wants her to listen about it from his mouth, to be sure. And then he sees in the mirror when she reaches his hand with hers. Her fingers slide smoothly over his palm and it is surprisingly natural how their fingers intertwine. They are silent for a while and he immerses in the warm feeling of having her hand in his.
Although he sometimes doubts, he knows that she feels the same way about him.
"You smell like shortbread biscuits." He says, despite having thousands of other things he would like to say to her.
Audrey laughs at his comment and pushes him with a slight shrug. Siegfried smiles when he looks directly at her and sees her features lit up with laughter. He loves her, fondly, deeply.
"Maybe it's because I know they are your favorites and I was baking some for tea."
"Thanks." Siegfried says and squeezes her hand gently. His thanks are not just for the biscuits and the way she responds to his squeeze on her hand with another is enough for him to know that she understood.
"Come on then, the tea is ready."
Siegfried follows her out of the room and down the stairs. He won't let go of her hand ever again.
Thanks for reading. Hope you liked it.