Note: Whoohoo! School's in session! Meaning my writing will get loads better; when I'm stuck for time, I tend to make better use of the minutes I'm given. So my new goal? Finish this by September! I can do it!! The beginning of this chapter is a weeee bit shaky, but I'm happy with how it ended up, so woot! Anyway, thank you to my fantabulous reviewers, and do enjoy.
Chapter Sixteen:
Celia
I am such a fool.
I never wanted to be a liar, or a fool, but I suppose it's what I've become lately. A coward, too. I have become that as well. It's why I have been avoiding Vesta's home like the plague, and been haunting Romana's manor every waking second of the day. Everything is so beautiful here, so perfect. My fingers reach out to touch lovely glass windows, sculpted for beauty as well as practicality. Vesta could never afford something so frivolous. Nor could I.
It's different, and maybe that's what I love most about this place: I've never needed to belong.
"Ah, Celia, Celia!" Each step Lumina takes sounds like a quick, eager staccato, sounding tap tap tap across the floorboards. Her morning ritual of piano recital has ended, and only now does she notice me standing here, staring out the windowpane. "Are you here about the party again?"
I purse my lips for a moment as I watch the blossoms swirl and dance about on the breeze in a flurry of color. "I suppose." Some of these petals I recognize now: apple blossoms, orange blossoms. Jack had introduced them to me, on his farm. He'd swept my hair behind my ear to whisper in a voice that only I could hear: "They say an apple blossom is a symbol of promise, and an orange blossom one for fruitfulness. Flowers have a language of their own, too, you know." A smile. "Maybe they're trying to tell us something."
"My birthday's coming up, too, Celia," Lumina pipes up. "I'll be sixteen. A real lady." She holds her head high, waiting for my praise, but all I can do is stare at her dumbstruck. Could that truly be so? Could little Lumina already be sixteen—? No, no, time does not fly by that fast. I hope for Cassie's sake and mine that it moves far more slowly than that.
She swings up and down on the balls of her feet and closes her eyes; a smile lights up her face. "Sebastian says he'll bake me an even greater cake—yours will be lovely, Celia, but when I grow up, he's promised to add an extra layer of vanilla. And Auntie Romana has promised to invite all our relatives, so that they can see my coming-of-age." Lumina pauses to take in a deep breath. "Of course, I'll invite you, too, Celia. It'll be so fun!"
"That sounds lovely." I bow my head and avoid Lumina's gaze at all costs; her smile is far too similar to the one I used to wear and to the grin I know Cassie will shower me with years from now. I want to wrap my arms around her and cry, tell her to never lose that smile.
She continues in her prattle as I shut my eyes and try to reconcile all my conflicting thoughts and emotions: his stricken face, the fire in his eyes. He knows, I admit to myself with a terrified sigh. He knows.
"Why you've been acting so damn nice all the time. Why it's suddenly your business where I grew up, what my favorite meal is, what my frickin' hobbies are. What I want to know, Celia, is why now?"
When you stretch yourself too thin, everything you grab for falls short of your reach. You can only handle so much. I want to remember Jack. I want to give Cassie a father. I want to use Marlin short of truly loving him.
Even if…even if I knew he truly, truly loved me back.
"…and we could always reuse the decorations from your birthday, Celia, and if we add some flowers, they'll look good as new! We can dress up in fancy dresses and…oh my goodness, Celia, are you okay? Are—are you sick?"
When a mirror is shattered, you can glue it back together, but all the fragments will remain puzzle pieces: disjointed. Stare into it and it's not you anymore you see, but a monster of yourself. And that is what I see now as I look deep within myself: a selfish, manipulating, frightened monster.
Lumina's tiny hands try to soothe me, but I shield my face with my hands, a strange, agonized sound tearing from my throat. I deserve this. I deserve this so terribly. All these years of smiling at him, laughing with him, declaring him to be my truest friend, Marlin has only become my pawn in a twisted, messed-up game of desperation.
It's right that he should forget me. It's right that he should find someone more worthy of him. It's right that Muffy deserves to have the man that I've always taken for granted. How conceited, to believe he'd never let me go, that he'd never move on.
I'm not worth that kind of adoration. I never was.
"Now dearie, I want you to tell me what's really wrong here. You sound positively awful."
Romana has an almost regal presence; her chair is a throne, her head held high as if crowned with the weight of many nations. She rocks in her chair back and forth, the lamplight glittering off the handle of her proud purple umbrella: her scepter. I sit in a crumpled heap on the bed, kneeling before her in an almost religious state. In this house, I am inferior, meek.
"I just…I just don't want a party. I don't need one," I murmur. I knit my hands together, then pull them apart. "I'd rather not, Ms. Romana. I'm sorry you've gone through all this trouble for me, but I'm afraid I just can't go through with it."
"Hmph. Trouble, is that what you think it is?" The old woman barks out a laugh. "It's nothing. Ever since I heard of Jack's death, I've been positively anxious to do something for you, poor thing. Losing a husband isn't easy." The chair squeaks across the ground as she sighs. "Heaven knows it took its toll on me, with the children gone, too."
"C-children?" I repeat. My voice is soft, an echo.
"Lumina's mother and father." The air about us becomes hotter, humid, stifling. An alarm sounds in my mind—this is none of your business, none, none at all—but I say nothing to stop her as she closes her eyes and lets out another deep breath. "All three of them died, the very same day. Car accident. It's a story many people can share: rainy night, abandoned road, drunk driver. I don't pretend to be the only sufferer. I don't pretend my pain is unique."
How can she speak so candidly of their deaths, repeat this horror without falling apart at the seams? Such a feat seems too impossible, too dreamlike, to achieve. I can barely talk about Jack without stifling a sob. I certainly can't talk about his death of my own free will.
I can't bear to watch her any longer, so I turn to the photos surrounding us: all of Lumina, all of what's living and breathing now. Where are those of her past, I find myself wondering, and suddenly I don't want to know. I don't want to see their faces and imagine a dead light in their eyes.
"How…how did you do it?" I whisper. "How did you move on?"
Romana laughs again, a raspy sound. "I thought you'd know the answer to that, Celia. What keeps you going, living, breathing?"
Cruel unfeeling fate. The unwritten rules of this world that force the survivor to ache more than the victim. Unfair chance.
"I don't know," I mumble, retreating deep within myself. I swallow back a new set of tears as my voice cracks. "I…I don't know."
Romana eyes me with something akin to the love of mother for her wayward child, and I can feel her wrinkled skin upon my own as she grabs my hand. It's stronger than my grip, despite her age, and I wonder why it is the old are always called brittle and useless, when the support of this woman can hold me so completely.
"Celia," Romana replies, voice hard, "I swear to you, if my granddaughter had not survived this tragedy, I would not be the woman you see before you. I have seen many woman—scarred, unable to heal—who suffered such deaths in their lifetime. But they didn't have Lumina." She shakes her head and smiles weakly. "No, they didn't have Lumina. They didn't have a reason to keep living; they had no one to rely on them anymore, no one to love them. Oh, but I was one of the lucky ones. I taught Lumina to walk, to speak, to read, to play piano—and that was how I moved on, Celia. I moved on by reminding myself I still had business in this world; that while I could do nothing for those lost, I could still help those still living. And when Lumina grows up, marries, and has my great-grandchildren, I shall not despair. I shall be happy, Celia, because I'll have done as much good with my life as I can."
The feeling in my hand is numb as she grasps it ever tighter, and her eyes bore into mine, a passion burning there that has never burned in my own two orbs. Her breath heaves, up and down, and the chair creaks, back and forth, as I am simply stunned by the courage laced in her frail voice.
"I," Romana begins again, "am an old woman. These old bones are rotting away day by day, and I don't pretend that I'll live forever, no matter what I tell Dr. Hardy. But when I die, I'll have died knowing what true love is, what it takes to give a child hope when you've had none, what it means to truly rise from the ashes and live on. And I've wanted to tell you this for so long, Celia. Because…I know where you've been, dear. I know how raw your emotions are now, how bitter death can taste. But I also know all the joy laid ahead of you, and I'd hate for you to miss a single bit of it."
And I wonder if, in the years to come, I'll be able to be like this woman before me, this kindred spirit with a weary laugh. I wonder if I'll be the one comforting another as they cry into my shoulder, if I'll be able to relay my own story without anger, fear, or sadness.
"I want to be strong, too," my voice cracks. "For Cassie."
I don't want to rely on Marlin for her happiness, or on lies, or my own misery. I, too, want to be able to stand proud like Romana, and look below me at all my obstacles and my achievements with a knowing smile. I want to be someone's refuge, a pillar of strength. I don't want to be the weak girl I have been. I want to change.
So I take baby steps, baptized by my tears as they spill, one by one, from my newly opened eyes.
I had told him it would be the coldest night of Winter. I told him, over the roar of the wind, "I'll have dinner ready soon! You should take a rest. It's terribly cold out."
At the time, Winter had been beautiful. The two of us, we'd walk hand in hand down the paths, every so often stopping to catch snowflakes on our tongues like children. They disappeared in our mouths all too quickly, and when that joy faded, we'd talk about the future, about the snowmen we'd build with our child and the little scarves and mittens we'd have to knit for her.
Jack always wore the same tried-and-true farmer's garb, adding an old scruffed-up coat for heat. I must have patched it up thousands of times, joking that he'd die of cold. "I swear, Jack, one more hole, and this wouldn't keep a bug warm!" I'd laughed. "Are you sure you don't want a new—?"
"Honey, think about the baby," Jack insisted, his hand straying to my swollen belly. "We need every cent for this nursery, and you know me. I can handle a little snow." Little Cassie, how he worked on your nursery. Day after day, for hours on end, I could see him sweating in the middle of Winter, the moisture frozen to his brow. He'd tease me as I waddled out with cocoa for him, so pregnant and full, saying that I looked like Mrs. Claus, and not his wife.
Then that night, he didn't listen.
The room was practically finished; Takakura has explained that much to me. But oh, you cared so much for perfection, you longed so terribly for this room to be flawless. I couldn't call you in, no matter what I said or how I pleaded. "One more nail," you'd grunt. "One more screw. Just one more floorboard."
He seemed so strong. I can remember, the first time we made love, feeling so fragile, wondering if he'd break me in two with those powerful farmer's arms. My husband had been invincible, untouchable. Nothing could crush him.
The crash was sickening.
I could say that it fell upon him, but apples fall from trees, petals fall from flowers, and this was a murderous strike. I remember screaming, startled awake in the dead of night at the crunch of bones and wood. I'm sure I was quite a sight, my coat thrown over my nightgown and boots—his, not mine—shoved onto my feet as I raced into the snow. Dear Goddess, I pleaded myself. Dear Goddess, why isn't Jack inside?
I screamed his name until my throat was hoarse and raw. Oh, I could see the cause of my misery; the tree that had collapsed onto the nursery wall lay splintered on the ground. I had not the strength to move it. I could only see a single leg beneath its mighty beam, and that's how I learned my husband had died.
Maybe he's still alive, my heart cried. Maybe he's breathing; he's strong, he can withstand this. Takakura took the axe and began to chop away at the timber, and I crouched down in the snow to touch what parts of him I could see. His skin might as well have been ice to my touch; I rubbed my palms up and down his leg, eyes shut as the lop of the metal against wood repeatedly sounded in my ears.
He's not dead, my heart insisted. But, oh, I already knew. I could tell half of my soul had vanished.
His body was nothing like I remembered: all beaten, bloody, and blue. He was smiling as he lay in my arms; isn't that strange? He smiled, even though this tree had cracked into his skull and many of his bones lay broken. Half the nursery wall had broken right along with him, and I wondered, to myself, if perhaps he was smiling as he thought about the memories we'd have shared in that room with our child.
"How can you leave me?" I'd choked. I wanted to scream, Don't leave me, but somehow the words could never come out; I knew them to be empty. I closed my eyes and fought to remember when I'd last felt his heart beat, when we'd last kissed, if I'd said "I love you" before he passed from my hands.
And, strangely enough, it's his voice that floats into my mind, as I recall his final words to me: "I'll be with you soon, darling. I love you."
Once, I would have held that against him as a lie. But I see it now as a promise carried on the petals of an apple blossom: that, someday, I'll see him again. And when I see him, I'll be someone new. Someone incredible. Someone strong enough to wait until I can once again leap into his arms and remind him, "I love you, too."
I cannot explain to Vesta in enough words why I'm doing what I am. I fold the fabric into tiny squares and place my nightgown and dresses into the suitcase, the woman beside me helping to add Cassie's little clothes to the mix.
"I suppose I knew this day would come again," Vesta grunts. She gives me a half-smile, but I can tell she's miserable at the thought of putting away all of the baby's things and not waking up to my cooking and Cassie's laughter. "It's why you came here and all. I reckon I should be happy you're finally going back." She wipes her nose with her sleeve, and I can tell she's fighting back tears. I give her a quick, warm hug, and get squeezed to death in answer.
"Oh, Vesta, you know I'll miss you terribly!" I laugh. "I'll just be across the bridge, anyway, and Cassie wouldn't want me to keep her too far from her Aunt Vesta. She adores you."
Something about Vesta's tangle of orange hair amuses my daughter to no end, and she's always trying to reach for it and tug. Sometimes I wonder what poor Nami would have done if she'd stayed behind, if she'd swat away Cassie's hands like a fly.
"The little gal does love me, doesn't she?" the woman chuckles. "I know you'll visit, Celia, I know. I just…well, I don't see why you're not telling Marlin, is all."
"Marlin." I close the latches and sigh out his name like a heavy burden fallen from my shoulders. "I…think he'll understand." Saying good-bye would be far too awkward. I've already left him, haven't I? And he's not alone anymore. I should know better than to open old wounds. I know that now.
When the door opens, the first thing that registers in my mind is light: blinding, beautiful sunlight that paves the way to my home. Cassie sits in my arms with inquisitive eyes, unable to stare ahead as she reaches behind me, fighting to grab at her Aunt Vesta. But me, I am tired of looking behind. A child in one arm and a suitcase in the other, I take measured steps forward, my breathing even with my heart as it pounds, beat by beat, against my chest. The house ahead is no more haunted than the one whose door is closing, and the memories no more powerful. Yet the woman arriving at this abandoned farm is not the same girl who left it in tears. She has changed.
"Hello, Takaura," I begin, my voice shy and unsure. He stands in the pathway, eyebrows raised as I hold my baby higher and the suitcase threatens to slip out of my fingers. I shuffle my feet and smile a half-grin. "I…I'm home."