A/N: Thank you to everyone for the support and the reviews. If you didn't see on Tumblr, things will definitely be slowing down for some personal and family reasons. Sometimes writing is a solace and sometimes it is a chore during this time so I cannot make promises but I appreciate your patience as always. Thanks to La-La Kate for her reading of the first half. Mary's grief is a a confusing mess, I must say. xx, LDI
Chapter Twenty Six
For a moment, it is as if time rewound itself without anyone's consent, especially without Mary's consent.
"Thank you for your help, Anna," Mary speaks to her own reflection in the mirror as Anna fixes her hair, pinning it back, against her black dress. "As always, your taste is perfect." She touches one dark shoulder, her cast starkly white against the rest of her austere coiffure.
"Yes, I like it very much," Sybil replies. She is not wearing harem pants but her hair is bobbed sweetly against her chin. She is already dressed, without the need of someone to lace a corset or fix her hair.
"Well, I have news," Edith announces. Mary is confused by the color of Edith's dress. Is it yellow? Or beige? Does it match Edith's skin tone? Or her hair? Though Mary has yet to forgive Edith for her words about Mack's driving, it doesn't matter. Edith is in her room anyway. No one listens to Mary here, least of all Edith. "Evelyn and I decided we are getting married in two weeks."
"You decided what?" Mary snaps. She must be joking. It is too soon...It is too soon for a wedding...
The three sisters gather in her room, along with Anna. Mary is in black. Sybil wears her small rebellions. Edith itches to fight. For a moment, Mary can only hear her own breath in her ears. How could things intersect in Mary's room so that everything is the same and different at the same time? She will not allow it. She wants to rip the black dress from her body. She wants to rage at her sister and pull Edith's hair, just as she promised Granny. It could be 1912 again, all the time, all the people erased. Mary will not allow it. She cannot.
Instead, Mary's back snaps into place. She tilts her head. "You are aware that your brother-in-law died four weeks ago? Even you could not be so thick as to miss that," Mary quips. Things are not the same. Time has passed. Mary left and married Mack and now he is dead. She doesn't want to be wearing black, trapped in this room, fighting with Edith. It is too familiar. They've done this all before.
"Mary," Edith sighs indolently as if she is tolerating a child. "Sybil and Tom cannot stay here forever. And you cannot ask Evelyn and I to wait forever to marry just because–"
Mary turns in her seat to face Edith. Anna's hands leave her hair. "Just because what?" Her voice sounds like the snapping of bedsheets before sleep. "I dare you to say it to my face."
"Mary, the world does not revolve around you!" Edith whines pathetically and Mary smiles like the cat who ate the cream.
"Oh yes, I am so very sorry that my husband died," she replies. "Wherever are my manners?"
"I don't know," Edith says. "Frankly, you've been a terror to be around. The only person you are nice to is Sybil–"
"She's nice to Tom and Dec," Sybil interrupts.
Edith rolls her eyes. "Don't make excuses for her. She faked it well enough for his family for the two weeks they stayed here...which didn't make Evelyn happy at all, pushing our date even further back."
Mary doesn't want to talk about Mackenzie's family, not to Edith, not now. Briefly, she closes her eyes. There are some things she will not give to Edith. When she opens her eyes, she is keen on hurting Edith, eager to give her the smallest bit of pain Mary carries everywhere she goes. "Oh, so it's about Evelyn then?" Mary coos as she stands. "He's just itching to be tied to you for a lifetime?" Her laugh is completely real. She is cruel. She is unfeeling. She is ice cold. She wears black. Her husband is buried. There are no more ways left to hurt her. Not really.
"Mary," Sybil warns.
"No," Mary replies quietly. "No," she repeats. She turns back to Edith, her lips curled in a smile. "I do find it so ironic, dear. How sweet it is that Evelyn found comfort in you after the war. Are you worried now that I am without a husband that Evelyn might be interested in a better option?"
"You would discard your husband so easily? He's only been dead for a month!" Edith cries. Her throat goes splotchy in agitation.
"Why should I keep his memory sacred when you don't? You've discarded him, haven't you? The stupid American with his poor driving? I believe that's how you put it, wasn't it?" Mary asks in a voice that could curdle milk. She dances her fingers in the air, even with the cast. "Perhaps I'll seduce him tonight, just for fun. Though it might be so easy, I'd be bored."
"Mary," Sybil reaches for her, to quiet her, most likely. "You don't mean it."
Edith is crying and shaking, her lips trembling as she huddles into herself, her arms clutched to her breasts. "She does," Edith sobs while Mary rolls her eyes. This has nothing to do with your Evelyn! "You know her track record. She doesn't mind being a slut."
Mary closes her eyes upon Edith's word choice. It doesn't hurt, not Edith's anger. Mary finds that she likes making Edith angry, especially when it is so easy and so satisfying. She can take the ton of rage that suffocates her chest at night and offer just a dollop to her sister. Here. See how you like it. But that word. Edith called her that before. So long ago. Before.
But this is not before. She won't allow it to be.
Mary is trapped. She is suddenly dizzy. She cannot breathe. There are dots floating in her vision before everything goes black.
There is only a second to wonder if this is what dying could be like.
She wakes the next morning to the sound of someone breathing beside her. She is disoriented... not breathing beside her on the bed, not Mack, no, Mack is dead. But on her other side, in a chair. When she opens her eyes, clenching her hands into fists because she must open her eyes in a world where Mack no longer lives, she spies Matthew in the chair he occupied directly after the accident, though he long since gave his spot up.
"You're awake," he murmurs and sets down whatever it is that he reads.
"What–what are you doing here?" she asks. The sun hurts her head and seeing her wince, he quickly closes the curtains.
"Sybil had to deal with Declan. She's been here too," Matthew assures Mary. If her head did not ache, she would roll her eyes, as if she cares whether a chaperone was present. "She rung last night to tell us what happened..."
"I don't see why she did that," Mary replies woodenly. "It's not as if you have been around lately."
"Of course, I–" he begins and stops, sighing out a breath. "Mary, I wanted to give you time with Mack's family. I wanted you to be able to spend time with them, to decide if you were going back–"
"Please," she whispers. "Let's not talk about that. And let's not make excuses for your absence."
He leans forward, his brow furrowed. He thinks through everything so thoroughly these days and sometimes she wants to shake him and tell him: you can think and think and think and think and you can still wake up in a hospital bed with someone taken from you! "Mary," he repeats, wetting his lips. "At the funeral, I saw you...standing by yourself. And I think your father expected Sybil or I to go to you. But...the way your back...how you turned away...It was so clear. I had nothing to offer you, nothing to make it better. I could not help. As much as I wanted to."
"Well, I suppose you have all the luck then. Apparently, I've been a true terror to contend with recently," she murmurs. Her hand covers her eyes. She hates this world; she prefers a gentler one and now she is sure that such a place does not exist, not really.
He surprises her (how rare that is these days, that someone can surprise her and do something different!) and takes one of her hands from her face. He holds it loosely. She could break the contact if she wanted to. But she doesn't want to, and she supposes that this is a surprise too. "I'd be more worried if I heard rumors you turned docile."
Mary's lips curve. "Or sweet."
Matthew nods, his eyes laughing. "Domesticated."
She squeezes his hand sharply but does not let go. "I'm not an animal!"
"Well, let's not ask Edith, all right?" he replies and her her eyes laugh back at his until she remembers that she is holding back laughter while her husband rots in the ground.
"Did you hear? About the wedding?" Mary asks soberly.
"I did." Matthew's chin drops to his chest. "I–I'm sorry. I can't imagine what it must be like for you."
Mary bites her lip, turns her head a bit a way, but goes on holding his hand. She is afraid she will cry. In fact, tears fill her eyes but do not fall. "Thank you," she murmurs. "Thanks for that." She clears her throat. "I could be wrong but I think...I think that's all I wanted Edith to say...that's all I wanted anyone to say."
"Don't give me more credit than I'm due, Mary." His fingers brush her wrist. "I've said the wrong thing too many times to count."
"That's true," she replies lightly. "This was probably blind luck. Don't you think?"
"Serendipity," he tells her and suddenly they are laughing. Holding hands and laughing. It's old and new and confusing.
Before she stops herself. She squeezes his hand one last time out of thankfulness–no more, no less–before she releases it.
"One might even consider this a friendly conversation." she smirks.
"One might." He lets out a laugh before he, too, sobers. "Please get some rest. You worried us last night."
A million retorts flood her mind but she only says, "Thank you. I will. Goodbye, Matthew."
When he leaves, she wonders how last night could feel so old, as if she lived it and spoke it all before, and this morning could feel so bewilderingly new and fresh, despite the ache living beneath her breast. Those feelings warring messily within her–hope and despair, despair and hope–hurt so terribly bad that she must curl into herself and weep silently, alone in her girlhood room. There is nothing to be done, nothing to be done at all but to live in the mess.
A/N: I know this is a bit short but I'm afraid Mary won't let me pin her down for much more than that. Please let me know what you think. Thanks.