The Clouds Aren't White

by Rachael Wright

  I can't bring myself to stare at the phone the way she does. All I feel is emptiness and looking at his smiling face is like dropping a rock into that chasm to measure its depth. It bounces off the walls magnifying the enormity of the space Hugh once filled. I was a wife yesterday. I was His wife. I had a husband. I had love. I had a future and a home. I had him. I'm not a wife anymore. I don't have a husband. Any future or life I thought I had has been wiped away like it never existed.

  All I have is this grief, this all-consuming pain and the utter inability to look anyone in the eye. I'm alive and Hugh is dead. My parents have their daughter but Hugh's parents have lost their son and all I can do is lie in this bed and pray they all just go away. I should let them hold Sophie so they can hold a piece of their son. But I can't. I can't hug them because I don't have strength to give them. I'm broken and battered and I want to sink beneath the waves.

  It might be possible to sit in this bed until I'm no longer grieving. Or it might be possible if I wasn't the sole guardian of a five-year-old girl. She has to eat and go to school and I've got to figure out some way to make life keep going for her. It’s a terrible crushing weight trying to hold our loss in my hands and be a mother. I need to be present, not lose myself in a tidal wave of grief. But even drawing breath at this point feels like it should come with its own medal. Forming complete sentences, superhuman. Being a mother feels impossible. I am a failure. Even more of a failure than normal.

  "Come on Soph. Let's go see your grandparents," I terse back the covers and inch off the mattress. Sophie clutches the phone like a lifeline. "You can hold it sweetheart," the creases in her brow lessen; she curls her arm around my waist in a vice-like grip.

  The room has changed perceptively since we last tried to enter. There's no whispered conversation, just blank stares. In the trash, a mountain of soggy tissues. The occupants stare at the doorway almost waiting for Sophie and I to come back. I'm in danger of losing my nerve and fleeing the room.

  Whatever decisions I make are for my daughter.

  She can't sleep away this time.

  She'll find comfort here. Here in these four people. "Hi..." I say sounding garbled because I can't speak without choking.

  Hugh's mother dissolves into tears. I stare at her unblinking. Sophie stops in the middle of the room, staring from one grandparent to the next. She stands on tiptoe, and then flies off towards my mother who holds out Sophie's favorite stuffed animal. All I can see of Sophie is her blonde curls, her body folded into my mother's thin one. All I have been thinking of is myself. My loss, my pain. All the while a little girl suffers, clinging to me for dear life.

  While I have lost my husband, Sophie is fatherless. I'll remember Hugh for the rest of my life. The memories of our life will cement themselves in my mind and I will cherish them. Sophie's memories will fade and by the time she is grown only a handful will remain. Perhaps hers is the greatest loss of all.

  I make my way across to the plush couches where they are sitting, surrounded by opulence, and yet cannot spare even a glance for it. I've settled myself beside my father without even noticing. Perhaps he's the safest bet. With his muscular arms, tall build, and stoic nature, he's the least likely to fall apart.

  I twiddle my thumbs and looking at the floor, paralyzed.

  "What should we do?" asks a crisp heavy voice.

  My face snaps to my mother in law. She's a graceful but haughty woman, with a discerning gaze. I stare at her with my mouth open.

  "I..." nothing else comes out. I just sit, ludicrously playing with my fingers. Something comes to quickly to mind. "You could field calls and texts for me. I shut the phone off. The ringing was too much.”

  Hugh's mother stares at me with a patronizing look.

  "Those who are calling are doing it out of concern...and love," she says in a tone, which brokers no disagreement.

  The 'love' part tacked on as an afterthought.

  "Whomever wants to give their love can do so through the four of you. As for making sure whether I'm ok, I'm not. My husband was just murdered. I think it’s the exact opposite of ok.”

  "Emmeline, we will field calls for you, please just understand where everyone is coming from," my mother looks at me, her sharp green eyes filled with unshed tears, arms wrapped around Sophie.

  There it is...the heaping bucket full of guilt.

  "I can't be polite right now. I wish I could be. I'm not sure what'll come out of my mouth from one moment to the next. All these people, all they want are the gruesome details."

  "Emmeline you do not have to talk to anyone. None of us are pressuring you to do more than you feel like right now," my mother says.

  I sigh and nod in her direction.

  "I am sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. It's not my finest hour either," my mother in law says.

  Ever the politico, I think scathingly. I don't have any patience for her nor her misguided ideas about grief.

  We sit in a strange silence for what feels like hours. Yesterday plays in my mind, on an endless repeat, like a track skipping over the same scratch. From behind my eyelids I replay our last kiss and our last embrace. Cementing in my memory the smell of the Chanel cologne, the suppleness of his suit, and the curve of his jawline.

  I haven't given thought to whoever shot Hugh and whether that's odd. Hugh is gone and my daughter is fatherless. The rest is details. I'm numb. Cut off from the world, from all feeling, an anathema. I am an island of grief, isolated by loss.

  As we continue to sit in silence, Sophie pulls out my phone and flips through the photos.

  "Emmeline..." my mother says, shattering the silence, "Did you bring anything else to wear? Do you have any extra clothes?" her voice is soft, hesitant.

  "What...no. This was supposed to be a...um...day trip."

  A hideous day trip that turned into my worst nightmare.

  "Would you like me to go out and get you something, I could take Sophie, get her some clothes as well," she says, no sooner does she suggest this than Sophie catapults across the room, crashing into my open arms.

  "We should wait on taking Sophie anywhere."

  "That's alright. I'll be back soon," she gets up and politely asks around to see if anyone else wants to go. Everyone else decides to stay.

  Venturing out feels like a marathon to me. I look at my mother as she leaves and see the reflected pain in her eyes. How would I help Sophie in this situation? What assistance would I offer and what words of comfort would I give? I've already been given the answer, practicalities.

  There's a sense of futility in sitting in the room after she leaves. My in laws excuse themselves, I don't watch them go. I'm angry Hugh's father didn't say a single word. Angry that all his mother wants is for me to placate friends, family, and the general public.

  "I'll just stay here and 'field calls' I guess, till your mom gets back at least," my father says.

  There's something in his voice that seems different to me. It’s a mixture of apprehension and pain. My father, the stalwart, is filling another need. I wonder whether any of us ever stop being parents.

  "I'm going to lay down," I say. Being an emotional wreck is taking its toll. He touches my arm, lightly, as I rise.

  "I'm here for you, you know that right? I'll always be here for you.”

  Before I can catch myself, a diatribe tumbles out.

  "Its just wrong! I shouldn't be here. We were supposed to grow old and have a life and now...there's nothing. I'm drowning in all of this and it shouldn't even be happening. I just...I can't breathe. Every time I think about him my heart breaks all over again. I can't do this," I say.

  The enormity of my loss hits. It hits like the shots that killed Hugh.

  I let Sophie pull me away. Life is a blur; everything that held us together is gone. It washes over and over this horrifying

  fact…gone...gone...everything is gone.

  "Mommy..." Sophie lifts her head off my shoulders, cupping my face in her small hands. I swallow my pain.

/>   "Yes?"

  "I still love him. Am I supposed to stop?" Sophie says her eyes shift back and forth, trying to see more than what lies in front of her.

  "No. Not ever. Daddy loved you so very much and he didn't want to ever leave you. He will always be your Daddy and...I'll be here for you...I'll...I'll do everything to make sure we are ok," I choke out the last words, sinking to my knees.

  "I just want him Mommy..." Sophie presses her knuckles fiercely against her eyes, her small frame racked by sobs.

  I should feel helpless. I shouldn't have any energy, but I do. I pick Sophie up, cradle her in my arms, move to a chair, and begin to rock. A mother wraps her children in her arms and holds the world at bay. I sit, cradling a child, too large for my lap, and deny myself. The rapid tattoo in my chest morphs into something steady and after a few minutes Sophie mimics my deep breaths.

  I am stumbling along in the dark dragging a bone crushing weight along behind me. Tears come in streams and rivers, and quite suddenly that's all I am a mass of saltwater. Grief sneaks its tendrils into me, morphing me, changing me, crushing me body and soul.

  In the evening, Sophie and I curl up on a couch the most remote corner of the house. My body aches fiercely, my head now the weight of a bowling ball. It doesn't make sense, the word 'loss', when the weight of it crushes the life from you. The slightest movements and the shortest conversations are nothing but burdens. I have no plan...in my worst nightmares I never imagined this would be my lot. Everything is a muddle. I can't think past the next five minutes, can't pull my thoughts together. Hugh is everywhere, his spirit floating in a thousand shards around me. In error I turn to him to take Sophie to bed, to show him the sunset, I turn to him for a hug. Nothing is real anymore because nothing is the same.

  "Emmeline?" In front of me, the hazy form of my mother. I blink away tears, pulling my eyes back into focus. She's small, my mother, so small you fear her bones might crack with the smallest embrace. It is physicality quite at odds with her personality.

  "Hey. So it looks like you got quite a bit," I say with false cheeriness, nodding my head in the direction of the dozen odd black shopping bags she has hung on her arms.

  "Your father is going to give me one of his lectures but it was for my girls so...c'est la vie," she says with a smile, depositing the bags on the floor and settling herself on the couch with a, "we can look at them later."

  "How was the shopping?"

  I don't care how the shopping went, but it what we've always talked about. It feels normal to talk about it now. We may not have

  connected on many levels, but at least with clothes we could pretend we are close. "It was quiet. Now you have everything you need for the next few days," she says with a smile, she reaches out unconsciously and strokes Sophie's curls with a shaking hand.

  "I do appreciate it," I say truthfully, giving her a weak smile. "How's my little girl?"

  "Exhausted. We came down here to look at the stars, she fell

  asleep almost immediately."

  "I meant you," she says.

  "Me...I...I'm scared out of my mind. I have no idea how to be a

  mother. What if I don't cry enough for her to understand my loss or what if I drown in the weight of this and I'm incapable of meeting her needs? What if I do it all wrong and she's never normal again and I'm the one that did that to her? I can survive losing Hugh but not ruining my daughter's life," I say the words come out like a tidal wave.

  I slump over, into a heap. I stare, blankly, at the marble floor. Silence permeates the room as thought the world itself has stopped and listens with bated breath.

  "I've worried about the same thing every day since you and your sisters were born. It hovered over me, paralyzing me. I set goals and standards, for how I wanted to parent, and when I didn't meet them I wrecked myself with guilt. Every day it felt as if I was doing something which was going to scar, for life, the children I loved.

  “One day, I came to the realization I was hurting you more with my guilt and self-loathing than any parenting mistake I could make. I made you miserable by worrying constantly. So I gave up. I started to treasure the girls I had. I set to honing your unique gifts rather than try and make you into something you weren't. I accepted my own shortcomings and realized while I may never be as warm and welcoming, as I would have liked...I could give you what I did have. It may be meager and seem trifling...but its what I could do. Simply be me."

  "I don't know 'me' is enough for her."

  "She thinks you are enough. That's what matters. Sophie, and Sophie alone, is who determines whether you are enough for her and Emmeline, she loves you. She clings to you in pain, in joy, in love,"

  she gestures forcefully with her hands as she speaks.

  "How am I supposed to move on...?"

  I don't know there is an answer.

  "You don't learn how to move on. I think, you only learn how to

  live with the wound."

  "Right," I mumble.

  "There is no road map, nothing that's going to tell you how to get

  through. All you have to do is take care of Sophie and if you can't manage to look after yourself, I'll do it." "That's not what everyone else is going to say."

  "Oh hang what everyone else says or thinks. Will there be things you are going to have to face, yes, but being told what is acceptable and 'right' beyond that is ludicrous."

  "What would I do without you?" I say and smile up at her. Her features are wild and pleading.

  "It is true, I am indispensable, most mothers are, you know," she says with a hint of a wink.

  "Sophie said something to me earlier, she said, 'I still love him' and then she asked if she was supposed to stop loving him. I am empty, poured out, and the thought of never seeing him

  again...having to face life without him...its..."

  "I don't think we ever stop loving those whom we've lost. People leave imprints on our soul, change the fabric of who we are, leave us transformed in a thousand different ways. Ten years of marriage can't be cut away because your husband is gone. He'll always be with you. He lives on in your life because of your memories."

  "I loved him...I loved him every moment for ten years. I can't let him go. I just can't say goodbye.”

  Something breaks inside of me, like a bone snapping in two. One break leads to another and another and another. I break. Pain claws at my chest, silent wails tear themselves away from my body, demanding to be felt. For once no one says a word.

  Grief has robbed me of more than I ever could have ever imagined. I can't make out what's around me; the world spins as though I'm drunk, or floating between this world and the next.

  Fear permeates everything about death and loss. I fear the future as much as I fear tomorrow; I fear my sorrow and my pain, and the terrifying possibility of ruining another life if I can't function. I fear failure, failing Hugh, and I fear the very best of me died along with him. He made me soft and compassionate and gave me dreams and peace. Hugh was the light and I was the prism and together we made something greater and more beautiful than ourselves. But without the light all I am is a hard, sharp, unrelenting stone.

  I wake in one sharp painful moment, catapulting out of the midst of nightmares. The small body curled against my side seems real enough. The smallest chink of light falls from between the gap in the curtains. A pale sort of light, light cast by the moon.

  I walk aimlessly; my bare feet find the thick-carpeted stairs, arriving at the wall of windows at the back of the house before I've even thought where to go. I reach out to touch the panes of glass. The cold seeps beneath my skin, pulling out the warmth. The light of the moon casts faint shadows on the garden beyond, so ethereal it’s almost magical. At this time when the whole world sleeps, I might have stopped time. Time has stopped, even ended for me, why shouldn't the rest of the world follow suit? Why shouldn't it screech to a halt?

  "Can't sleep?" a deep voice says. I stifle a scream behind a hand I clamp to my mouth. I gasp for breath an
d blink away the black dots in my vision.

  "Sorry," the voice says with a huff. I walk around to the sofa where it’s emanating from.

  "I'm easily scared," I say and settle myself in the chair opposite Hugh's father.

  He's the sort of man operates almost entirely on presence. Eyes turn in his direction, beggaring his leave.

  "I imagine we all must be," he says a few moments later, while I'm pondering whether I can excuse myself politely.

  "Yes," I say in clipped tones, hoping he realizes I don't want to talk.

  "Hugh...what talent. What a waste..."

  He looks beyond me, out through the window, heaves a great sigh, shoulders rising and falling with it. I search his face for tears, for emotion. All I see is disappointment. It fuels something in me.

  "He was more than talent," I say.

  A throbbing ache emanates in my jaw before I realize I've clenched my mouth shut. He sits up on the sofa, throwing his arms out so they drape along the back. Posturing, as though the mansion, the sofa, the state was his.

  "Hugh was slated for great things," he says, throwing out the last word at me as though I'm a stranger. A stranger who doesn't understand.

  "He'd already done great things,"

  My mind flickers over our marriage, over his brilliance as a father, his overwhelming kindness. I don't get an answer to it. All I get is a glare. His face sets into an annoyed grimace. Incensed, I get up to leave. I don't say goodbye. Grief gives you some sort of excuse to be rude; the filter on words and actions is gone.

  "He was supposed to live in this house, you know."