Secondly, and I need you to pay proper attention to this, don't worry about what you're doing now I'm dead. When one of my paramours died (occupational hazard with older lovers), I ate nothing but porridge for three months. Don't ask me why, I don't remember him having a particular affinity for breakfast foods. I don't recommend the porridge route, it does terrible things to your digestive system and what at first seems like a charming whimsy can be a real hassle when eating out. What I'm saying is that maybe you're digging yourself a hole to sit in for a couple of days, maybe you're having wild, experimental sex with a variety of genders (here's hoping!), or maybe you're doing your 'fix it' thing and scuttling about putting everybody else's needs before your own. As long as you're not doing yourself any permanent harm, carry on.
No, I don't care how you grieve, but I do care how long you do it for. I'm 80, and have done nothing but drink, smoke and behave in a way that really should have sent me to my grave a lot sooner. There's a reason I tried to change my middle name to 'excess' some time during the 70's. Dragging out being sad about me is just a waste of your time. And you know I hate time-wasters.
Dying is not coming as some great surprise to me. People who act like they can live forever are idiots; you can't, and you'd become a real pain in the arse if you did. You have your time, you make your mark, and you move on. So I'm moving on. I would obviously have preferred death by a pirate's cutlass rather than having a generic brain malfunction, but whining about it doesn't change it. I'll be dead, but you won't be (unless we agree on some bizarre murder suicide pact between now and the end), life goes on, the wheel turns, birds sing and all that.
I'm supposed to give you some great life lesson at this point, but I think we can agree that's probably not something I could do with any integrity. You've always known right over wrong better than me; even as a toddler you were the one telling me to stop giggling during a minute of silence. Perhaps just keep Rox around. She'll have no problem telling you when your head's up your own arse, and she'll probably even give you a hand pulling it out if you ask really nicely. That girl's an absolute class act. She'll get where she wants to go and she'll do it in inimitable style, you let her know I think so.
I think that's pretty much all I wanted to say. I've had a good time, it's been a laugh. Remember that I travelled the length and breadth of this world, and you were the best thing I ever came across. Don't you dare make me a martyr. Look both ways before you cross the road. I love you.
Nan xxx
I blew out a heavy breath as I came to the end, feeling my lashes start to spike together yet again with those bloody tears.
"So..." I cast around for a moment trying to find a way to sum it up and finished with, "that's pretty much the best letter ever written."
Elliot passed it across to me and then turned away to quickly wipe his sleeves across his face. When he spoke, though, his voice was steady. "Yep, pretty much."
The paper shook in my hands as I took the opportunity to read the letter through a few more times. I wouldn't have thought it was possible a few hours ago, but I found that I loved Nan even more now. Only she could write a goodbye like that; one that showed her complete understanding of her grandson, and left nothing to his tortured imagination.
I was honoured to have been mentioned, and knew I would think back to this letter every time I had a crisis of confidence. It was like I'd said to her when trying to get out some sort of appropriate goodbye, she'd been the first one to believe absolutely that I would succeed. That that awesome, worldly woman trusted that I could get where I wanted to go, was the kind of blessing I'd once only dreamt of.
God, I would miss her.
"Probably should’ve read this before going off my face in the church, hey?" Elliot muttered suddenly and I surprised myself by releasing a little burble of laughter.
"Hey," I nudged his shoulder, impressed. "Good emotional breakdown to weak joke recovery time."
"Weak?" He protested and I could already hear a lightness in his tone that hadn't been there before.
He reached out his hand for the letter, and I passed it back to him. As he refolded it and tucked it safely back inside his pocket, I shifted to make myself more comfortable on the hard ground, accidentally kicking my bag as I did so. It fell over and there was a loud thunking sound from within that made Elliot look between me and the bag and ask, "What was that? Did you come armed?"
I felt a strange little shot of pride at the re-emergence of the Elliot I'd actually come to kind of enjoy being around. To be so hurt and then to come back with a comment like that... well I wasn't the only class act around here.
"Well," I brushed aside that sentimentality and reached for my bag, pulling it up on my lap, "sort of."
I ignored his raised eyebrows at this response, reaching inside and pulling out a small slingshot.
"When I went to buy my dress there was a joke shop next door," I explained. "I saw this in the window, remembered what you’d said about how Nan wanted to go by slingshot and thought-" I stopped rather abruptly as Elliot curled a hand round the back of my neck and pulled me to him, kissing me, hard and fast.
I squeaked in surprise, but quickly got up to speed, grabbing a handful of his ridiculous outfit and hauling him closer.
He broke the kiss just as suddenly as he'd started it, but didn't pull away, instead bending his head down to rest against my shoulder for a moment. I pulled gently at the rumpled hair at the nape of his neck and then he pressed two quick kisses against my neck and leant back.
"You're awesome," he said without fanfare, plucking the slingshot out of my hands and pulling at the elastic a few times.
"I've always thought so," I said briskly, refusing to let those two words freak me out. I reached forward to smooth out where I'd rumpled his shirt, and, as I did so, my fingers brushed against the vividly yellow flower still stuck in his brace.
Plucking it from him, I grabbed up a rock from the path next to me and wrapped the stem around it a few times. Elliot watched me, and then jumped up.
"I think there's a gully just down there," he nodded in the direction he meant, "I reckon that'd be the place to let her fly."
I nodded, and then with a quick glance down at where the tops of my thighs were bound tightly together by the bandage dress, held my hands up to him.
"Next time I'm dressing as the idiot, and you can go as the slut," I complained as he hauled me to my feet.
He paused in the act of brushing some of the dust off my legs for me and said pointedly, "Here's hoping there isn't a next time." As I conceded this point, he gave a tug on the hand he was still holding and led me down off the path towards the dip in the land that he'd spotted. The ground was uneven, and I was glad of his steadying grip as we made our way to the lip of the little cliff. Peering down, I could see that a little creek snaked its way through the small valley.
I looked up at Elliot, and then he nodded sharply and I put the rock into the rubber, while he kept a tight hold of the handle, and pulled back as hard as I could.
"Ready?" I asked, feeling the stone beginning to dig into my fingers, but not prepared to let it go until I knew it was time.
"This is the last one, right?" He said thickly, and I felt his hand clench in mine. "Not sure how many more of these goodbyes I can take."
"Last one," I promised. "You good to go?"
"Let her rip."
And so I did, releasing the elastic and sending the stone and flower flying. The bright gold of the flower contrasted with the grey browns of the bush and, in that moment, it was her, Nan, through and through. A sparkle of pure quality in amongst the mundane.
Elliot lowered the slingshot and we stood together and watched the flower break away from the stone holding it down and drift onto the creek. It rested gently on the surface of the water, and then floated away and out of sight.
~*~
Hours later, I stood in the little guest room I'd been assigned, folding my clothes and neatly stacking them into my bag. It was a fa
r cry from how I'd originally packed, when it'd been done in a whirl and a frenzy back at uni. It was a bit of a mind trip thinking about how different things were now than they had been then so, honestly, I was doing my best not to.
For this reason, when I first heard the light knock, I was happy for a distraction. I turned, expecting to see Elliot, but it was mum standing there.
"Hey, hon," she smiled an awkward smile, "you doing OK?"
Was I? I had absolutely no idea. I hedged my bets. "Quite possibly."
"And Elliot?"
Twisting the jumper I was holding round in my hands, I tried to think of how to answer that one. Was there a word that summed up supreme, gut-wrenching grief and bitterness, mixed with a fledgling glimmer of peace and acceptance? If there was, I didn't know it, so I shrugged again and replied, "He's doing…pretty much as you'd expect." I dumped the jumper into the bag and forced a pinched smile onto my face that almost perfectly matched hers. "Do you need help cleaning up downstairs?"
The funeral had ejected its mystery guests into the Sinclair house and the reception had been in full swing when Elliot and I had eventually returned. I'd left Elliot with Jonah and joined my mum in the kitchen, pouring drinks and distributing finger foods, relieved to be kept busy and be of some service, even if that service was to Elliot's cold-hearted mother.
That was over now, though and I'd taken the opportunity to head upstairs and get myself packed and ready to go. I couldn't see that Elliot was going to want to hang around at his parents’ house a moment longer than necessary and I was also pretty eager to return to uni. More than anything we needed to get back to normalcy, to a place where Nan's absence wasn't so keenly felt.
"No, it's all done," Mum said. "I just wanted to have a word."
I refused to let my heart sink at this. I'd had a pretty explicit demonstration over the past week of what it meant to really have issues with your family, and there was no way I wanted things to get 'Sinclair bad' between my mum and me. The least I owed her was 'a word'.
"If the word's 'chocolate' I'll be yours forever." I abandoned my packing, plopping myself down the bed and patting the mattress next to me.
My mum seemed to take that as the peace offering I'd intended it to be, and the line of her shoulders relaxed slightly. "You're already mine forever." She sank down beside me and patted my knee.
I relaxed then too, leaning my head against her shoulder. "Horrible day," I muttered, breathing in her familiar, comforting smell. "Horrible, horrible day."
She nodded and we lapsed into silence. It was a lovely 'things are going to be alright' kind of moment, but it ended all too soon as she cleared her throat and began to speak.
"I know you and Elliot will be heading back to uni soon, and I want to clear things up between us before you go. That first day-" She broke off to shake her head presumably at the memory of how badly that conversation had gone. "It became about Elliot and that wasn't my intention. What I wanted to say was about you."
Oh goodie, that could only bode well. I pulled away so I could see her expression and was supremely unsurprised to see that she looked troubled.
"I didn't mean to say that you were like me." Mum reached up to smooth back some of my hair, her fingers roughened through years spent elbow deep in moisture sucking cleaning chemicals. "I know you're not. You're so much smarter, braver and more confident than I was at your age."
"At my age you had me clinging to your ankles," I pointed out, ashamed of myself, but already frustrated with the direction the conversation was going. "You were raising me, going off to work, and basically being super-human. Trust me, you win the 'at your age' game."
"Don't romanticise that time, Rox." She was suddenly sharp. "I was miserable, and so were you. I never want you to live like that, and I'm so angry at myself that I couldn't, can't, give you more."
"You gave me heaps, and I don't need more!" I objected, but she wasn't listening.
"My savings, the money that I was so proud of, they were a drop in the ocean, I know that. I thought that that money would get you further, but -" She broke off and pressed her lips together in a thin line and I felt a painfully sharp spike of unease at the top of my spine.
Not the money, I thought fiercely, please don't talk to me about the money.
"But if I can't give you actual cash, then I can at least give you some advice." Her voice was now firm, her gaze on me steady. Oh yeah, we were deep in 'I'm your mum, so you better listen to me' territory.
"There are people who think that money doesn't matter," she continued as I watched her warily, "but those are the ones who have always had it. Don't think you can measure yourself up to them; right now you can't and I don't want you going crazy trying. Money is important. It's vitally important. But, by the same token, you need to know that there are limits to its importance and what you should do to get it."
I was relieved that we seemed to be talking about money in general, not the money she'd paid to the uni for my accommodation. All that remained now was to give the pearl of wisdom I'd just been handed a tap and a bit of a shake to try and figure out what it was.
"Sooo..." I said slowly, "what you're saying is...don't be a stripper?"
There was a pause, a pause I was totally used to. It was the 'what did she just say?' pause and, frankly, I expected better from my own mother.
"No, Rox, that's not what I mean." She sighed after a couple of seconds, and I felt like doing a bit of sighing myself as I said,
"I don't know what you do mean, then."
"I mean, look at this house," Mum gestured round at the plain, but somehow still expensive, guestroom. "Look what money's done to this family. Mrs Sinclair thinks it's the only thing that matters, whilst Nan, bless her heart, thought it didn't matter at all and was happy to sponge off her daughter. Elliot watched all of that happen and now he doesn't know whether he should be the rich playboy, or cast it all off. It breaks my heart how confused that kid is, and I don't want that for you. I'm worried that I've given you mixed messages and-"
"Oh, Mum." I shook my head. "That is so not even..." I got the message now. It was the curse of staff who worked so closely around the upper echelons. You simultaneously are and aren't part of their world and, yeah, it could get confusing sometimes.
Maybe Mum thought all my work at uni was in aid of becoming like the Sinclairs, of getting to be legitimately part of their world, but she was so very wrong. I didn't want what they had. I wanted better. Not more, mind you, just better.
"I'm not going to be a stripper, I'm not going to be some Scrooge-like miser, and I'm not going to be a possession-less nomad," I promised her. "There's got to be safe ground in amongst all that, and I'm going to find it and set up permanent camp."
She tipped her head back and, for a moment, her eyes seemed to become wet. Then she blinked a couple of times and her face was a picture of relief. "That's good, sweetheart, I'm going to hold you to that."
I was glad she was feeling better about the whole thing, but now I was the one swamped with unease. My mum was already so concerned she hadn't done right by me, how was she going to be if she ever found out what I suspected about the savings she'd paid my uni? It was so not the time to get into it, though, so I forced myself to look as pleased by the upshot of our chat as she did.
We hugged as a sort of full stop to the conversation, and then separated. Mum headed for the door and I stood on unsteady legs to continue packing.
"He's lucky, you know." I looked round as mum spoke again. "Elliot, he's lucky to have you looking out for him," she explained. "I don't know what's going on with you two, and I don't really want to know," she added as she saw me opening my mouth to protest. "Just...be careful."
And, with the air suddenly thick with what I construed as an unspoken 'don't let him knock you up and ruin everything' vibe, she was gone.
Gah! I puffed out a heavy breath and glared down at the bag. How stupid was it that I'd spent years distrusting Elliot with my mum telling me off for it, and no
w things had been reversed? It was disorientating and on top of Nan passing away...
So, yeah, when I heard the door click open again, I just plain lost my temper.
"Seriously mum, we've been over this now. I'm not going to be a pregnant stripper," I pretty much shouted.
"Good to know."
And that wasn't my mum. Monkeys.
----------
His head throbbed, his throat felt scratchy and his knuckles pounded their desire to hit something. He basically felt raw, inside and out, but she still managed to make him smile. He propped his hip against the doorway and watched as she slowly turned around, her cheeks red.
"Pregnant stripper?" He asked and she folded her arms.
"I'm finishing uni this year," she said, in a poor attempt at nonchalance. "Mum and I were just going through my options."
"Pregnant stripper?" He repeated.
"Don't be snob, Sinclair," she said sharply. "For some people that's a perfectly valid career choice."
"But not for you?" He questioned innocently, and her eyes narrowed.
"I've weighed it up and decided no."
How she still managed to sound haughty, despite the complete nonsense she was talking, was one of her gifts, he decided. One of her rare, insane gifts.
He held up his hands to show he thought she was nuts, but was letting it go, and started to walk towards her. "I was coming to ask if you were OK with leaving tonight." He looked over at her packed bag and felt a little tug at his lips. "I guess that's a yes?"
She let out a disbelieving laugh. "That's a hell yes. This week has been...," she flicked her eyes, still red and sore looking, over at him. "Well you know what it's been."
"Yeah." He really did. "So let's get out of here."
He leant past her to grab her bag, but she put a hand next to his on the handle and tugged it back slightly. "Just hang about a sec," she said, and something in her voice made him go very still and eye her warily as she added, "Before we go, I need to do something."
"Yeah?" He asked, wondering what weapon she had hidden in her bag this time. "What's that?"
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