Weezy's Choice: Picture 1
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The fog that hung in the air was freezing. It danced through the trees, the small beads of water clinging to the dead looking branches and trunks that seemed to surround me. The only shot of color seemed to come from the evergreens that danced in the light breeze that stirred the otherwise stagnant air.
I knew I shouldn't be out here in this weather, I knew I should be back inside the house with everyone else as the quietly said their goodbyes, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't say goodbye to one of the people I had loved so unconditionally. The person who gave me life.
It seemed so bizarre that only five days ago she had dragged me to the mall with the promise of a movie afterward to make up for the twenty mile trek she was sure to take me on. Even more impossible was that I had been on the phone with her not three days ago laughing about her dog, Milo's, constant need to chase his tail.
Was I really laughing just three days ago? It felt like a lifetime.
My eyes, not really seeing, watched Milo wander around the trees looking just as sad as I felt. Dad had said he'd been looking for her since the accident happened. He searched the house, scratching at doors to see whether she lingered in one of the closed off rooms. When his search became fruitless the poor guy laid in his basket, waiting for her car to pull up, waiting for her scent to envelope him again. I knew how he felt, because it's how I felt. It was how I thought.
The thick tweed jacket of hers that I was wearing held that smell for me. It surrounded me and lingered in the fabric, seemingly releasing whenever my mind turned to her. It had been happening more and more since I'd been sat here. My rational thoughts attributed it to the dampness in the air that still managed to cling to me even under the umbrella I was holding, but my heart; my heart wanted to believe that she was here with me, saying her goodbyes.
A goodbye I never got to have.
It was all so senseless, so unnecessary. A drunken driver swerving into her car as he barreled along the tree lined, rain slick roads. She'd still been alive when Dad arrived on the scene, he was able to say goodbye. He called me at work, telling me where to go and to hurry. I was only half way there when called me to tell me she'd gone.
I pulled over to the side of the road and sat there staring at nothing in particular as the large fat tears rolled from my full eyes and dampened the blouse I'd bought when I went shopping with her not two days earlier.
I don't even know how long I was sat there. It wasn't until Edward tapped on my window, the bright lights of his squad car flashing against the darkened forest, that I realized the night had covered the haunting gray of the afternoon sky.
Edward pulled open my door, his long arms folding around me and pulling me into his chest. His hands brushing through my hair as he let me mourn. He knew what I needed, just like he always did. He never said a word, no words of consolation, no apologies for the senseless act, he just held me tighter than he ever had, holding me together as I fell apart.
I huddled deeper into my mom's jacket as another icy breeze licked the exposed skin. I was sat on our bench in our park, watching her dog like we had so many times before, only this time I was alone. I only had my memories of her to keep me company as I watched Milo searching for something he would never find in the winter stripped park by my parent's home.
"Bella, baby?"
I closed my eyes as my husbands velvet smooth voice washed over me. I knew it was hard for him to see me this way, to see me pull back into a shell I hadn't ever had around him. He was everything to me now, the white light at the end of a tunnel filled with the inky blackness of my devastation.
His hands, so warm and gentle, cradled my face as he tilted it to the direction of his. My eyes fluttered open and I let myself fall into the pools of his eyes and find the comfort I was so desperately seeking.
"Baby, it's freezing out here," he said, his soothing tones washing over me as the pads of his thumbs brushed the remaining tears from under my eyes.
"I know, I just couldn't . . . They all . . ."
"I know, I understand." He pulled my cold body against his, his hands releasing my face as they wrapped around my body. He was wearing his best suit, his leather jacket covering his top half. I could smell the leather as my cheek came to rest on his shoulder. It was another familiar smell to me, but one I could only connect with him. "I think your dad feels the same way. If another neighbor brings him a casserole I think he's going to snap."
I felt horrible, my dad, having had my mom around all of our lives, now found himself alone. Surrounded by things they had bought together in a house decorated by her. He hadn't touched anything since the accident. The book she'd been reading still lay on the arm of her chair, the bookmark holding the page for someone who could never return to finish it. A cup on the coffee table that still had her lipstick mark from where she'd drank from it.
I was so lost in my own mourning, I was neglecting him. How much this hurt him. How much this was going to destroy him. I needed to set my grief to the side and help him deal with his. I needed to be his rock while he let himself truly mourn. I had Edward to hold me at night I had Edward to kiss away the tears. Dad was alone.
I nodded against Edward's chest in an effort to show him I was ready to go on. Move forward like my mom would have wanted. He released me from the secure loving encasement of his arms and I stood up from the cold barren bench. I whistled once to get the attention of the dog my mom had loved like a second child as I tucked myself into the space under my husband's arm. The place I felt that I belonged, that felt like home.
The future was ahead of us, we all had to work together to ease this pain, but we would go on, and we would carry mom in our hearts with us. She was gone, there was nothing we could do about that, but I was comforted in the fact that she would never be forgotten.
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