Alone

“Hey, everyone left a long time ago. Let’s get to the house; it’s freezing out here.”

My brother gently grasps my elbow and leads me away from the mound where my husband, my lover, my best friend, my everything was just buried. I want to stand in the rain forever soaking up all the moisture that I can to replace what I have lost the past few days in tears. I’ve felt like the sandbox in the back yard; so dry and barren and full of weeds that none of the children want to come near me.

My feet squish into the ground in a slow, methodic way as I maneuver to the car waiting at the end of the grass. Each time I take a step my heart breaks more because I am leaving him behind. Finally my body can take it no more and I collapse uselessly on the sopping ground. The knees of my black stockings immediately soak through and I surrender to the pain that I’ve been holding back the past three hours. My hurt, sorrow and rage come tearing through my body at an unstoppable speed and I let it all go. The grass is at my mercy as I tear it out handful by handful, roots and mud coming up with the bright green shoots and leaving me looking like a monster resurfacing from the depths of a muddy lake.

For a half an hour my friends and family in the car sit silently with their heads bowed; my emotional outbreak causing an awkward silence through them all. Nothing exists but me and the grass and the rain and the now-fading memory of my one true love.

Once again, my brother is at my side. His hand finds mine and his knees are down in the soggy grass as well. Slowly, he tilts his head until it is resting on mine. “Alex,” he whispers. “Please get in the car.”

With a nod of my head I let him slip an arm under me and he lifts me delicately to my feet. Everything that was around me is gone now. The grass, the rain, the mud, the sobs are all lost and I sit numbly on the black leather seat that John has set me on. Various people around the car try to make eye contact with me, probably to give me a meaningful glance or some words of comfort, but I can’t bring myself to look at anything except my shoes.

They are quite exquisite, this pair of shoes. He bought them for me, knowing what a sucker I am for anything that I can wear on my feet. The tug in the right hand corner of my mouth as I am about to smile hurts my entire face and I find that I cannot even summon up the emotion to enjoy the memories of him yet.

Suddenly we are on a gravel drive; our…my gravel drive. The tires crunch on the rocks and roll to a stop leaving me with a feeling in the pit of my stomach that a vital organ is missing.

John leads me to my room and I sit on the edge of the bed, unable to even say thank you to the person who has done the most for me today. I hear the people downstairs, eating their finger sandwiches and munching on the olives that my mother put the little toothpicks in last night. I can imagine them all feeling sorry for me; the poor widow who seemed to have had the world.

Sighing heavily, I resign myself to the hunger pains in my abdomen and make my way slowly downstairs to the buffet. Looks of sorrow, pats on the shoulder, words of comfort, and people who love me surround me as I eat. And with all the people there, I am completely alone. Hidden away in a bubble of sorrow and I don’t think that I will ever be able to not be alone.

I feel a tug on the hem of my black dress and I look down, irritated, into his eyes. “Mommy?”

My irritation is lost instantly and, in a fit of emotion, I get down on the floor and wrap my arms around my son, bringing him onto my lap and rocking gently back and forth holding my most precious possession. “I love you, Mommy.”

“I love you too, baby. More than you can ever know.”

I open my eyes and I look around me, realizing that as long as this pair of eyes is able to look upon me, I will never truly be alone.