From Dusk to Dawn

Broken

After that, she had dropped him off at his school and headed to the high school she taught at. Despite how late he was, he stood on the pavement watching her drive away, the feeling of remorse washing over him. The day passed him by in a daze. He walked to and from his destination without much thought to where he was going. He nodded and automatically answered when spoken to. At lunch time he ate his food and drink without any care to its taste. His mind was clouded with nothing but the thought of her and how he caused her to be late for work. He hated the thought of upsetting her day but the damage was already done. He could not undo what he did but he was determined to make it up to her when he saw her later that day. However, the moment did not come. He had been waiting since then to tell her how sorry he was and how much she meant to him but with every hour that passed by he was beginning to wonder what would happen if he never got the chance to do so.

At the moment, a weirdly shaped blacked car pulled up in front of the house. With trembling hands he watched as the visitors turned towards the car. Though they were scattered a few minutes ago, the crowd drew closer and closer together. Many of them wrapped their arms around each other as a wave of soft cries begun to spread throughout the house. A lump begun forming in his throat as he watched the scene play out in front of him. Only once before had he seen a car that long. It was a mere two years ago. He was five years when a similar vehicle pulled up in front of his grandma’s house. He knew what the car meant. He clutched his hands tightly together. No. Please no, he begged inwardly. His hands became drenched with perspiration. His heart pounded against his chest with fear of what was to come. He pleaded for time to be frozen in that moment, where there was still a chance for her to come back to him rather than move forward to a life without her. However, it was not to be for he stood there and watched the two men from the front seat walk to the back of the car. With his body growing weaker and weaker, he force himself to continue standing as he observed the crowed gathering around the vehicle while the back door of the car was opened. He bit his lip when they pulled her out of the car and he saw her laying there in the box with her eyes closed. She had returned home one last time. 

His soul and heart shattered when he saw her and though the tears begun to spill down his checks, no amount of droplets would be enough to drain him of the pain he felt. His world was changed. His safe place gone. Everything he knew about the world and himself revolved around her and now with her gone he felt himself exposed to the brutality world. As bits and pieces of him fell apart he looked on as they carried her inside the house. The cries from below formed a sword against him. It penetrated his very being, separating the life he had before and the life which now lay ahead of him, a life without her.

An old lady with an open black sweater and grey dress entered his bedroom. Her hair was loosely tied in a knot. Despite her old age, his grandmother had been a woman of great joy and unlimited energy, but as she made her way to him, she appeared to be drained of everything she had in her. Even the spark from her light blue eyes was no longer there. Just as it was with him, part of herself was forever gone, the best part of her probably. She was, at the moment, an empty vessel. She kneeled in front of him, rested her shaking hands on his head and looked directly at him. He wanted to speak, to say something, anything, not to is grandmother, but to his mother. He wanted to tell her about the pain he felt, the fear he had for the future, the regret of the words left unshared, but most of all, he wanted to say come back, that he wasn’t ready to exist without her.

Staring at each other, grandmother and grandson stayed like that for a few seconds and then she grabbed him and hugged him. She was not just hugging him for his sake, but for her own as well, he felt it. He was now her anchor among the chaos. Without him, she would have lost the last remaining pieces of herself. Neither one of them moved or said anything and what was there to say. There was no phrases or sentiment that could make things right. No words to heal that part of their soul or to explain what was happening. One minute she was there, her existence bigger than life itself and the next her entire presence was able to be contained in a box. Life had taken away the joy she had brought into this world so many years ago and at the same thing it had taken away his guiding light, the thing that reminded him of who he was and who he was supposed to be.

She released him from the embraced and rose to her feet. “Are you ready?” she asked as she took hold of his hand. Her voice was raw. She was so close to the edge that he felt as if the question was more directed to herself than to him. He wished he could help her, to be the thing that was missing from her, but how could he have done that when he himself was incomplete.

With a force energy, he shook his head to indicate he was. He was not of course. He would never be ready for what was about to happen, but it did not matter, time still moved forward even though her life had stopped. In his heart, he sent a silent plead to her, wherever she may have been. He begged her to give him the strength he needed and putting one foot in front of the other and with his hand locked with his grandma’s, he unwillingly said goodbye to his old self and unwillingly made his way downstairs.