Linnea Selanne-Niemi (everflowing) wrote in light_of_may, @ 2011-04-05 12:59:00 |
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Entry tags: | #solo, 2009-08-14, linnea |
I didn't get around to kiss you good-bye on the hand
Who: Linnea, NPC'd brothers (Bjorn and Dane)
Where: Finland
When: Morning
There were roses in water on the counter, yellow and red, with several lilacs mixed in. Linnea was making the water rise and lower in the vase while her brothers looked on. Dane spoke first. "Are you sure you want to go?"
Linnea couldn't believe that he'd actually felt like he needed to ask that. Of course she was sure. She'd been putting it off since the day she first stepped back into her home city, her home country at that. She hadn't just come to see the living or to show her children the country that they had come from and needed to be proud of. No, she'd also come because her parents were buried in the local cemetery and she hadn't ever seen the graves. Had not even been able to attend either funeral thanks to Jokull and his refusal to allow her to leave. Not that it would have mattered much for when her father died - that had happened when she was in Australia at the clinic. She hadn't even known that he had passed until she had returned. And then only because Jokull had left the message on the machine. "How can you even ask me that, Dane?" Linnea's voice was quiet, though a tremor caused it to waver. They were her parents. She had loved them as much as she had anything in the world. She needed to take them flowers, to see the graves... tears were stinging at her eyes just at the thought of acknowledging that yes, her mother was in the ground.
"I just mean that it's hard." His hand was on her shoulder and without thinking Linnea reached up to cover it with her own. "And... if you didn't want to, we'd all understand." The words stretched out in the air, heavy in the silence. All three knew what he hadn't said - that it'd be understandable if she did not go because it was due to their father and his blood oath that she had even needed to leave in the first place. If not for that then she'd likely have never left Finland. Yes, that would mean her children would have been different and she herself would have been as well, but who could say that that wouldn't have been better? 'Lingering on what could have been won't make anything easier.' Strike made a lot of sense for a snake. From time to time. 'If you go, then you'll forgive them.' Was that what she wanted to do? Forgive her parents, especially her father, for just giving her away when she was hardly sixteen.
"Linnea?" Bjorn's voice was soft. He had always been the kinder of her brothers and Linnea had more fond memories of him than she did of Dane. That was not to say that she did not love both of them dearly, it was simply how things had been. Dane just happened to have an extra edge to him that Bjorn was lacking. And it was because he was the eldest, the head of the Selanne family. For all that her last name was legally Niemi - which meant that Leif was the head of the family she technically belonged to - she felt more loyalty to the Selanne's. To the gray-haired man leaning against the fridge who had started to go round around the waist despite the family's tendency towards slenderness. "Are you ready?"
"I am." The youngest Selanne did not even pretend to smile as she moved to take the flowers. Bjorn had tried saying that he would carry them but she couldn't stand for that. They were a gift from her and therefore she was going to carry them. That and it wasn't as though she was infirm just because she was pregnant. She hadn't even begun to show yet! Instead of smiling she just nodded again, allowing Bjorn to take her arm as they started out of the house they'd all grown up in. She had been to the graveyard only a few times during her childhood, usually playing around with friends to prove that she was every bit as brave as them. It had been far less frightening then than it was now. Now she had a reason to be reluctant and there was something with an actual form to be afraid of. Their parents graves.
Bjorn and Dane stopped, the latter looking away as Bjorn raised his hand to motion at two graves that almost seemed to stand out from the others. Or perhaps that was just because of how Linnea was looking at them, knowing what they were. Her breath caught in her throat and she looked up at Bjorn with a silent plea. “Go on, Nnea, you’ll feel better once you do.” Bjorn kissed the top of her head and released her arm, stepping over to stand with Dane. They’d wait until she was done but at least they had the decency to turn their backs. Good to see that people here still respected certain things and would not insist on watching someone else’s grief.
First she placed the flowers between the two graves before settling down on the ground, fingers going out to touch each headstone carefully. They were cold and smooth beneath her fingers, the letters engraved deeply into the stone. Kajsa Selanne and Lars Selanne. Linnea had spent the majority of her life after marriage upset to some degree or another with her father for having given her away and her attention turned to him first, fingers coming up to flick away the tears that had started to form. This was infinitely harder than going through Jokull’s funeral had been and she had already grieved for the both of them. “It’s me, dad, it’s Nnea… I’m sorry it took me so long to come say good-bye but I have that life in America you seemed to want for me.” One does not lie to the dead. “It was horrible. I wanted nothing more than to come home, but I knew you’d send me right back.” The tears that were continuing to fall were beginning to freeze, her fingers curling into fists at her sides. “I’ve been so mad at you for as long as I can remember. I’ve even hated you. He took… everything. You knew he was just like his father, you knew that he would. He even took one of my sons, your oldest grandchild. Leif. You never met him, or any of them, but the younger four all came with me… they don’t take after him near as much.” Except for that problem with their blood that nothing could be done for. “But I didn’t come here to berate you, that’s not my place even now. I have hated you dad, more than I even did Jokull, but I forgive you. I do. You made a mistake but I can’t keep holding that against you. I just wish….” That you weren’t dead. She shook her head, teardrops sprinkling off her face. “I do love you and I’m hope you’re happy wherever you are.”
Lars was the easy parent to regard, to let go. Linnea had forgiven him, yes, but she had never felt the same affection for him as she had her mother. Kajsa had been a wonderful influence and Linnea had always hoped that she would be able to be at least a little like her in something past appearance.
“You know that I named my oldest daughter for you,” she started, her voice quieter and rougher than it had been only a moment before. “Kajsa. She’s not a water elemental, but she’s a wonderful girl.” No, Linnea was not counting the drunk driving incident against her, how could she? That’d be hypocritical when she herself had needed to spend time away from her family for her addictions. “Dagmar… she looks just like you, mom, practically a spitting image.” There was a slight harshness to Dagmar’s eyes that had never been in her mother’s, true, but other than that? Sometimes it was like looking at a photograph she did not have. “Valterri’s so quiet, I worry about him, and Satu’s just… she’s my baby, and she was so excited to come here. Leif isn’t here. I failed him, mom, I didn’t do as good as you.” All she had wanted. Sometimes she looked at her children and was nothing but proud of them, but Leif… he had been such a good boy, in her eyes at least, until Jokull had gotten his hands on him. Jokull had gotten his heir and in the process he had succeeded in turning her eldest against her. That thought hurt very nearly as much as the acknowledgment that she was kneeling in front of her mother’s grave, forehead actually resting on the stone as she started to cry. No matter how much she'd pushed it away from her conscious and unconscious mind it was still true that Linnea had genuinely missed her mother ever since she had left her when she was still just a girl herself. Younger than Dagmar... younger than Valterri even. "Satu's picking up her elementalism very well. I hope I'm as good a teacher-" Her voice broke. She couldn't do it. She couldn't say good-bye to her mother, could hardly accept that this was really her grave. Her last memory of her mother was her as a woman hardly any older than Linnea herself was right now.
Some people may have thought it disrespectful but Linnea hardly cared what the opinions of others might be just then. She stretched out on her side between her parents graves, one arm wrapping around her mother's as she whispered over and over, "I miss you so much." Truly, Linnea believed that she could have been content to live out her life here in Kemi with her family. A small house, a smaller family, no Jokull, no scars all over from his knives and needles and vampire fangs... Linnea wasn't just crying for her parents, but for the life she could have had, and it took hours for her to stop.
"Nnea?" It was Dane and he sounded, for perhaps the first time in Linnea's memory, uncomfortable.
"I'm alright, Dane." She still accepted his hand to help her up and welcomed the arm around her waist, leaning most of her weight against him as they stood there looking at the graves. Bjorn had vanished at some point.
"She talked about you all of the time. Your calls, your letters, they were things she clung to." The uncomfortable note was still there and Linnea didn't have to look up to know that her brother was holding back his own tears. He may have been the stoic head of the family, but he was also every bit the elemental that she was. "After you left, she didn't come out of the house for weeks, it was like she was in mourning. She was never quite the same after and I don't think she ever forgave father."
"I've missed everyone so much."
"And we've missed you. But you have a good family, your children are healthy and well. Mom would be proud of you." Linnea had to squeeze her eyes shut against the tears that whelmed up even though she'd been certain she hadn't had any left in her. "You were the last thing she talked about, she hoped you were well."
It wasn't quite proper, but Linnea still turned slightly to press her face into her brother's shoulder. "Thank you." Hearing him say that was the best part of this entire trip.