Cordelia Helena Atherton (liafae) wrote in light_of_may, @ 2010-01-07 00:54:00 |
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Entry tags: | #flashback, #solo |
Too many years fighting back tears, why can't the past just die?
Who: Lia, and then Catherine Boughton, Mary Boughton, Helen Atherton and David Atherton (all NPCs)
When: Monday, June 29th, 2009 and flashback to June 2002
Where: Lia's apartment and flashback to New York City
What: A day to remember
It seemed almost impossible that she could forget what day it was. After all, it was the one day a year she knew her family was in the same place as she was. With the notable exception of this year. This year, she was in Michigan while the family gathered together, lay lilies at her grave (though Lia knew she preferred roses) and remembered the woman who was Catherine Boughton. She was the woman who was responsible for the woman Lia had become. She would never regret anything about knowing her, about loving the woman who had shown her what she was. How could she?
"Cordelia! Sit down! You'll jostle her!"
She wanted to glare at her mother, but her grandmother was there too and Gram was sleeping. There was no way she'd get away with it. So she folded her hands and restrained a sigh. This was ridiculous. All she wanted to do was kiss the woman's cheek. She did it every day since Catherine had been hospitalized. And she would read to her. But with both the other familiar matriarchs sitting in the room, both were impossible.
The older woman on the bed shifted a little and opened her eyes. "There is my Mary Sunshine," she said softly. Lia smile and got up, leaning gently over the bed to kiss her great-grandmother. "I was wondering when I'd hear your voice. What did you bring to read today?"
"Mother, really, you should be resting." Mary looked at her mother with concern and Lia was annoyed. After all, Catherine looked to be doing better. She was a little tired, but better. It seemed the older woman agreed with Lia's thoughts.
"Mary, dear, I'm fine. I would like to hear my great-granddaughter read to me, if you don't mind. Her voice soothes me."
Avoiding the desire to gaze smugly at her grandmother, Lia pulled a torn copy of "Circle of Friends" from her school bag and tucked her legs under her as she sat at her great-grandmother's beside.
"The kitchen was full of the smells of baking. Benny put down her school bag and went on a tour of inspection." She continued reading, telling the story that was her favorite to hear when she was sick. Occasionally, she would stop to ask Catherine what a turn of phrase meant or why something was funny. There were stops for sips of water on Lia's part, ones where, if Catherine's eyes had been closed, the teenager would find herself under the watchful gaze of the older woman, her eyes asking if she would continue, not wanting to break the stillness of the hospital room.
Mary and Helen would move in and out of the room, checking with nurses and doctors, conferring, trying to figure out the solution to Catherine's illness. But Catherine and Lia were in their own little corner of Knockglenn, reading about Benny and Eve and their misadventures and the disgusting Sean Walsh, the man who made her skin crawl. Of course, Lia was convinced it was because of the movie, since Alan Cumming had done such a great job portraying the slimy man.
It was a tradition that they had started when Lia was around ten, reading when she was sick. Catherine would read whatever she could find and one day she'd found Lia watching the movie on television when she came to visit. She brought the book with her ever since, it becoming what they read when one was sick. So it seemed appropriate that Lia read it to her now. And Catherine enjoyed it, relaxed by the sound of her great-granddaughter, the young woman she loved and treasured.
The next day, Lia was on her way to the subway to get to the hospital when she got a call from her mother, saying that Catherine was doing much better and would likely be home the next day. Thrilled, she didn't question it when her mother said to go home and not to visit. Her gram was coming home! But the day after, things were bad. Helen and Mary forbade Lia from coming to the hospital, saying Catherine couldn't see visitors. They went ever day and sat at her bedside and Lia sat in her room, clutching her book with her, waiting for news, waiting to hear that the miracle she was praying for was coming.
It never came. Five days later, Catherine Boughton was gone from this world. And it nearly broke Lia. She tucked a paperback copy of the book into the casket when no one was looking, which was easier to do than she'd thought with everyone milling about, drinking, laughing, talking. Didn't they see how much this hurt, how this woman was gone? It was enough to make her scream. And she nearly did at everyone. Until her parents pulled her outside.
"Cordelia! What is wrong with you? Behave yourself in there."
"Mom, you have got to be kidding me! It's a circus in there! No one is here for her. Everyone's just standing around, talking, gossiping, drinking wine like it's going out of style..."
"Cordelia!" Her father's sharp tone nearly made her wince. "You watch your tone with your mother, you hear me? This is a wake, this is how wakes go. We remember the good times and honor the memory of the dead."
The word dead made her throat swell. "But no one is honori---"
"Cordelia Helena Atherton, you will shut you mouth this instant. Everyone in there loved your great-grandmother. Everyone. And everyone grieves differently. So you will march yourself back in there and smile for people, thank them for their condolences and honor her memory by being a decent young lady for once in your life! I am tired of you and your sass. It ends now, you hear me?" With those words, Helen entered the funeral home again, leaving her husband to deal with her daughter.
Lia looked at her father pleadingly. "Daddy, please, this is stupid. If no one is going to do what she wants, can't I at least go home? I don't want to be here anymore." There were tears in her eyes, tears that were not breaking David's resolve one bit.
He shook his head. "No. You are going to suck it up, get over it and go in there and be the dutiful child you were raised to be. No more sass, no more lip. You're going to go in there and you're going to do as your mother says. Is that understood?"
It was the first moment when she felt her powers since her debut into society. The wind picked up around them and David went into the funeral home after his wife, almost immediately appearing as a comforting presence at her side. The whole thing was enough to make her sick. As she slowly walked inside, the wind blew the once neat waves about her face, leaving them tussled, the way Lia preferred them and the way her mother hated. If she was going to have to do this, she was going to do it her way.
That night was seven years ago and she had hated it. But more than that, she hated her lack of self control when she was talking to her parents. Now, Lia realized that there was nothing she could have done, no way to have appealed to them in anyway. They were as they had always been and nothing would change that. So now, Lia could live with what happened that day.
Without a grave to visit, Lia headed to a florist she'd found online and picked up two dozen pink roses and brought them back to her apartment. She spent the better part of an hour making sure they were perfectly arranged and adjusting them in the vase she had. Satisfied, she brought them into the living room and set them on the coffee table. Once she was satisfied, she went to the book case and took out the hard cover book she'd read from all those years ago.
Turning the first page, she traced over the neat letters that spelt out her beloved great-grandmother's name and smiled, though she felt a tear in her eye. And she moved to the first page, curled up on her couch, reading about Benny and Eve and how they went to college. How Sean made them both uncomfortable. And she felt Catherine with her as she did every year, every day. And, just as she did ever year, she hoped she liked the roses.