The Whole Family’s Regret After I Died Chapter 07
Uncle Aldric from next door had heard the crying and pushed open the door, which had been left unlatched.
He was still holding a few sprigs of rosemary he’d cut from the garden, peering in from the entryway. He first saw the half-hung streamers and scattered balloons, then the heap of people on the floor.
“What’s going on?”
His eyes made a quick circuit of the room and landed on me in Grandpa’s arms. His expression moved from confusion to the particular knowing look of someone who’d already guessed.
“Ah, so she didn’t make it after all.”
He shook his head and lowered his voice, his tone carrying a thin layer of sympathy over something thicker and more interested. “I saw your lights on all night, figured you were keeping vigil. Elena’s had it rough, poor girl. Eighteen years, that’s no time at-”
“It’s not Elena.”
Dad lifted his head from the floor, eyes full of red.
Uncle Aldric’s expression snagged. He leaned in, looked closer, and recognized the face in Grandpa’s arms.
“Emma?”
His voice shot up and the rosemary slipped from his hand. “It’s Emma that died? Then where’s Elena, where is she?”
Elena was standing at the bend in the hallway.
Uncle Aldric spotted her, went still for a second, and then a complicated look spread across his face: half relief, half confusion, and somewhere in it a cruelty he probably didn’t notice in himself.
“Elena survived? So the curse didn’t work? Then how did Emma—”
He scratched the back of his neck, like he was trying to work out an equation that wouldn’t balance. “I mean, the whole family spent years on this, and then the one who was supposed to go didn’t, and the one who wasn’t supposed to…”
Mom’s fingernails dug into the crack between the floor tiles.
“Get out.”
She didn’t look up. The words came through her teeth.
“Look, I’m only asking because I care-”
“I said get out!”
Mom shot up from the floor, eyes bloodshot, hair wild, like an animal pushed to the wall. She grabbed the heavy ceramic cup off the coffee table and hurled it at Uncle Aldric. It skimmed his ear and cracked against the
doorframe, water spraying everywhere.
Uncle Aldric jumped back two steps. “You’ve lost your mind-”
“Don’t you say her name.”
Elena came running from the hallway, barefoot on the wet floor, nearly slipping, staring at Uncle Aldric with her whole body shaking, but her jaw locked tight.
“You don’t get to mention her.”
Uncle Aldric’s face cycled through several colors. His mouth moved a couple of times. He said nothing turned, and walked out.
The door closed behind him.
The room went quiet again, quiet enough to hear the faint slow hiss of a balloon going flat.
Grandpa rose from the sofa, still holding me. His knee buckled and he nearly didn’t catch himself, but he steadied.
“Start making arrangements for Emma.”
Mom rushed at him, hands reaching for my arm. “No, she’s still warm, feel her ear, there’s still warmth there. Dad, give her to me, let me hold her for a while, just warming her up will-”
Grandpa turned half a step aside and didn’t let her touch me. “Get a hold of yourself.”
He looked at her. “You locked her in that cellar and she died there. What exactly is this supposed to be for?”
Mom’s legs gave out. She sank to the floor.
“I didn’t mean for it to happen, I didn’t know she’d-” She was crying so hard the words disintegrated. “Let me hold her one more time. Just once. I never got to say I was sorry-”
Grandpa didn’t look at her. He looked down at me for a moment, smoothed my hair, moved a loose strand away from my face and tucked it behind my ear.
“I’m going to Silverleaf Town.”
He started walking toward the door, one step at a time.
“Dad-!”
Mom lunged from the corner and wrapped her arms around Grandpa’s waist. “Don’t take her away… let me stay with her a little longer… just a little…”
Grandpa stopped for a moment. He didn’t turn around.
“You were with her for fifteen years and you never loved her for a single day. Let me be with her now.”
He stepped forward and walked out the door.
Mom’s arms slid from his waist. She pitched forward onto the threshold, her forehead hitting the stone step and drawing blood.
No one came to help her up.
