Daylight - Taylor Swift

Chapter 48

They seem a bit disrespectful but I really think Beth would've loved it, so keep that in mind. Everyone deals with pain and grief differently.

February 1st, 2018 (2006)

"Jo, come on, baby, you need to wake up and get ready."

Jo opened her eyes to see a familiar roof, popcorn ceilings that should've been scraped years before. The walls were a tinted yellow, the lace curtains on the window were still, the window closed due to the air.

"Mom?" Jo rubbed her eyes, they focused on the woman standing just beside her bed. Elizabeth Collins stood in her pyjamas, her hair in a bun on top of her head. She was young, early thirties and her face was a mirror match for her daughters.

"Get changed and brush your teeth, Nana's gotta take you to school in an hour," Beth said softly, she padded off on her red fuzzy slippers towards the corridor that took her downstairs.

Jo got ready for school, went down to find her five year old sister at the table with a bowl of cheerios. Charlie was horribly messy, always had milk dribbling down her chin after it came off her spoon.

"Good morning, Jo!" Charlie smiled at Jo, missing her first tooth. It was right in the front, so she looked silly when she grinned like that.

"Morning, Charlie," Jo chuckled, pouring herself a small bowl and a splash of milk. She stood by the window, watching the snow fall, "It's not a snow day?"

"Storm isn't supposed to be bad," Beth told her, "That's your new shirt, right? It looks good, hon."

"Thanks," Jo smiled weakly, taking another mouthful of cereal and chewing quickly, "Tonight after school, can you help me with this melody I'm working on? I can't get my fingers to cooperate."

"I have my night class tonight, tomorrow. I promise."

"Okay," Jo nodded in agreement and finished off her cereal by the window, watching the snowfall.

She gave her mom a hug and told her she loved her before walking out the door, waiting for Mrs. Abernathy, her grandmother, to drive her to school.

School only lasted three hours before parents were asked to come pick up their kids due to a winter storm warning, worried if the roads got worse, they wouldn't be able to send the kids home. It had quickly changed into something more than the forecast predicted.

Jo grabbed Charlie from her classroom and stood by the gates while her younger sister built a snowman with some of the younger kids. Jo was glad that this middle school was attached to Charlie's school, so she could help Charlie adjust to the move.

They hadn't been in Pennsylvania long, Billy had only been deployed two months beforehand and it had been a lifetime to the girls already. Jo was used to moving, Charlie didn't understand why her friends didn't come, too.

They turned onto the street after being picked up and noticed half the driveway was cleared, "Mom is shovelling?"

"Oh, yeah. She wants to take Papa's car to class later and it's stuck in the garage," her nana said from the drivers seat.

As they approached the driveway closer, they noticed something peculiar about the bundled up figure. Elizabeth Collins wasn't upright, instead she was laying down, a skiff in the snow displaying a patch of ice.

The shovel was a few inches from her hand, the van pulled up and Carol put in park quickly, "Beth?!"

She shook her daughter gently, getting a little bit more rough when she noticed the small cut that was turning the snow under her head red, "Nana? Is Mom okay?"