Asylum

Chapter 48: A Fork in the Road

Tuesday night

Finally. This wretched day was finally over, the weather was finally behaving properly and acting like it was grappling with a tragedy, and I was now utterly and completely alone, so I could finally start to mourn Mormor properly.

I watched morosely as the rain alternately pelted and trickled down the window, driven by the vagaries of the fickle winds outside. I pivoted my head where it leaned on the window pane to stare into the darkened room. My childhood bedroom at my grandmother's country home hadn't changed in more than a decade, except for the ages and sizes of its current occupants: just me and the snoring dog curled up at the base of the softly faded blue and white quilt covering the twin bed.

I sighed and closed my eyes, pressing my forehead again fully against the chilled window pane. Probably due to some sort of freakish and very localized warp in the space-time continuum, the last fifteen hours had seemed to stretched on for the space of at least a week. Tilda's burial was for family only, so Sarah had refused to accompany me to the small service when I invited her. With Sarah not going, I'd felt too guilty to ask Kristofer to drive upstate and hang out while I buried my grandmother, so I'd taken a taxi and a train from the city this morning; Tilda's long-time housekeeper, Sylvia, had picked me up from the small local station.

When we'd arrived at the estate, I had been nearly knocked over at the door by Solsken, our family's Golden Retriever, who was beside himself with tail-wagging, butt-wiggling bliss to see me. Joy and guilt and relief had literally driven me to my knees on the dark slate of the entry hall, Solsken lapping up my tears as fast as I could shed them. My family had brought him home as a puppy during my junior year of high school. When my parents were killed while I was in college, Mormor had taken him in, and he had been her faithful companion in both the city and country for the last eight years.

Tom had just come into the house from some chore out in the yard and had gazed somberly upon the small reunion. "Kristofer brought him here on Thursday, after he found ...." He'd trailed off awkwardly, as Sylvia had stepped up beside him to take his hand. Tom had cleared his throat and continued, "Of course, you can take him back with you if you like, or, if that's not going to work out for you, we can keep him here for you. We've certainly grown to love the old boy over the years."

I had nodded through my tears, my face still full of warm fur, cold nose, and wet tongue. I had known that Solsken was here – I'd asked Sarah about him when we'd met at the office on Sunday – but the whirlwind of personal misery that had surrounded me since then had pushed all thoughts of the poor dog from my befuddled brain until I'd stepped through the door and seen him. Thankfully, other people in Tilda's life were more compassionate.

"I'm sure he would be happier here than stuck alone in my apartment," I'd said reluctantly, burying my knuckles behind the dog's ears and rubbing those hard-to-reach spots. "If you both don't mind."

"Of course we don't mind," Sylvia had chided. "He's wonderful company. And it's the least we can do, what with you letting us stay on here at the house and all."

"Believe me, you're doing me the favor, not the other way around. I wouldn't know what to do without you."

Solsken had followed me up to my old room and, using the scratched old trunk at the end of the bed as a step-stool and turning around twice to find the perfect spot, had flopped into a comfortable position on the old quilt with a heavy sigh. His liquid brown eyes had watched me prepare for the burial until the excitement of my visit and his advanced age had overcome him and he'd fallen asleep.

The service had been at noon; Tom had driven me to the cemetery to meet the rest of the Hellström family while Sylvia had stayed behind to finish setting up for the small luncheon I would be hosting afterwards, courtesy of Mormor's planning.