I wake up and roll out of my bed. I brew some coffee and then take my mug and walk down the stairs to see Mrs. Kilder. Her door is locked and I left my spare upstairs. I sigh and slowly make my way up the stairs again. When I come back down again I twist my key in the lock and turn the knob. The room is empty. I sigh.
"Mrs. Kilder? Where are you?" I call through the silent house. But the silence isn't shattered by my voice, it's only made a little stronger. I close the door behind me slowly as I walk into the kitchen, then into her room, then sit on the couch in the living room with my cup of coffee in my hand, sipping every few moments, staring at the open window.
I go back upstairs and get ready for work. I zip the zipper on my skirt and toss a light jacket on because it looks like it's going to rain. Then look for the keys to Mrs. Kilder's car for a few moments until, to my relief, I find them under a rag.
On my drive to work I pick Dane up.
"Hey Hutch. How's your morning been?" he asks.
"I don't know. I give up that's how it is. Dane, where the hell is this somewhere over the rainbow because I'd love to find it," I say and feel myself break down. I pull over and press the breaks.
"What happened? Hutch what is it?" Dane asks, suddenly worried. His face creases like I;ve neve seen before. I start crying. My brother, my father, my mother, Mrs. Kilder.
"Mrs. Kilder wasn't in her apartment this morning, I don't know what to do and I'm so tired. I need a break but my brother, oh god my brother, he keeps appearing in my dreams and telling me to move on," I bawl. Dane rubs my back and tries to calm me down.
"It's okay," he says in a quiet, calm, controlled voice. "We'll find her. I'll drive okay, it'll all be fine." He doesn't sound confident, he sounds scared. I would be too if I were him, now he has to face the facts, Mrs. Kilder doesn't have pneumonia, I'm broken, the world isn't all happy and things go wrong. I hate myself for causing him to understand.
He gets out and comes around the car, then leads me back to the passenger seat and helps me in. Then he goes back to the driver's seat and puts his shaky hands on the steering wheel, hesitant to put his foot on the gas. I can sense his worry. He's only seventeen after all, but I don't have the energy to try and help, all I can do is lie in a crumpled mass and sob because I moved on, Mrs. Kilder didn't, and Dane just got a little stuck.
As we drive back to the apartment Dane starts to worry too. The shock has subsided and he fully understands what is happening. I've cracked along with Mrs. Kilder. When we pull in I try to wipe away my tears but a new flow just replaces them. Dane pulls me into the building and we ask Mr. Furlow if he saw Mrs. Kilder leave. He says she didn't leave out the front door if she left. Mr. Furlow runs this building. He sorts the mail, fixes things that break, rents out the apartments, and watches the front door. When he tells me my knees buckle and Dane nearly doesn't catch me. I'm only sent deeper into my hysteria. Dane leads me out after thanking Mr. Furlow and the puts me in the car. We drive to the police station and after a few minutes of arguing with a man at a desk we are told to sit down and wait.
I start to feel faint as we wait, and occasionally I grab Dane's arm and plead with him to take me home but he calms me down each time and tells me I need to stay if we are going to have any shot of finding her. I know her best.
What feels like two hours passes and an official looking police man leads us to an office. He gestures to two seats in front of a desk and after we are seated he seats himself behind the desk.
First up is the standard questions. Name, age, appearance, and address. I answer with ease and Dane squeezes my hand occasionaly for mental support.
He asks me questions about her health and I tell him about how she is sad a lot of the time and Dane does not mention his theory of pneumonia.
He asks me about her family and I tell him she never had kids and her husband passed away years ago. Her mother resides in Kentucky and her father is no longer with us either. He nods and asks me if her husband is buried near here. I nod. He asks me where and I tell him the name of the cemetary. That seems to be all he cares about because he flips his notepad closed and tells us to follow his car.
We drive, occasionally almost making a wrong turn, until we find ourselves at the cemetary. We split up, then we scour every inch of our given section, looking for Marshall Kilder's grave. Twenty minutes pass and then Dane shouts, "Hutch, Hutch over here. Mrs. Kilder is over here!" I try to find his voice, running after it but it is caught in the wind which is blowing me all over the place. I finally see him waving his arms, and the police man is standing over a lump. As I near the lump morphs into Mrs. Kilder.
"Oh dear lord. How is she?" I ask.The police man has his hand on her neck and is inspecting her body.
"She doesn't have a pulse, I'm sorry," he says. I look at him sideways.
"What are you talking about?" I ask. He shakes his head. Dane grabs my hand, and pulls me into his chest.
"She is dead, kid," he tells me. I start to cry, in the middle of rows and rows of tombstones with forgotten names fading away.
YOU ARE READING
Afterwards (Editing)
Ficción históricaIt's 1983. We were past it all. The world was at peace. I only bring this up because of my brother. No one was dying anymore. Life was good.
