The suicide of Ms. Heathe

It must have been the morose weather – a dismal combination of a grey-blue sky mixed with the mocking clouds overhead that cast an ever-present feeling of rain that never fell – that made the news of Thea’s death all the more heart wrenching. Jill Timberg was sitting at the other end of the world, suffering a much needed vacation, the sand of the beach where she sat upon nearing the evening sky through the changing shades of the sea, and one hand clasped to the phone against her ear, when she suddenly folded. Her shock was only heard by distant gulls, as they immediately exerted their wings in the other direction.

There wasn’t much to be said over the phone. Thea’s mother was devastated, of course, but she maintained herself on the phone, saying not much in the way of an explanation, only that Cynthia Heathe, or as she was better known by her friends, Thea, was now dead. Jill Timberg had lost her best friend, and she hardly heard anything after Mrs. Heathe told her about the funeral, as she wept on the wet sand. There was a staccato beep from the phone dying so metaphorically, and that was all.

Silent tears ran down her cheeks, reflecting the orange from the dying sun, and whatever noise that came from her were drowned out by the washing of the waves over the sand. When Jill’s date came over with the wine bottle, Jill was already trying to calm herself, unsuccessfully. Even while she was being rushed at and hugged, Jill continued to shake her head, the red of the sky slowly fading away into black.

Two days later, Jill Timberg stepped on London soil, four years since her last step on the very same. She had come here once again leaving the not-so-warm beaches of a different continent altogether, and the comfort of the many hugs of her lovely date to say her last goodbyes to her late friend. Jill thought it vital to remain completely detached to everything, lest she start crying again, but that was hard to do, having arrived here, the familiar stores and streets that she and Cynthia used to roam passing right by her cab. Often, Jill turned back, maybe after turning the corner after Elderson street, or after passing that too frequently visited pub, as if to check for a sign of her friend. The windows of the cab that took Jill to the Heathe’s were small and grimy, and sometimes she was deluded into thinking that the women walking down that curb outside might just have been them – Jill, Cynthia and Diana, laughing at some joke at someone’s expense. Perhaps it was the will of sore wishes, the bittersweet memories that only come when you are lost and hungry, but Jill found herself memorizing Cynthia’s face, and it came to her mind almost immediately, most vividly, as clear as water.

Even as a memory (or perhaps because it was a memory), Jill remembered Cynthia as a regally beautiful woman, although she was completely indifferent to that fact. It wasn’t that she was not aware what her presence often did to her male companions, but more the fact that she honestly did not care. Yet, she never tried to hide her perfect face – in fact, quite the opposite. Cynthia made sure her pale grey-green eyes were accentuated to a certain degree by heavy black mascara; her straight black hair that touched her hips did not hold a single frizz, and her skin was immaculately even, always the same pale milk shade. Every aspect of her figure shouted gentle euphemisms, what with her slender waist and soft looking wrists; however, there were a rare few who had ever seen her smile. That and those eyes that held pride and disgust in equal measures often dissuaded many of the men from their approaches. Jill had always admired Cynthia for that, for how rare was a woman who was so independently confident of her own self that, whatever the question, her answer always was a “no”? In all her life (with a pained grimace, Jill realized, now it had truly become “all” her life) she had never once depended on anyone. In fact, at the age of twenty-six and at the height of her lawyering career, people soon started to ask Cynthia the question of probable marriage, a boyfriend, anything? But, at twenty-seven, Thea still responded with a “no” and chose death instead.

Jill visibly shuddered. It was still impossible for her to think of Cynthia in the past tense. Moreover, Jill was certain if someone as mentally strong as Cynthia had committed suicide, she must have had a very strong reason as well. And yet, even knowing that, Jill was nowhere close to understanding why. It stung her, a peculiar pain in her chest, to wonder what drove Cynthia to kill herself.