Shattering Truth

Chapter 11

 Following day after he went away all she seemed to do is cry. She cried herself to sleep, and she cried while holding Johnny, she cried while making lunch for one. Sometimes it felt like she's crying in her sleep as well. All the tears were bottled up inside of her for such a long time, and now they were trying to find their way out. She had no other choice but let them.

And then one day she woke up and there were no more tears. She was afraid her heart forgot, or that it is on its way to forgetting, but it didn't, and it never would. It simply calmed itself down.

She got Jacob's old grandfather clock fixed so it ticks again, she stuffed his clothes in a box with most of his other things and kept them in the wardrobe in the hallway. She left his magazines under the table, where they were since they moved in together, and his pictures stayed in the same place around the apartment.

Jacob's mom happily watched Johnny until he was ready to go to kindergarten so Elena can go back to work.

She raised a sandy hair boy with big amber eyes and his mothers smile. Looking at him would bring tears to her eyes, but Jacob was right, after some time none of it mattered. After some time those things brought a smile to her face, and a memory became pleasant. She raised a dark haired boy with big obsidian eyes and his mothers smile, and she taught him how to ride a bike and helped him with his homework and admired his drawings which were very good from a young age.

When there was a problem she could not figure out, she would quietly ask, "Jacob, what am I going to do now?", and when Johnny made his first steps she whispered, "Are you seeing this?", and there were times when she would afford herself the luxury of telling him she loves him and misses him, but those words would open old wounds that refuse to heal. When Johnny was ten, he had a hard case of pneumonia, and while he was lying in the hospital with tubes in his nose, she quietly prayed, "Please Jacob, let him stay. Please don't let them take him away from me." And in those times, she would feel Jacob's presence hoovering above them, and she knew everything will be all right.

It's hard trying to make one person love another without even meeting them. So when Elena talked to Johnny about Jacob she didn't talk about him like he was perfect, she talked about him as he were - like a flawed human being he was. A guy who made buildings grow out of nothing, who loved football and cheese fries, hell, who loved cheese in general, who didn't hold his liquor well and said everything that was on his mind even if you didn't want to hear it. But she told her son his father loved him much more than he can imagine and that he wanted him for such a long time. That he loved them both, and somehow that seemed to be enough for Johnny.

When he learned to walk, he would grab Jacob's picture off the dresser and point, "Dada," and Elena would take him in her arms, kiss his temple and say, "Yes, that's daddy."

Jacob didn't only live in Elena's stories and her talks about how much he loved them both. He lived in their apartment, with them, in every picture and every thing he possessed while he was alive. He lived in Leah's childhood memories which she shared with Johnny, and he lived in Caroline's stories about how her best friend was the happiest with him.

Sometimes it seemed he's most alive in that silly story about a guy who was able to convince a girl to have a piece of cheesecake with a stranger at 5 am.

Johnny didn't like cheesecake, and he preferred baseball to football, but the way he was sitting by his desk and draw for hours would remind Elena of catching Jacob at three in the morning, adding the final touches to his new design. So she wasn't surprised when she came home one day and caught John buried in Jacob's old architecture magazines, or when he decided to be an architect. Just like dad.

Few days after she turned 50, they discovered she has a stage four cancer. Lung cancer. She never even lighted a cigarette.

She died six months later. Caroline asked her if she's afraid to which she smiled weekly and shook her head, because she knew wherever she's going, Jacob will be waiting for her.