Kitty and Ada- Short Stories.

5. Let the Heart Love Again

My life that year had been the most eventful and surreal. Until that point, I had been an ordinary young lady from an ordinary home, or at least what was ordinary to me. I had always dreamt of more. I had always known I wanted more. I had never known what was out there for me but I'd always followed a feeling in my heart that something was waiting, ready to reveal itself and change the course of my life. But then as life does, it leads you down a rocky path and when father died, I was unsure which way to turn or indeed whether anything good waited for me at the other end. It was so difficult to get past his death and visiting his grave became something I avoided through fear, through grief, through not wanting to face the truth.

The graveyard was a chilling place and the rows upon rows of headstones seemed to blur together in the ever-crowded churchyard. There were graves there that dated back hundreds of years earlier and they were broken and lost to time. I didn't know the names of those dead, or the day they died or who mourned then, but nonetheless I still liked to spare a thought as I passed each headstone, imagining another young woman, a hundred years before I was born, standing where I was, also weeping over the resting place of her own father. It was only time that divided us.

The sunshine emerged slowly from behind the clouds as Alec and I stood there, looking over father's grave- linking arms and standing in silence. Summer was ending and autumn had arrived. Already the green leaves were ready to change colour and it was hard to believe that father had been gone so long. In some ways it seemed a lifetime ago since I heard his voice, in other ways it seemed only yesterday and I could still hear his laugh as I read him a joke from the newspaper.

Many of my memories of father were kept alive through Alec. Though their personalities differed greatly, their looks did not. Alec was small like father and his moustache and receding hairline made him of the image of him as he stood next to his grave. He even had a similar walking stick to father which now rested against the headstone as we looked down upon the earth and remembered.

"Cynthia chose some beautiful flowers," I said as I looked upon the lilies.

"She knew father's headstone needed brightening up."

"She's a great lady."

"A wonderful wife too."

"I bet."

"You know you can have what I have, sister."

"Wouldn't Cynthia miss you?" I laughed and unusually he began to chuckle with me. "But in honesty, Alec, are you telling me to find a husband?"

"I'm not telling you, merely suggesting. Marriages can be happy things too."

"I know that but I've no immediate plans to marry. Even if I were to meet someone tomorrow, I doubt it should ever occur to me to want to spent my whole life with only one person."

"You may change your mind."

"Maybe."

He took my hand and we stood silent for several moments in deep contemplation. Graveyards always had a way of making one reflect.

...

Alec's words about marriage were still in my mind when I returned home and found Ada relaxing in the garden. I shook his words from my thoughts and joined Ada on the bench where she was waiting with tea.

"And how was it?"

"It's been too long since we laid flowers."

Ada smiled and I could tell from her expression that she had something to share with me. Her cheeks were flushed and she obsessively twisted a loose thread from her cardigan around her forefinger.