Precious Things || Jensoo

Chapter 6

Chapter Six

If my grandfather notices the grazes on my palms he certainly doesn't bring it to the fore of our conversation. He doesn't offer to look at them, or tend to them. That would involve touching me and my grandfather rarely, if ever, touches me.

He never really has.

I don't know if it was losing everything dear to him or if it's just the way he is, because I was too young when it all happened. Don't get me wrong, I remember enough; it's just that I don't really remember my grandfather before the accident. Since then it's just been him and me, and it's always been the same.

I think he was under a lot of pressure when they died. A lot of people questioned his ability as an elderly man to raise a young child. The reason I know this is because I do remember. Some things stick in your head more than others.

I don't remember them telling me. I probably didn't understand.

But I remember the funeral.

I remember five coffins all in a row. Five mahogany boxes that seemed so huge, so daunting, that I didn't want to go near them. I remember my heart thumping in my chest and my hand firmly in my grandfather's as we approached.

I had to go up and see. I had to go up and pay my respects. My grandfather would allow nothing less of me, even then. I was petrified, but I went. How could I not? Even then my grandfather's grip was like steel and he didn't have to drag me, I just knew that there was no other possibility than to follow him.

A little girl, in her little black dress, behind the tall, proud man in his black suit. That's what I remember.

Closed caskets all in a row, shining in the forgiving light, one after the other. A name whispered here or there: Dara, Jin. I remember the whispers even then, around me, pointing to me and my grandfather.

"Oh the poor little mite, all alone in the world."

"Does he really think he can do it? Surely he must be grieving sorely? Surely there's someone else?"

"Oh, Patsy, there's no one else. Dara was an only child and they won't consider Arthur's family."

"Surely someone younger would be more appropriate?"

"Well apparently there was an incident with marijuana... some type of college professor... no reprimands... oh no, they wouldn't hear of it... it's in the will, yes, I know, Dara's parents... no I'm sure they never meant... well yes..."

Snippets, all the time snippets of memory that come back to me. I doubt these words were all spoken at the funeral, in fact I'm sure they weren't. They were across the space of time that was the few days before, the few weeks after, when the numbing uncertainty turned into bone chilling surety that nearly killed me.

They were surrounding the time when I came to understand, as young as I was, that there would never be anyone but him and I now. That they weren't coming back. That they'd left me.

What else does a five year old think when Mommy and Daddy go away and don't come back? A child that age doesn't understand about death, or about the nightmarish crunch of metal on metal. An older child does, and one whose imagination is as unforgiving as mine will make the movie in her head, but at the tender age of five, no.

All you know is that you're alone.

And he will make no companion, no substitute, because he never had. Because he surrounds himself in an aura of composed stability and you don't know how to get through.

It might be all right if he cried. It might be all right if he were to take you on his lap and tell you, whisper to you, that it's okay for you to cry.

It would be all right if he didn't make it so clear that it wasn't okay to grieve. At least not publicly. It would be all right if behind closed doors he talked to you about it. It would be much better if he said words to you that weren't just directions or reprimands.

I learned quickly.

I learned that my salty tears belonged in my pillow. I learned that the words I chose to speak to my grandfather were to be carefully chosen. I learned the rules. I learned what happened when I broke them.

He never talks about the past. Not unless he's talking about things that happened before King Edward VII was the King of Britain and motor cars, as he likes to call them, were a new phenomenon.

When I was a child I asked him about my parents, about things I couldn't remember. It wasn't that he told me off for doing so, but the basically monosyllabic answers I got, combined with his tone, put me off asking him any more questions. Besides, my grandfather thinks it's impolite for a young lady to ask too many questions.

I am allowed out of the house once a week to somewhere that isn't a walk, school or the backyard. Every Sunday morning we go to church. There are four churches in our little town alone. We attend the Lutheran. I secretly think that it's because it's as close to pure Calvanism as you can get. My Grandfather and Calvin would have gotten along well.

Some churches have bible study, youth group, singing that doesn't drone on. Our church is not one of them. It's attended by a congregation of roughly twenty, and I am the only member under the age of seventy. I wouldn't be surprised if the pastor was over a hundred.

Church is not the highlight of my week.

No, the highlight of my week is still the sight of Jennie Kim. Even now, digging my fingernails into the bruised and grazed heels of my hands to remind myself of the stupidity of hope, she won't get out of my head.

Even now after she's made it perfectly clear what she thinks of me, I can't get her out of my head.

Who am I kidding? You'd have to shoot me.

She'd still be all I thought about.

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