Small Town Love

Chapter 6

The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not 'get over' the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again, but never the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to.

Elisabeth Kübler Ross

On Thursday afternoon Daphne had done her homework together with Ollie, Luke and Grace, sandwiched there between the Schuyler siblings. She and Luke had done their Math homework together, easily able to manage it between the two of them.

On Friday, she had gone to school again, had ignored the glances and whispers as people still saw her as the new girl. She had ignored it to the best of her ability. She had given Kyle and Haley a wide, wide berth, not in the mood of another confrontation. And otherwise, she had just stayed quiet.

Art club was great as it pretty much meant she could do whatever she wanted and could go ask Mrs Foster, the art teacher every questions she had.

And Kiana was great as well, happily introducing her to anybody they met.

Still, when Friday evening came...she knew that she couldn't keep on ignoring what was looming on the horizon.

She sat down in front of her window after dinner, leaning against the footboard of her bed, ignoring the dull ache that this resulted for her back.

Daphne could do this. Somehow she was going to get through that day tomorrow, without breaking down. Somehow.

She started with pencil. She knew exactly what she wanted to paint. That wouldn't be a problem. Not really. There was only one truly perfect day that she could remember with her mother.

Daphne couldn't remember how old she had been. She must have been young, not yet in school. Maybe 3? 4?

They had went to Coney Island. Daphne couldn't remember why. She couldn't remember much of that visit. She remembered the sandy beach, the ferris wheel, the bright blue balloon she had held on to...she remembered chocolate ice cream.

But most of all, she remembered her mother's hand in hers. She remembered the sine of the sun, the smell of sun screen and the ocean, and the feeling of Michelle holding her hand.

It was a snapshot of a memory. Daphne couldn't remember more than a few seconds of that. She remembered nothing else of that day, only that.

She remembered that moment with total clarity though.

She painted the Ferris wheel in the sunset, a silhouette of her mother in front, in black charcoal. Daphne couldn't bear to put her mother in colour to try and match the colour of her hair or her blue eyes or the colour of the sunny yellow blouse she had worn that day.

Daphne worked on it until it was dark outside, even when Caroline came to tell her goodnight. She worked on it until her back hurt, her hands were aching and her eyes burning. Only then she stopped, setting the charcoal and crawling into bed.

The day of her mother's funeral came bright and early.

Caroline was flitting through the kitchen doing god knows what, while Oliver was fighting with his tie until Matthew took pity of him and Daphne watched the tableau of a happy family from her place from the kitchen table. She felt like she was a viewer intruding into something she had no right to.

They tried so hard to carve out a place for Daphne and still...it didn't seem real. It didn't seem like it could be right.

Life in Fairbury was so easy. There was no worry about money, no worry about being quiet or her mother would go on one of her rampages. It was easy. Too easy.