At the End of the Garden

Chapter Nineteen

There wasn't much about visiting my grandparents for Christmas that I found exciting anymore. At first, I was eager to be by the sea. But that was when I was really little, and didn't quite understand that the appeal of the beach is lost in December. And the novelty of sleeping somewhere different wore off by the time I was six. So did the novelty of seeing my grandparents.
If they weren't my grandparents, I don't even think my mother would make the effort to see them. They were worse than traditional, like they were living in Oliver Cromwell's time. It wasn't until that I was born they'd started putting up a Christmas tree, as they'd stopped all festive decorating by the time their children stopped believing in Santa, or, at least their firstborn. I've heard tales from my aunt saying she was still full of Christmas spirit when her parents decided they couldn't be bothered to buy a tree.
They weren't all boring. They had personality in places. Like, my grandmother adored expensive wine, which she barely drunk but kept in their basement. My grandfather must have something interesting about because he still scares me. Not on a Victor Quinn level, of course. But he's a very stern man with a voice that always sounds like he was talking in a big empty hall.
Until now, I'd been the only child visiting at Christmas. My maternal aunt Paige, who was quite a bit younger than my mother, would usually be my temporary best friend. But not a perfect replacement as she was still an adult who could drink and talk with the rest of her adult family. As well as this for the past four years she's been taking turns visiting her husbands family for Christmas, sometimes leaving me all alone. The first year Paige didn't come, I'd felt well and truly betrayed, but this year it was worse. She was bringing more children to the Christmas celebrations. Toddlers. Twins. Who I would probably end up watching because I would be the only one sober most nights. How did I know that? Because Paige told me that it used to be the case with me, when I was a toddler, and she was just seventeen.
Would I be able to sleep in and avoid the toddlers? Nope. My grandparents liked to have the entire household up for breakfast at eight o'clock each morning, which of course you had to be dressed for. And I had to be up early on the day we left too, because Grandmother wanted us there by lunch. So when I was woken up at 5am the day we left, I tried my best to let go of any hope I had for a lay in on my break.
In my rush to pack the night before, I forgot to put the unopened present from Eden in my suitcase and because I was sleep deprived, I forgot to put it in my bag first thing in the morning. Only at the last minute did I remember to grab it, and it sat in the empty car seat next me during the journey.
"What's that you've got?" My dad asked in an attempt to be cheerful and happy despite it being so early it was still dark. He wasn't driving, him and mum were supposed to swap half way through the journey. This meant he could turn and face me freely with an awful sunshine smile that made me squint.
"From Eden." I muttered, too tired to form a whole sentence. "Forgot to pack it."
"That's sweet of him." Dad replied. "Glad to see you're getting on better now."
So was I, but all I could do was grunt an insincere groan.
"Boys stop being sweet long before fifteen." My mum chimed in. "Did he at least smile when he gave it to you or is he like his father?"
I didn't bother answering, she'd probably accuse me of lying no matter what I said. Technically, he didn't smile when he gave it to me, but he had smiled during the conversation. Which was something for Eden. Or he was just getting more convincing with the polite ones he gives teachers. But either way, he was doing it more and more these days. He'd even laughed at me once when we were doing our homework (I'd got really simply maths wrong), even if I was too embarrassed to notice he had at the time. He'd been more apologetic lately, too. But he still switched off whenever anything sad came up. Evelyn's tribute was the best example I could give. I bet if I asked him if he was okay, he would stare at me like a brick wall and give the same bland answer he gave everyone else.

'Life goes on.' For the rest of us.

I'd first heard him say it at his mother's funeral. We'd stood in the conservatory. Not too far from the spot he'd found Evelyn, now surrounded by flowers and cards.
"Life goes on, what can I do?"
Almost as if there was nothing left of him. And everything inside was just metal and clogs. Or more accurately, all that was left of him was father.
It's not like he'd been wrong. Life does go on. But I never thought he should have put it behind him the way he did. Like he'd found a stranger dead, in the conservatory, and was moving on, trying to forget her. But who can blame a twelve year old for giving bad advice.

On an occasion not long after, I caught him in his bedroom staring at a mirror. A picture was stuck onto the wooden frame. One of the few left of Evelyn Quinn in the house.
I'd only been in his room to get Eden for dinner. During that time, me and my Mum were making frequent visits to the house. Out of comfort, I think. Before I told him why I was there, I asked him what he was doing.
He spun his fingers around each other, and didn't look at me. Since the funeral, this would be the first time he'd mention Evelyn Quinn to me.
"Someone said I looked like my father." He said, glancing at me briefly through the mirror.
"And you do."
"But." His eyes met the picture on the side of the mirror. "I don't think I look like her very much."
He looked back at himself and made a disappointed expression, as if he expected to suddenly look like her all of a sudden. Instead his eyes were met with his own blue ones, his father's eyes. Evelyn's were brown and deep and human. Not a chemical blue. Evelyn had dark hair and tanned skin from Greece. Eden had pasty English skin and freckles that would fade away by the time he was thirteen. He didn't have any other of her notable features from the photo, not her small nose, rounded face or long forehead.
Life goes on.
Is what I wanted to say. Throw his own words back at him. Maybe I was annoyed because this was the only time he'd mentioned her at all, or maybe because I was also mourning. I ignored my knee-jerk reaction and found something better to say.
"That's not true, you do." I told him. Got closer and threw my arms over his shoulders like I did when we were younger and I was still taller than him. "If you did it more you'd realise."
"What?" He scrunched his face up, the opposite reaction of what I'd wanted, and he tried to shake me off in vain. He didn't like to think I knew something he didn't.
"When you smile..."
I didn't finish my sentence. Eden stopped trying to wrestle for his freedom and began staring at himself in the mirror.
"I look like her when I smile?"
"Yep."
I wasn't sure if it was true. I hadn't ever compared them. Back then, I hadn't known I'd be putting up with Eden's porcelain face forever, and had just wanted to make him smile. But even then I knew, both had pretty smiles. Not like mine, all crooked and dimply. And I don't mean those ghost smiles and smirks I see more from Eden these days. Proper grins, teeth baring smiles. Evelyn would let everyone see that.
He didn't attempt it straight away. At first he looked at the photo. Of course, Evelyn was smiling in it. She was always smiling. She must have been.
He shut his eyes. "Thank you, Marie." He said. As he spoke his lips twitched upwards, even though he couldn't see it. Then the smile drifted into some lost place.
It seemed like now he had this connection to her, he could break it.
We were called for dinner not long after, and life went on in a different way. Nothing seemed to stop the earth from turning, or stop the future plummeting at us despite the feeling of things left behind. Perhaps the only thing he could control was whether he smiled or cried.

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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Hopefully, 2021 is better. If I had updated last week, the dates the story takes placed would of matched when it was published. Unfortunately, Christmas had me busy lol.