The house is quiet without you, only the lichen covered thatch creaks above the rafters, full of a thousand miniature lives. But here, without you I feel alone.
All the strangers came today, and it looks as though they are here to stay. Well not here, here I have my solitude, they are all put up at The Bell now and will no doubt drink, gregarious with song and fond memory, to your life until the dawn breaks and finally washes away this torturous day.
I look up through the heavily hooded lid of our bedroom window, a willing spectator to the sky. I think, heaven’s holding half a moon and you among its glittering stars tonight. You will make a new home in a place of noble thinkers and all I can do is wait for the day that I can join you there. Will you be waiting? Will you gather me to you as St Peter fling’s wide the gates, so we can inhabit paradise together? I would bask for ever more in the warmth of your smile.
I did it for you in the end. It was hard to watch you suffer day in day out, lines of pain etched into your face when you thought I was not looking. If people knew, what would they do? None of them know what to say to me now. They huddled round the corners of our home today keeping a distance from my grief incase it was catching. Did they sense my culpability, see the shadow of guilt? Only Clara came to sit on my knee and let me know I was not alone. She raised her arms about my neck and kissed my silent tears away then spoke.
“Trust the birds, they’re on the wing and gone from the barn in a month, but we don’t miss them for long.”
