Page 28 of Save Us

I smile sadly to myself. I could have placed a million-dollar bet on that being the first thing she’d ask me.

“No, sweety,” I reply and walk over to crouch down next to her, “that’s just somebody else who was called Beth too. Mommy was called Beth Taylor, not Beth Penn. This Beth died when she was eighty-four, look.” I point to the small engraving stating her age and watch Rosie nodding in acceptance of my explanation.

“So, how old was mommy when she died?”

She looks at me with curious eyes that sparkle in the sunshine, and I take a moment to study her pretty face, one that reminds me so much of her mother.

“Eighteen,” I answer truthfully.

“Is that old?”

“Not old at all,” I manage to tell her through a hard lump in my throat, “she died much too young.”

“Why?”

Oh, that little question that is on the tip of every child’s tongue, ready to trip you up because you have no idea how to answer it.

“When she had you, she got very sick,” I reply, “and her body got too tired to carry on.”

“Oh,” she says matter of factly, “so where is her grave? Can we go and see it?”

She begins to look around as though I might point it out to her, right here in a place we’ve never even been to before today.

“Her grave isn’t here, Rosie,” I explain, trying to sound as soft as I can, at the same time as I stroke back a loose hair from out of her face. God, she looks so much like her.

“Well, where is she then?” she asks accusingly, as if I’ve been purposefully hiding it from her for all these years.

“I don’t know, sweetheart,” I answer with a sigh, wondering how on earth I can explain this to her without freaking us both out. “Someone took her and buried her in a secret place. But you know what?” She shakes her head with wide and confused eyes, ready to listen with keen interest. “It doesn’t matter where her grave is because she’s not there anymore.”

“Where is she then?” I almost see a hint of hope, as though she’s considering the idea that her mother might still be alive and well somewhere. Something my poor Beth can never be.

“She’s in heaven with her nanny,” I answer with a soft smile. She slumps a little in disappointment. With nothing else I can do to comfort her; I pull her into my arms and gently kiss her.

“Sorry to disturb you two,” Riley, Beth’s little brother, who is not quite so little anymore, says with a smile toward his niece, “but I was wondering if I could take Rosie to the park?”

Rosie looks up at me and grins stupidly, nodding her head rapidly, silently begging me to say yes. I smile and whisper my thanks to Riley for breaking her out of this line of questioning about death. Soon after, they walk off in the direction of a small play park that is sat just behind the church.

Unfortunately, this leaves me free to go and face all the sadness that I’m not quite prepared to see at the moment. However, after a stern talking to, telling myself not to be such an insensitive and selfish asshole, I head to the gravesite of Mal’s mother. When I get there, everyone has already started to move into the church rooms for tea and coffee, probably with those awful Rich Tea biscuits that Beth used to dunk inside of her tea. It reminds me of teasing her and I half-smile over the memory.

The only person left at Rosalie’s open grave is Tom. And when I say Tom, I mean a crumpled shadow of him. He’s wearing a look that I perfected for nearly a year after I lost Beth. In fact, Casey frequently tells me I haven’t completely shaken it, even now, five years later.

“What am I going to do without you, Rose?” I hear the old man say toward the wooden box beneath him.

It’s heart-breaking to see what you once looked like; to see what other people must have seen in you; to witness someone falling apart, only to never be fully rebuilt again.

“I still remember that beautiful, young, and so very lost girl waiting at the bus stop with nowhere to go. I think I fell in love with you right there and then; I just couldn’t admit it. You were so obviously out of my league, and I was so scared of being responsible for someone other than myself. God, you were so beautiful, Rosalie!”

“Tom?” I venture as I get closer to him.

I must startle him because when he spins on the spot to face me, he begins to furiously wipe at his eyes, and is clearly embarrassed to have been caught in such a vulnerable state. I take a risk and walk right up to him to wrap my arms around his huddled and broken stance. As soon as I take hold of him, the guy breaks against me with heartfelt cries against my chest. It sounds as though his heart is disintegrating right inside of him. And I know it does because I’ve been right where he is. I’m still there with him; I’ve just learned to hide it deep inside.

“Christ, I’m sorry, Xander,” he mumbles, finally pulling back and looking ashamed of himself. “No one wants an old man falling apart on them.”

“Fall away, Tom, I’ve been there, remember?” He smiles tightly and nods, silently considering what I’ve just told him. I’m the only one who can honestly say to him, ‘I know what you’re going through.’

“I just don’t want to be here without her, you know?” he explains. “When I was taken by those bastards, I could at least hope that one day I would get back to her. But no one can change this, can they?”

We both look at the grave and contemplate the heaviness of his words, because the truth of the matter is, no one can fight death. It comes to us all, even to those we love more than ourselves.

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