Memory
ISABELLA GRIFFITH
Memory… is the diary that we all carry about with us. - Oscar Wilde
The past was permanent. She knew this as she got out of the passenger seat of her husband's car looking at the bush surrounding the cottage before them. Amidst the familiar, near-nostalgic Blue Mountain trees of Katoomba, she felt numb. Sadness and anger had both fought a war inside her head since the news of her Grandmother’s passing and she knew they would make an appearance again, probably very soon, festering rot was like that. Humans lived such short lives, even her Grandmother's 94 years seemed brief. Pearl's whole life her Grandmother Delia had been there existing just like her and now she wasn’t. No one likes to think about mortality until it directly impacts them because life is so full that simply not existing anymore seems impossible. Pearl thought back upon the times with her Grandmother in her home, the same home she, her husband Lee, and their 4-month-old son Michael were about to enter.
Her Grandmother had been kind. A sort of kindness that didn’t need to be worked at because it bled through every action. Pearl thought back to when she was young and stayed at her Grandmother’s house for the night to give her Mum and Dad time out alone, hopefully putting a ceasefire to their battles for a short while. Pearl loved being with Delia but it was still early days when she wasn’t used to being without her parents so she started to cry. They were those silent, heavy tears that kids always cried when they weren’t faking it to get something but were genuinely upset, to distract her Delia set up ‘Grandma’s special facial station’ complete with organic yoghurt, sliced cucumbers and warm towels. Pearl’s tears quickly dried and the next morning when her parents came to pick her up she tried hiding so they couldn’t leave and she could keep having fun with Grandma.
Growing up living in the heart of town in Katoomba, Pearl and her parents often drove over to her grandmother’s house for a Sunday dinner or visited just because. When Pearl’s Father left to be with his new woman, she and her Mother went to stay with Delia for a while but the heartbreak became too much for her mother Claire who eventually passed away leaving Pearl and Delia alone. Pearl always felt so lucky for having Delia and everything she had done for her. Pearl felt a barrage of emotions when her Mother died, sorrow, anger, and resentment predominantly. She cut off contact with all her friends and barely left the house becoming hostile in her self-inflicted isolation. One particularly bad day Pearl yelled at Delia over breakfast, screaming that it was her fault for letting her mother die. Delia, saying nothing in return, retreated to the study for a couple of hours before coming back out and simply wrapping her arms around her Granddaughter who had stayed in the kitchen upset with herself and her vicious words. The old woman knew that words could be just words sometimes, she knew that Pearl hadn’t meant what she said and she knew that there weren’t many words in that moment that could make her feel better. What she could do was hold her, saying with her actions that she was there for her, she wasn’t going anywhere, and that she would help Pearl through this.
As Pearl got older and moved away travel was hard and visits became limited but she never forgot Delia. She’d call her regularly, visiting when she could and occasionally bringing Lee with her. Delia loved Lee and was happy they’d made a good life together especially when they got married. They then had little Michael and her world felt complete. A couple of months afterwards Delia died and Pearl was thrown back to the same dark place she had fallen into when her Dad left and her mother passed away. Lee hadn’t initially wanted to move, he was up for a promotion at work that would need him there in person but seeing his wife the way she was pushed him to organise remote work that he would be able to do from the cottage Delia left Pearl in her will.
She told herself she wouldn’t cry, not before she even got inside the house. When she did walk through that door, everything seemed wrong. It was as if there was an uncanny filter blanketing the whole place. Everything was exactly how she remembered it down to the TV guide left by her grandmother on the coffee table, the only thing that wasn’t there was her. Pearl felt sick.
Later that night Michael had been put to bed in one of the spare rooms, Pearl and Lee were curled up together on the couch with the TV playing softly in the background. She felt more at ease now than she had since their arrival, she remembered sitting on that very couch watching old British cop shows with her Grandmother when she would stay the night in her youth. But this time the memories weren’t suffocating her, she looked back fondly and allowed herself to be comfortable in her husband’s arms.
A sawing sound from another room made her sit upright with alarm. She elbowed Lee to see if he heard it too but he had fallen asleep and no power on earth could get that man to wake up once he was sleeping. Blaming it on her still being drowsy she went to settle back down but was once again distressed when it returned, twofold in loudness. Getting up and picking up one of the candlesticks off of the sideboard she followed the sound into the study, heart in her throat as she thought how dumb this probably was of her to actually go towards the strange sound. As soon as she entered the room, the candlestick raised above her head in an attack position, the noise stopped leaving Pearl perplexed. All of the drawers were to some degree pulled out and the paper contents were tossed around the room as if there had been a strong wind but the windows were still closed and locked from the inside. Pearl didn’t sleep the rest of the night.
The next morning a groggy Lee stumbled into the kitchen and began to make himself a cup of coffee, mumbling a brief good morning to his wife at the dining table who clutched her cup tightly as if it could erase the bags under her eyes and make her feel ok. She looked up from her cup to where her husband had just walked through, half expecting her Grandmother to be following him decked out in her fluffy dressing gown and matching slippers like always. When she didn’t, a strangled sob pushed through her throat choking her. Lee sat in the chair next to her and grabbed her hand tightly equally for her comfort and his, he missed Delia as well. She wasn’t his Grandmother but she had been kind to him and welcomed him into her home with a good cup of tea and a cooked meatloaf for dinner. When he was thinking about proposing to Pearl, it was Delia who gave him the wedding ring of Pearl’s Mother saying that it was about damn time and that the ring would have belonged to Pearl anyway but now it can have a new meaning making it twice as special. He eventually detached and got up from the table when Michael began crying before getting ready to begin work for the day.
Reaching the study where he planned to set up, Lee yelped at the destruction before him. He called out to Pearl, someone broke in she has to call triple zero now! Running into the study she told him what had happened the previous night and that she didn’t know what to think because no one could have got in the house. Scoffing with disbelief he turned from her back to the room almost expecting to see someone hiding under the desk to prove her wrong. Instead of a poorly concealed thief, he was faced with the desk itself floating a few inches off of the ground, his face blanched as the expression of scepticism moulded into sheer faced shock. The table landed back down with a thud but that was no matter, both Lee and Pearl had already witnessed the impossibility for themselves.
Lee began to shut the door, out of sight out of mind seemed to be his idea of a perfect temporary bandaid on the situation, but Pearl pushed it back open because on the floor next to the desk was a pile of papers that had an envelope with her name on it neatly on the top almost as if it had been placed. She kneeled next to it slowly with severe hesitation to be in the room that had just held some sort of spectral display. Pearl stared at her name written neatly on the front of the envelope in a handwriting she immediately recognised as Delia’s, she traced it gently with her fingers as if she was somehow touching her grandmother’s hand that had been on the very same spot. Taking the letter out and unfolding it she began to read.
Dearest Pearlie,
Hello sweetie, I want to start by saying I love you. If you are reading this when it is intended for then I am no longer with you and that’s probably something you need to see right about now. In my time your mother has just passed away, you aren’t doing too well but you will be ok I know it. I also know that I won’t be around forever and there will come a day when you might be left on your own, I don’t want that for you. That young man Lee loves you, if he is still in your life don’t push him away anymore. He’s one of the good ones, Grandmothers can tell these sorts of things, and he will take care of you when I can’t anymore. I’ve changed my will and left you the cottage, not so you can be stuck in the past but so you have a place to start building your future. Although best to drink up the tea left in the drawer because it’s the good English Breakfast that I know you like and I don’t want it to go to waste.
I know you will go on to live a very happy life, I have all the faith in the world in you and what you can do to achieve what you want. I just hope that you believe in yourself as I believe in you, and please don’t spend a long time being sad about me being gone you know how much I hate having a big fuss made about me. That’s not to say you can’t be sad at all, I expect a few tears and I expect you to always remember your favourite Grandmother! I’m nearing the end of the page so I can’t say much more but just remember that I love you, Darling, more than you can ever know.
Lots of love always, from your Grandmother Delia xxx
Pearl didn’t stop crying the whole time she read the letter, even when she laughed at her Grandmother’s loving words mixed with touches of that wicked humour of hers that always managed to make Pearl laugh. Invisible to the human eye Delia stood next to Pearl, happy that her efforts to show her where the letter had been tucked away were successful. With her unfinished business finally completed, Delia smiled at her beautiful Granddaughter who still clutched the letter tightly before fading away allowing for whatever came next to happen.
Isabella Griffith is a young writer from Sydney who is an avid fan of the horror and fantasy genres. She has a collection of short stories and has been published two times in the Write4Fun short story and poetry competition.
