Fallen

The edge of the woods is vast and thick, seeping out towards the fields behind the house. They seem closer now than they did before. I remember watching the girls run and skip, seeming to take hours to reach the edge of the woods. They were good girls then. Of course they questioned us. Why were they not to climb through the trees? They were satisfied with our answers then. I made them a rope swing in the oak tree near the stream. Even the least interested of children would be entertained in such a meadow you said. A judder creeps up my arm and a furrow cracks my brow. I am still angry, my heart is pounding. I don’t recall it feeling like this before. I had always said to stay away from the woods. Maisey was so strong willed, but I figured she would be OK if I didn’t push her too hard. Certainly she was not a slow girl.
It has been 16 years since I last gazed from this window. I stood here whilst the women in my house fought, and thought of the times we used to play in the meadow. Spring literally crawled into your pores and the pungent cleanliness of the air whisked the girls high over the water. Now there is a layer of dusty grime preventing me from seeing the stream clearly, or, perhaps it is just so overgrown I would not be able to see it anyway. I turn to look at the room. This sets off the judder again. I do not care that it is my stuff, I do not care even that our house is in such disrepair. The disappointment comes from viewing this prison of bad memory and taste, not far from a mausoleum for you. I can still smell a faint waft of sodden bedclothes crying out to be comforted. I roll up my sleeves and set about cleaning my old home.
I do not lead an extravagant life, nor a lonely one for that matter. I never dared to pick up the phone and see how you were doing. Of course there were reports.
Our second daughter called and I was summoned to the same office we had sat in when we signed for a certificate. Not one to be proud of, but an end to something that had hoped to reap great achievement. And we did, didn’t we? I thought we had. Divorce was not a rare thing and many families survived death then. We had not been frivolous; we had not argued ourselves into a rage. We just seemed couldn’t seem to pick ourselves up after Maisey was gone.
You told me she had gone missing one evening. I had not believed you. She always came back. Most likely just out of town at a party or something I had reasoned with myself. We all knew she was a bit wild, secretly I admired her gusto for life. You and her sister were worried though. I heard the sobs sputtered late into the evening. Hushed telephone calls echoed around me whilst I tried to read. I told myself it was a woman’s thing, that you were all in cahoots and had probably had one of your ‘cat fights’. I was an adult; why should I get involved in such goings on? She did not return. I asked why she wouldn’t come home. Her sisters’ response had been one of anger, questioning how I could be so blind. What was I supposed to think? To be heard in my household would have been a wondrous thing.
The police had come the following Monday and asked me to view the body. A walker had found her on the western ridges of the woods. She had been gone just over a week. Cause of death went as unknown. You retreated to the bedroom.
Our youngest, Charlotte, called and told me you had passed 3 days ago. I asked her to meet. She refused. I asked if she was ok. She laughed.
‘Now you ask dad!’
My arm judders when I start to pull the bedclothes off the bed and it occurs to me that I may not leave this house today. You sat and waited for her all these years. You didn’t ask me to wait with you. I can hear you asking now. I am coming.