Our lips were cold as clay, we couldn't speak anyway Save me, I am swallowed by the guilt of this You're gone, sleeping in the dust We will not let time erase us
She couldn’t take another moment of it, trapped alone in this horrid, empty house. All the drapes on the windows were still drawn shut, all the mirrors still covered with crepe, his portrait…the only visible memory she had left still shrouded in the black cloth. The clock in the room, an old ornate thing he treasured as a family heirloom, still read the time as 7:23, though just by the light outside she knew it was much later. She sat alone in the room, their room, unable to do much else but watch her tears shed onto her mourning dress and pick at the cloth.
Her mother had urged her to sleep, but such a release was not going to come. The funeral had been that day and it had been near unbearable. She was the widow, she was allowed to grieve and wail and cry and yet, she couldn’t. Not with the other women around doing the same, women who had not known him as well and could not claim to rival her in grief, though their cries tried to claim otherwise. It seemed disrespectful, and so instead a steady stream of tears had begun at the start of the funeral that had yet to truly stop. There was only one way they ever would.
And she couldn’t take it anymore. It might not have been couth, but instead of remaining in that empty house alone she had to get out. She had to go back. Leaving the room and grabbing his coat, the one he was not buried in, she wrapped herself up in it and felt the contents of its pocket before leaving the confinement of the walls she felt were strangling her in their hollowness. The streets were empty at this time of night as well, but it was a different kind of emptiness. It was not one of missing something supposed to be there that was suddenly gone, but an emptiness that was always supposed to be. It was soothing in the strangest of ways, and she could feel herself take her first full breath in days.
It was welcomed, and the lack of people was probably for the best in the end. She did not want to be seen or discovered, she did not want someone to tell her to go back home or to give her their sympathies again. She didn’t need it. She just needed to walk, to be alone in her thoughts and remember.
The street to the cemetery was the street the accident occurred on. She had thought it was safe to cross. On all accounts it looked safe to cross, so they did. Neither of them had figured the speeding horsecar would come barreling around the corner. She had seen the car coming towards them and had started to move when she felt the shove from him. She hadn’t seen it from her position on the ground, but she heard the collision, heard the sound of hooves and wheels on a body and heard the screams from other parts of the street. For the longest of times, she couldn’t look up, couldn’t even bring herself to move herself from the ground. She just laid there thinking, knowing he had saved her. And now he was gone and she was swallowed by the guilt of it.
If only she hadn’t thought it was alright to cross, if only she had reacted a second sooner…
She stopped and stood at the entrance of her destination, taking in the cool night’s air and reminding herself of all the sleepers in the earth below her feet. It was an odd hour, she would remind herself to be respectful of them. After another moment, she treaded lightly through the graveyard to the freshly buried grave with the new headstone glistening in the moonlight. The flowers were still laid out from earlier, and she very nearly grabbed the red rose she had placed there. Instead quietly, gracefully she dropped to the ground next to it, her fingers gently skimming over the name inscribed on the granite and the tears pooling down her face again.
“Why? My dear, why?” The question was torn from her throat unwillingly. It had been one she asked many times, and one she never received an answer to even when he was still clinging to life. Why he chose to save her, why he couldn’t get them both out of the way, just why? Why was she left alone?
Nothing else was coherent enough to voice, though her quiet sobs were enough to convey her dismay. And yet, through her despair she heard the footsteps approaching them. At first, she thought perhaps it was just another late night mourner, but with where the footsteps finally stopped she knew better. Turning, she caught a glimpse of the man behind her and the bile immediately rose in her throat.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded through her tears.
“I wish to pay my respects. I figured it was best not to do so earlier.” It made sense. She could see his eyes were red, he looked exhausted and guilt-ridden and he had no right! This was his fault, this was his fault he had no right to be here paying his “respects”!
“How dare you!” she shouted, “How dare you try to come here and tread upon his grave!”
“It was an accident!”
“Accident?! Accident?! Intent or no you still should not have been traveling at such a speed! You still should have slowed, he should still be alive!” she screamed, feeling the hysteria starting to rise. Her hand reached into the pocket of his coat, feeling the coolness of the metal slide across her fingers before pulling it out and pointing the barrel of the gun at the man. Her love had never let her handle the gun before, believing it to be too dangerous for her despite her knowing how to shoot. Now, it felt righteous to be in her hand, ready and aimed at his killer.
“Now…now there’s no need for…I swear if I could have I-I didn’t me-“
His explanation was never heard as the gun’s explosion cut him off. She watched him fall, the blood blooming from his chest as beautiful and as red as the rose she had left earlier that day. For a while she did nothing but stare, looking at the body before her, another silent sleeper she had made for the earth. Finally, as if jolted from a trance, she turned to the headstone and placed her forehead upon it, her eyes falling shut.
“Time cannot erase us, my dear. I can promise us forever.” The whispered promise hung in the air as she pulled the gun on herself.
It wasn’t until the following day the town came across them sleeping in the dust.
