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for the love that made us // birdie + mouse
Jan 21, 2024 16:16:06 GMT -5
Post by august vance d7b [Bella] on Jan 21, 2024 16:16:06 GMT -5
W R E N b e c k e t t
Some people in were the ones that made you, helped build you out of whatever stuff you were made of, and changed the course of who you were for your whole life. Grandma Beckett had been one of those people for Wren. For all of them.
Wren found it oddly fitting that it was winter, that everything else would be dying around the time that her grandmother had passed away. It seemed more respectful, in a way. Through the kitchen window, she could see the boughs of the trees frosted in a layer of fluffy white snow. Everything alive was asleep or hiding—birds gone south, coyotes in their dens, rabbits in their underground tunnels, waiting for the warm promise of spring.
She wrapped the still-warm loaf of pumpkin bread tightly in a square of cotton cloth, tucking in the ends, then slipping it into a tote bag that she hung on her shoulder. The house was already cold—they were conserving firewood at her mother’s anxious insistence—so her red wool hat and long yellow scarf were already bundled snugly around her head and neck. Pulling on a fleece-lined tawny chore coat that had been her father’s, she almost looked like a walking sleeping bag, but knew she’d be warm enough for the mile-long walk to the meadow where her grandma was buried.
The snow, still smooth and unbothered, crunched in quiet whispers under her boots. It was the first time she had walked this way since Grandma Beckett’s death. Maybe she just hadn’t been ready to visit that house again, full of her things as it was. She wasn’t sure she believed in ghosts, but she knew the dead always left something lingering there when they left. A strange sensation like she had missed some crucial detail of a story, a disconnect between knowing they’re gone and the still-present materiality of their belongings, their scent, the memory of their shape.
Like the worn path in the carpet left by grandma’s slippers from her chair, to the kitchen, to the bedroom. A stack of newspapers, a ring of condensation left on the coffee table. The soothing smell of talcum powder in her bedroom.
The home of Wren’s paternal grandparents had always been her happy place. Ignored by their father, it was where she and all her sisters and their one little brother could receive the slice of Beckett affection they had never received from their dad. Grandma and Grandpa were as warm and wise as their father had been cold and distant. Somehow, at least the way Wren saw it, no one ever seemed to leave that house sad or hungry, even though the Becketts had very little to offer.
Wren wasn’t sure how to visit that house right now without letting her siblings see her cry. Nobody had ever seen her cry, and she preferred to keep it that way. Today she was heading straight to the meadow where Grandma Beckett was buried, no pit stops. Maybe it was weird that looking at a literal grave would be easier than being in the house where her Grandma had lived, but that was how she felt.
The meadow, like everything else in sight, was blanketed in white, silent except for a gentle wind that nipped at Wren’s cheeks, painting them scarlet. No sign of the tall wildflowers that grew here most of the year—Wren knew their crumpled brown husks were buried under the snow. It was better that they were closer to her grandmother. In the open field, she tried to remember where Grandma was buried, then recalled they had told her something about a juniper tree. On a nearby hill, she thought she could spot the twisted trunk of an evergreen that stood at the meadow’s edge nearest to the Becketts’ house.
When she got there, she saw a small silhouette and a wave of soft golden curls that she immediately recognized as her sister. The curved, knotted trunk of the old juniper tree bowed towards Grandma’s grave in silent mourning. Wren remembered how much their grandmother had loved this plant, its white and blue berries a rare bastion of color in the empty winter. The headstone was a small, hand-chiseled boulder—maybe their grandfather had made it? She wasn’t sure if Artorius would have had the guts to show up and do it himself.
”Hey there, little mouse. I guess you beat me here, huh?” Every breath was visible as a puff of steam in the cold air.
Wrapping her arms around her little sister, she gave a comforting squeeze.
”I sure do miss her. How're you holding up?”
