death is there to keep us honest [oneshot]

Coming from no money whatsoever and then catapulting into inexhaustible money, it had taken you a long time to figure out Ms. Charisse's place in District Twelve.

She was the first person you found, and there will never go a day when you don't thank the stones that paved that road. Whatever her reasons—pity for the scraggly almost-teen who spoke to rocks with a seven-year-old's vocabulary, worry for a child who knew too little of other humans to shy away when a stranger took her wrist, pure empty nest syndrome—she gave you a job, explained what a job was, lent you books, talked you through life in the District, brought you warm lunches at the shop when it was cold. When you were still strangers she all but took you under her roof—and looking back, you think she would have, if you hadn't assured her that you had a place.

(You did, although she never saw it and nowadays you know she would have been horrified to find you utterly content in your cave. She did see the later one, but those memories are painful. Your second suicide watch, the one after Anani, she closed up the shop and stayed at your house for two weeks. Taking up more space with her personality than a slim little grey-haired woman should have been able to, she looked after the house when you didn't have enough energy and the Peacekeeper assigned to you wasn't sure about where things belonged. Only once did she forget where she was, and it scared you so much that it rattled you halfway back into reality. Without that, you think you might have just wasted away.)

In short, she was the closest thing you had to a mother, and that was the only way you ever saw her. It never even occurred to you that she was a staple of her community, and you are stunned by the number of people dropping in to pay their respects in somber clothes, some of them friends she'd had for decades and but some of them near-strangers that she went out of her way to help with lowered prices or free food. She didn't want much for a funeral, so there isn't a lot of ceremony to most of the visits. Some toss trinkets on her pyre and leave; others watch the flames for a while before handing you notes or food; a few even stop to chat with you, sighing their sympathy and smiling tenderly at Kieran, who alternates between tottering at your side and slumbering in your arms. You don't want to talk—you've never wanted to talk in the face of death—but you do anyway, figuring that some of them need a sounding board for their grief. Quickly you get better at dealing with them; everyone has the same questions, everyone wants to say the same things.

"Yeah, I'm Aranica."
"It's alright, really. We had both been expecting it for a while."
"How did you know her?"
"Wasn't she one of the best people you ever met?"
"She wasn't terribly lucid by the end. Half the time she thought Kieran was one of her sons."
"No, she was never in pain."
(The clouds didn't get her. I wouldn't let them.
Of course you wouldn't, cousin. And we would have helped you.
The clouds try to sneak into your mind a few times, but you refuse to take the blame for this. You're getting better than ever at holding them off without help. Dru and Anani would have been proud of you; so would Ms. Charisse.)

When he's awake, Kieran helps by derailing the conversation. Almost no one can resist his yawning tangents, least of all you. He doesn't really understand what's happening. He thinks she's gone away for a while; he can't imagine a world without Ms. Charisse coming by for dinner two nights a week or bringing him toys so he can stay busy while you work the counter. You're grateful for that. But it also means that he's too young to remember this, and that means that soon enough he'll forget her, too. No matter how much you talk about her, there will come a day when he holds up a picture and asks who the old lady in the dark turtleneck is, and you won't be able to find the words to explain how important she was.

That thought is the first thing to make you cry, just a little. Alarmed, the young man you're talking to breaks off his sentence and touches your shoulder gently. His sleeve brushes Kieran, who stirs in your arms and reaches a hand up. That brings the tears out faster; you curl over him, draping both of your faces in a curtain of black hair.

Despite the child in your arms and the hand on your shoulder you suddenly feel painfully, selfishly alone. For all that you care deeply about them both, you've barely talked to Arbor or Heron in months. You get along with Lethe, and you hope that your children will grow up friends, but you aren't close to her. Mace is a dear friend, but you haven't seen him since the last Games and won't see him again until the next, and it's getting hard to talk to Kieran about his father's side of the family when your only new information comes through sporadic telephone calls. Your friends here in Twelve have their own lives and families, so you rarely see them outside of school. However much you love him, Kieran can't hold much of a conversation. Everyone else keeps dying around you—Dru and Argent and Papero and the others, Anani, your tributes, and now your caretaker. The warmth of the flames against your side are stabbing reminders that everything lives to leave, and that you will always be starkly, hopelessly lonely.

Not us, Aranica, your rock reminds you. Instantly the world around you busts into assurance—the dirt, the air, the grass, all humming gently. You're no more alone than you ever were.

Kieran is starting to cry. You pull yourself together and lift your head, shoving your own woes out of the way so you can bounce him gently. The young man—a fellow who used to clean the store for free, you remember now, although his name still escapes you—coos at Kieran and offers to play some sort of hand game. Kieran mangles the rules, but it distracts him. Soon he's laughing so hard you have to put him down—a relief, if you're honest, because you need your hands to rub your face and pull your hair back. The stranger glances at you but leaves you to it, playing silently with Kieran until you're ready to speak.

"You have kids?" you ask shakily.

"Nah. Little sisters. They're all too old for this kind of thing now, but I remember when they were this tiny." He scoops Kieran up and swings him upside-down, leaving you breathless for a moment before your son shrieks gleefully and the stranger flips him back upright and settles him into his arms. "You ever need someone to look after him for a while, let me know, okay? I'm sure it gets tiring."

You nod hesitantly, manage a shy smile. "I'd probably have to remember where you lived for that."

He laughs and rummages through tattered pockets for a piece of paper and a pencil on which to jot an address. As you hoped, he puts his name in front—Illario Krine, which you suppose rings a faint bell. He lives about halfway between your house and Ms. Charisse's, which you realize with a start is also yours now. You aren't sure if you'll take him up on his offer, but it was nice of him to make it, and you might.

He bids you a farewell that you almost forget to return. It's often like that, it seems—one person saying goodbye and the other one not realizing what they've lost until too late.

Kieran leans against your slacks. You put a hand on the fuzzy top of his head, rest the other against your rock, and decide to swing by Illario's place sometime, after all. Ms. Charisse liked him; she's love to see you keep in touch with him. And you could use a new friend, and Kieran could stand to see more than the same three people over and over again.

You stare into the flames until it hurts, and then you close your eyes and let the heat wash over your face, soothing you through the discomfort. You imagine Ms. Charisse's ashes floating away and settling into some mud to become part of a brand-new rock; you imagine them fluttering down over a garden and helping some plants grow, her final effort to feed her starving neighbors.

No one else comes by before the flames die. You cry a little more, but it's okay.

It's going to be okay.



(Title from Ghosts, Dan Fogleberg.))