Waiting

Quiet and still, the heavy wooden door shut out the buzz of hushed voices beyond the thick wall. An old but well polished crucifix hung on one of the pale walls, and beneath it, on an ancient oak wood table, sat a flickering candle, burning low in a red glass holder. An ornate wall clock hung on the wall opposite the crucifix. The seconds, struck away by the thin metal second hand on the clock, seemed to stretch out, lasting a lot longer than they should have. Everything in the room was quite clearly very old, and had been around for well over a century. The old furniture added a calming atmosphere. There was a large table in the centre of the room with legs carved like the claws of a lion and tiny wheels beneath the intricately carved nails. On the table, there was a large expanse of material, carefully sewn and highly wrought. The careful and elaborately designed cloth was patterned with darks and lights intertwining to form a robe of one colour, but with so many shades that it looked like many colours had been woven together. The cloth formed a garment worn by a Roman Catholic priest during Mass and in a cupboard to one side of the room hung the garments worn by the altar servers. These clothes, in contrast to the priest’s, were quite bland and plain – all white with a green rope belt at the waist. Next to the cupboard, on the top levels of a set of shelves, stood some books with titles such as “Sunday Missal 1997” and “The Old Testament Explained”. On the lower levels, the ones that could be reached easily by children, the titles changed to things like “A Child’s Guide to Mass” and “A Child’s First Bible”. Altogether, the room looked like a place of peace, a place of holiness, a place of sanctuary away from the rest of the world.

Carla’s gaze fell on the darkest corner of the otherwise bright room. In the corner the light was blocked out by the large cupboard. The small tongue of flame moved on the wind that entered the room via a small draught from the narrow crack under the otherwise heavy and solid door. She didn’t blink and her eyes filled with tears, bringing her vision out of focus, making everything blurry as it all melted into one, walls, door, books, shelves, bright cloth and flame. As her eyelids closed slowly, a lone tear escaped from her brimming eye and trickled down her pale cheek to hang on the end of her chin for a moment before falling onto her black dress. When her eyes opened, the room was back in focus and she couldn’t help staring at the flame. There had been flames on that day, she remembered, many flames…

She remembered the car, heat, a lot of heat, a lorry, screams and a car horn, the screeching of sirens and herself crying. It had been just over a week ago she mused, when her life had changed forever. She had been travelling home with her family – her mother, Alice Grafo, her father, Antonio Grafo and her sister, little Lizzie Grafo. They had been returning home from her Great Aunt’s funeral. Great Aunt Izzie had been ninety-two when she died, but from reading her letters and talking to her on the telephone, you would never have guessed it. It was only when you saw her that you thought about how old she was. She had been very close to Carla and Carla had loved writing to her and phoning her but had always been reluctant to visit her. She knew that her Great Aunt never liked them to see her as she was just before her death. Having been independent all through her life, she hadn’t appreciated her family seeing her in such a state of complete dependence on other people. In her letters, she could be herself and let her Great Niece see the real person she was, without allowing Carla to feel pity for her. Lizzie, only three years old, had sent a variety of drawings to her Great Aunt and in reply, Izzie had had many a long telephone chat with her. The whole family had been very close to her and felt her loss very greatly indeed. They had driven out to the country, where her mother’s side of the family was based to attend the funeral in the local church. Complete strangers had walked up to Carla, her sister and her parents saying how much Izzie had spoken of them, how much she had been loved and how much she would be missed. To Carla, it all seemed surreal. Earlier that week, she had received a letter from Izzie and now she had seen her Great Aunt’s body being carried out of a church in a coffin. One thing that her Great Aunt had always told her stuck vividly in her memory – “Live life to the full because once you’re dead, you can’t!” A bit bizarre, but if her Great Aunt Izzie had said it, then Carla would abide by it. In her eyes, Izzie had held more wisdom than Solomon and the more she considered and thought about her Great Aunt’s remark, the more sense it made. This advice from her Great Aunt had been in her head that day, Carla suddenly remembered. Having not shed a tear throughout the service, she had been shocked to find herself crying on the way home as she silently vowed to do as Izzie had instructed her. Then it had happened, just seconds after she had taken this vow, something had gone very wrong.

All wearing black, they sat in silence as the car wound its way down the small country lanes. Alice sat in the front, reading her Bible as she always did when a crisis occurred. It was her only source of comfort in times of grief. Antonio kept his eyes on the road and had used driving to mask his sadness. There were only a few members of his wife’s family that he could bear to be in the same room as before they drove him mad. But Izzie had been one of them. More than that, she had been a fascinating person – the stories she could tell, whether fact or fiction, about herself or others always kept him listening and gave him something to think about. Lizzie, just old enough to understand what had happened, sat behind Alice clutching an old teddy bear to her small body so tightly that, were it alive, it would have been strangled. Her tears, hot and salty, mixed with the soft brown fur covering the top of its head. As Carla remembered this, she felt another tear rolling slowly down her cheek, tracing another damp line down her face. The teddy bear had been given to her sister by their Great Aunt Izzie.

Carla’s memory began to falter as fields and countryside views melted into one. She remembered being conscious only of the countryside and small roads ebbing away as the lanes grew bigger and more busy until they came, eventually, to the motorway. When on the motorway, her father turned the radio on very quietly. It annoyed her at the time, but she couldn’t remember why now. It seemed so trivial, so unimportant whether the radio was on or not. Then she remembered another emotion that had crept up on her. The song on the radio had stopped and the current DJ had read out a message. Oddly enough, she could remember this, word perfect, as if it had occurred only minutes ago. It had read “I’ve been asked to play a song for a special lady named ‘Izzie Reed’. Her funeral was today and her family want everyone to know what a special person she was. He broke off as a song started. The song, recognised by everyone in the car, was Whitney Houston’s “I will always love you”. It had been Izzie’s favourite song. Carla knew that her father must have known that this dedication was going to be played. She leaned forward and hugged her father’s shoulders and he had, for just one second, taken one hand off the wheel to stroke her hand. “I’m sorry about getting annoyed,” she remembered whispering.

It had been in that moment that she had glanced in her father’s wing mirror. A very large lorry was being driven behind them. The driver, a tanned and rounded man, had an odd look on his face. His appearance Carla remembered exactly, a chubby face, receding brown hairline, eyes with deep, dark circles beneath them and his eyelids closing over his eyes every couple of seconds. Carla remembered sitting back and then turning in her seat to look out at the lorry driver. He had worried her for some reason. As she looked back, she realised that the man’s eyes were closing more frequently and for longer periods of time. “Dad,” she had said quietly, “Dad, that driver behind us is falling asleep.” She turned to look at her father; he hadn’t reacted. “Dad,” she spoke louder this time, a note of urgency in her voice, “Dad, the guy driving that lorry behind us is falling aslee…AAAAHHHH!” Her scream sliced the air as she felt a sudden jerk behind her. She didn’t have to look; she knew what had happened. The lorry driver had fallen unconscious, slumped over the wheel, his foot had pressed down on the accelerator too hard. The lorry careered into the back of their family car. With a sickening crunch of metal on metal, her seat hurtled forward, her seatbelt the only thing keeping her from crashing into her father. As she had tried to steady her breathing and calm her little sister, who, petrified out of her mind, had gone hysterical, her sobs becoming more frequent and louder, Carla realised that they were still moving at an uncontrollable speed. Her father, gripping the wheel tightly with white knuckled hands was desperately trying to steady the car without hitting anything else. They were spinning, spinning round and round, it reminded Carla of a ride she had been on recently at a theme park. Then, she and her friends had screamed with delight. Now, she and her family were screaming with terror. Having never seen her mother or father look scared before, a fear gripped her heart as she saw the looks of pure horror in their faces. Her father was still attempting to gain control of the spinning car. She wondered why they were still spinning, surely they should have stopped by now. Then she looked to one side, the sight of everything around her moving so fast nearly made her faint but one thing she did see was white, white everywhere. “I’m dead,” she thought as she watched the white blur in wonder. Her father’s yelling brought her out of her trance. He was shouting their names systematically, desperation clutching his heart, hoping and praying to God that they were all okay, that they weren’t dead. Carla then realised that they were skidding; she wasn’t dead. Relief flooded through her as the car seemed to finally begin to slow down. Her eyes closed and when she opened them she caught her father’s eye in the mirror and began to smile. But then, right then, they hit something and were spinning again. In the distance she heard voices, hers, her mother’s, her father’s and her sister’s. In the same moment, all four voices chorused, “I love you.” Car horns were being pressed, she could vaguely hear police sirens, then the car stopped dead. Flames roared upwards, surrounding where they were and engulfing the car, consuming her family before there was complete silence and everything went black…

Carla wiped away the tears that had begun to fall, swiftly and in plenty, down her cheeks. She walked over to the candle and looked at it, surveying it closely. She then glanced at the crucifix hanging on the wall. “How?” she asked the empty room. “How could you let this happen?” She heard a bell ring on the other side of the door. She walked towards it and, brushing her tears from her eyes and taking a deep breath, she lifted the heavy latch that had kept it closed. She looked down the church aisle, people sitting all in black on either side. The coffins containing the bodies of her mother, father and sister were at the front and at a glance; she could tell that there was something sitting on top of each one. Carla followed her Aunt Caroline, her father’s sister, down the aisle towards the coffins. Her eyes began to well up with tears again, but she didn’t move her hand to brush them away, nor did she allow them to fall, she just let her eyes swim in tears for the minute. She only took her tissue out to dab at her eyes when she realised that the tears were affecting her vision. With the tears in her eyes, it looked like there were four coffins at the front of the church. When her vision was normal again, she opened her eyes to find that she could still see four coffins, and they were all in focus as well. Confusion overtook her and when her Aunt went to sit down on the front pew, Carla kept on walking, right up to the coffins.

No one stopped her so she went to the first one and read a plaque that sat on the top of the coffin, next to a Bible and a wedding ring. “Alice Grafo, Rest in Peace”. Carla made the sign of the cross and moved on to the next one. By now, the service had started but still no one made her sit down. She moved on regardless and read the plaque on the next coffin “Antonio Grafo, Rest in Peace”. Beside it were her father’s wedding ring and his wallet, open and displaying a picture of his family – his wife, him and his two daughters. His family had been everything to him. Whereas some men thought that it was the wife’s job to take care of the children, his business and work had always come second to his family. Carla’s face was now pained, not being able to vent her anger, frustration or grief on anything. The next coffin was smaller than the other two and the thought of reading the plaque on it made her breath catch in her throat. She did though; she read the plaque on the smallest coffin “Elizabeth Grafo, Rest in Peace”. Carla could hold her tears no longer as she looked at the token that was to be buried with her sister, the thing sitting on top of the coffin. It was a very dirty, half charred mass of brown fur. It was her sister’s teddy bear, given to her by their Great Aunt Izzie when she had been born. She stood next to all that was left of her sister and her sister’s teddy for a few moments longer and all the while she felt something breaking inside her, an empty space being created in her body. The empty space slowly filled up with a mixture of self-hatred, remorse, deep remorse, and heartache. She didn’t want to be alive. She shouldn’t be alive. She should have died on that day. She should have died with her family. Her family had been everything to her; she would be nothing without them. Like the broken person she was, she walked to the last coffin.

Her mind was no longer wondering whose body was encased in the final coffin. When she reached it, she looked up disinterestedly and read the plaque “Carla Grafo, Rest in Peace”. Carla stared at it, searching for an emotion, something to feel. Next to the plaque was her diary. She was glad it was here, on her coffin. Suddenly, something in her mind clicked. Her coffin. That must mean that she did die in the crash. She did die with her family. She felt the same emotion that she had felt during the announcement of her Great Aunt’s death on the radio, the one she hadn’t been able to identify. It was love. She raised her head to look at the ceiling of the church, but she didn’t see it. All she saw was the high heavens, opening up, admitting her to the sacred domain where all the dead went. The wait was finally over; she was dead. She smiled a genuine smile, the first since the accident, as she thought of her family. She thought of her mother, her father, her little sister and her Great Aunt Izzie. She thought of seeing them again and her heart filled with a longing so powerful that she went there and then. At the moment, when Carla Grafo’s heart was filled with a love and longing so powerful that it would overcome anything, she was released from the world of pain and suffering and into one of endless possibilities.