Never before had the young woman been allowed to see the family she'd left behind. All she wanted was to let them know she was safe and being well cared for. Today was going to be her first contact. She walked down the aisle of the near empty church...
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The sound of heavy rainfall and wiper blades rubbing against glass filled the car. It was a dark stormy morning and James focused on the road ahead, trying not to think of anything else. On the passenger seat next to him sat a young red-haired woman, in a smart black dress and wearing dark glasses. Her cheeks were moist from crying. She dabbed them with a handkerchief. James's cheeks were dry, his face without expression. The glare from a car's lights following close behind James caused him to instinctively tilt his rear-view mirror. He incorrectly aligned the mirror and now, instead of a darkened rearward view of the other car, it was showing him the rear seat of his own car. He glanced back up to correct the mirror's alignment, but stopped himself. His eye caught sight of the package on the back-seat, neatly wrapped in pink wrapping with pictures of little cartoon fairies on it. It had a pink bow. That was- had been her favourite colour.
"James! Lookout!" the woman screamed.
James looked forward just as the wiper blades pulled back a heavy sheet of water to reveal a lorry on a collision course with him, flashing its lights wildly and honking its horn repeatedly. James swung the steering wheel left. His side mirror burst off with a loud bang.
James brought the car to a stop, then dispassionately looked over his shoulder at the road behind. The lorry hadn't stopped but the car behind him had pulled up and the driver got out. The driver then proceeded to clear the remains of James's side mirror off the road. James grabbed the gift-wrapped package on the rear seat and jammed it roughly under the front passenger seat, out of view. Apparently unmoved by the near miss, James calmly pressed the accelerator and drove on. The red-haired woman placed her hand in his.
As James swung the car around in the church car park, he saw a small group of people dressed in dark suits and dresses, sheltering from the rain in the church side doorway. They were looking back at him, sympathetically. James parked up. He took deep breaths. Readying himself. He didn't know if he could face this. The red-haired woman in the passenger seat lowered her shades and turned towards him.
"I'll be right beside you," said Sarah. "You'll be strong. I believe in you."
James turned and looked towards the woman. She felt him look deep into her blue eyes. She gasped. Then she heard footsteps in the gravel behind her. She looked around and saw a blonde boy, young Philip, peering into the car, Mary standing by his side. James got out of the car and slammed the door shut.
As Sarah watched the family walk towards the church, and be embraced by the members of the group at the doorway, she wiped a tear from her eye. Then, a woman's hand reached in and guided her gently out of the car.
"For a moment there, I thought he was listening to me, and looking at me," said Sarah.
"I know dear," said Milene.
James studied the stained glass window just off to his right. He followed the lines and curves depicted by the metal beading. He noted how the imperfections in the glass revealed themselves when the sun poked through the windy clouds outside. He looked for more and more detail in the glass. Anything, but look to his immediate left.
To his right sat Mary, sobbing quietly but uncontrollably. Every so often an involuntary gasp left her as she racked under her intense grief. Philip had his arm around her. The eleven year old boy was trying to be strong for his mother, but was betrayed by his occasional wipes of his tears, which he tried to masquerade as rubbing his eyes or scratching his face.
Mary had not uttered a word to James since the accident. She had taken Philip to stay at her sister's, leaving James alone in the house. James hadn't been there for her. She hadn't let him. James slowly reached over to take his wife's hand. Mary automatically took hold of it. But then, as if remembering herself, she sharply pulled her hand away from him. James rested his hands on his lap. His marriage is probably over, he thought. Mary obviously can't forgive him for being late that day. Then there was the decision he'd made alone at the hospital. But Mary wasn't there. He couldn't reach her in time... So what, who cares, he thought. He didn't care about anything anymore. He now inhabited a world he didn't recognise. A world without her, his darling little girl.
The organist began playing the introduction to the hymn All things bright and beautiful and everyone rose to their feet. The service was about to begin.
James, careful not to look to his left, looked down at the floor as he turned to his left. He then looked up just enough to enable himself to pick up one of the orders of service from the pile at the end of the pew. Then he cast his eyes to the floor again and turned back around to face forward. He opened the pamphlet prepared by the funeral directors, found the hymn, and tried to sing. "All things br... and ...tiful, all creatures ..., all things," James's voice trembled badly and failed to obey him. He continued the hymn silently in his head.
In James's peripheral vision, to his left, he could see the priest emerge from the sacristy and approach the alter. Momentarily dropping his guard, James turned to glance at the priest's procession. It was then that he saw what he'd been diverting his eyes from all this time. A little white coffin, sitting on a table. The coffin was decked with many beautiful flowers, each with scribbled notes of love and sympathy attached. Some of the bouquets included small teddy bears, sealed for water-tightness in transparent polythene. Inside that little white box lay his daughter. Dead. James still couldn't believe it. This was unbearable. James tore his eyes away from the coffin and tried to focus on the order of service in his hands.
Wendy Elizabeth Clarence
3rd July 1963 to 3rd July 1968
Why oh why on her birthday of all days? James bit his lip hard, and quickly turned the pamphlet over to avert his gaze from the tragedy written so starkly before him.
The image on the back page of the order of service hit him like a lightning bolt. There, in a Xeroxed black and white photograph looking back up at him, was Wendy. She was in the garden cuddling the porcelain doll. He'd taken that photo just three weeks ago. Mary must have handed it to the funeral director for inclusion in the pamphlet. This was too much. James looked back at the stained glass window to his right again. He tried desperately to take his mind off what was happening, this reality all around him, and to keep his composure.
Just then, James felt something soft and moist on his left cheek. He slowly looked back at the pamphlet in his hands, at the picture of his little girl. A splash of water landed on the photo, then another. For the first time since the accident, James cried.
The congregation began the last chorus of All Things Bright and Beautiful. No-one saw the little blonde girl and the young black-haired woman walking hand-in-hand up the central aisle of the church towards the exit. The little girl had a happy smile on her face. She'd just kissed her daddy.
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