Short and Long Stories Part 2

Family Home

Mum wiped the blood from granddad's mouth.

"Emma, grab me more tissues, will you?" she said.

I looked at granddad's sad, tired face as I wheeled over holding the tissue box. He lay on a battered mattress in the corner. His body, tucked under a cough-stained duvet was half way to skeletal. When we found out his lung cancer was terminal mum moved him from the cabin by the pond to the farmhouse so he could spend his dying days here with us. His skin reeked of cigarettes even though he hadn't smoked for weeks.

He coughed more blood.

Fear twinkled behind the dry sickness in his eyes. He moved his finger over his duvet in a circular motion while mum wiped his mouth. I had no idea what he wanted. I wish we could've bonded more, but in truth, he scared me and always looked anguished. Eighteen years we'd lived on the same land and I knew little about him. On top of that he was a mute. Mum said when grandma had a heart attack he just stopped talking.

"I'll go get him some water." Mum blew her long, greasy brown hair out of her face. Sweat dotted the clothes that had hung off her for three days. I'd been told that as well as mum's pale skin, figure and monster metabolism, I'd inherited her smile. I hadn't seen that for weeks. I guess it's hard to smile when you're waiting for someone to die. She nudged my wheelchair as she left the room.

Granddad must have felt so lonely. Grandma died in 1978, when mum was eleven, and granddad refused to look for a new wife. Grandma and granddad planned to open a bed and breakfast in Norwich, but when grandma died, he decided to stay on our 150-acre land in Lewes. He spent most of his time living in the cabin. Mum said he liked being near the apple tree. The smell reminded him of grandma.

Blood flopped from his mouth onto the duvet. He wiped the blood in a circle, running his finger over and over it.

"O?" I guessed.

He closed his eyes, pained.

"I'm sorry granddad, I wish I understood."

He used what little strength he had to pull himself up. His face strained. His neck muscles tensed like overstretched rubber bands. "The cabin..." he forced with all his breath, unable to say the next word. He fell back.

My heart pounded.

Mum entered holding a glass of water. I turned to her but granddad squeezed my hand, hard. I looked at him and his eyes begged me to keep quiet.

Those were the first and last words granddad ever said.

I didn't even notice the wheels of my chair sink in the dirt as I watched mum bury him. The rain battered my umbrella, accompanying the repetitive splat of soil against the coffin.

The cabin, repeated in my head.

The rain hammering her didn't bother mum. It was just us now and she was covering all roles in the family. It didn't help that I was moving to Newcastle tomorrow for university. I felt bad that it was at the other end of the country and that I'd added to her stress, but I needed to go and live my life.

Our family history was in this field. Generations of our family had inherited this land. The eldest, James, was desperate to own it in the seventeen hundreds. My mum said he met the love of his life in these fields, and he wanted to build a home on the land where their love blossomed. James paid a visit to the owners and charmed them with his story of true love and they sold him it.

In the short drive back mum tried to fill the silence with the radio, but every song had some lyric that felt inappropriate.

"Mum?"