By: Melinda Leigh
“Mommy, where's Aunt Helen?” Five-year-old Chris stood in the doorway of the bedroom. His too-large
footed pajamas sagged around his ankles. There were no tears on his face. He wasn't mature enough
to comprehend the finality of his favorite aunt's death. It would take a while, Sam knew, but he was
starting to sense that something terrible and irrevocable had happened in his world. The stuffed puppy
tucked under his arm had been a Christmas gift from Aunt Helen. He hadn't put it down all day.
“She's in heaven, honey.”
“With Grandma and Grandpa?” he asked with more curiosity than sadness.
Oh, God. Raw grief from her parents' sudden deaths the previous year in a car accident welled up into
her throat, but already, Chris barely remembered them.
Sam swallowed the huge ball of grief that choked her and tried to sound positive. “Yes. With Grandma
and Grandpa.”
“That's good. I'm glad she's not alone.”
“Me, too.” Sam wasn't sure she believed any of it, but what else could she tell her kids? The day after
tomorrow Aunt Helen was going into a box, which would be buried under six feet of dirt? Yeah, that
would make for some pleasant dreams. She made a mental note to make sure that neither Chris nor his
seven-year-old sister attended the graveside part of the service. The children didn't need that visual in
their heads when she put them to bed at night.
She took Chris by the hand, led him back to his bed and tucked him in. He clutched the dog tightly to
his thin chest. Sam picked up the book on his nightstand, aware that Aunt Helen had read to him from
its very pages just two nights before. Two chapters of Runaway Ralph put Chris back to sleep.
Sam hurried back to her room. She desperately needed a shower before Chris woke up again. Tina had
cried more than her younger brother, but at least she was sleeping through the night--so far.
“The funeral director needs you to select a dress for you aunt.” Trevor barely masked the impatience in
his voice as he strode into the master bedroom. He and Aunt Helen hadn't gotten along very well.
Okay, Aunt Helen had thought Trevor was a pompous ass and didn't pretend otherwise.
“I'll do it, Trevor. Just not right this second. It's late and I'm tired.” Sam went into the bathroom and
shut the door in his face. She wanted, needed to be alone to pull herself together. She hadn't had a
moment to herself since she'd found Aunt Helen dead in her bed the previous morning. Her two small
children struggled to comprehend their aunt's death and needed all their left-field questions answered
about death and dying. Questions that Sam only pretended to know the answers to.
She'd dealt with the coroner and police. And the funeral home. She'd signed a hundred statements and
forms, made countless decisions that seemed so... unimportant. Did it really matter how the flowers
were arranged beside the casket? There hadn't been time yet for her own grief, which surged rock-hard
into her chest as she stripped off the slacks and sweater she didn't remember selecting this morning. It
felt as if her heart had turned to stone. Sam took a deep breath and willed her hands to stop
trembling. She'd grieve later, when it was all over. If she let go now, she'd never get through it.
This evening's trip to the funeral home warranted a long, hot shower. Her clothes were going right into
the wash. They'd absorbed the smells of Lemon Pledge and carnations that Sam associated with death
since her parents were killed. She'd had Aunt Helen to get her through their funeral. She was all alone
this time.
Trevor knocked on the door, then tried the knob. She imagined he was annoyed to find it locked.
“Just tell me what you want her to wear. I'll go up and get it.” First he'd go through all of her aunt's
clothes and comment on the cheap polyester pantsuits Aunt Helen had worn to church each Sunday.
Then he'd probably suggest they buy something new to bury her aunt in. Like Helen would care.
Was she really at peace now? Or was she simply part of some huge nothingness?
“He doesn't need it until tomorrow morning. Just let it go for now.” Sam's voice took on a sharp edge
as she called through the closed door and guilt tugged at her conscience. Give him a break, Sam
thought. The past couple of years had been rough on him. He wasn't exactly taking his thinning hair or
expanding waistline in stride. She knew he wouldn't let it go anyway. Her husband was completely OCD
about details and appearances.
“I'm just trying to help.” The closed door muffled his indignant reply, but the guilt came through loud
and clear.
Sam opened the door a few inches and poked her head out to smooth his ruffled feathers. “I know you
are.”
Trevor stood a few feet from the door, checking his appearance in the mirror over the dresser. He
tucked a strand of hair back into place over his ear. Despite chauffeuring her to and from the funeral
home in the falling snow, his wool trousers were still perfectly pressed. His new Italian loafers bore no
evidence of the wet weather. How did he do it? Sam's hair was damp and frizzy. Her mascara had run.
Not only had her slacks been wrinkled, the hems had been coated with slush and road salt.
Sam shivered. She closed the door again, turned on the shower and yanked a towel from the narrow
linen closet.
“I just think the sooner you deal with it, the better.” Trevor raised his voice to be heard through the
door and over the rush of water. Still offended, his tone now bordered on condescending. “Putting it off
is only going to make it worse.”
She stepped under the spray and drowned out the rest of the lecture. The hot water sluiced over her
head and down her body. Pressure built behind her eyes when she closed them, but she couldn't allow
herself to cry. Not yet. Two more days.
She stayed in the shower until she'd used every drop of hot water in the tank. When she emerged from
the bathroom, Trevor sat on the edge of the bed, waiting. She'd been right. Mr. Anal-Retentive simply
could not leave an item unchecked on his mental to-do list.
She pulled on a pair of flannel pajama bottoms and a worn sweatshirt and towel-dried her hair. Trevor
frowned but showed a rare flash of common sense and didn't comment on her ragged appearance.
Then, with a sigh, she trudged down the hall toward the third floor. Her aunt had lived in her own suite
of rooms up there since Sam was a child, rarely venturing outside the walls of the old family Victorian.
It would take less time to just go up and get the clothes than to argue about it. She supposed he
meant well, but she didn't have the energy right now to deal with her husband's fragile ego.
Trevor followed. “We should really think about selling this house. It's way too big for us now that your
parents and aunt are all gone.”
Sam whirled around and held her hand up to his chest, palm out. She drew in a deep breath. “Please,
Trevor. I haven't even buried her yet. I am not ready to make any kind of permanent decisions about
this house.” She wasn't going to break it to Trevor tonight, but she was never going to be ready to sell
the huge Victorian. She loved this house. It was all she had left of her family. Any other house would
be empty for her.
“It costs a fortune to maintain. We could buy a brand new house.”
“We probably won't even have a mortgage. A new house would be more expensive.” She hadn't dealt
with her aunt's estate yet, but Sam assumed that she'd inherited the house free and clear. Other than
Sam’s children, Aunt Helen had no living relatives.
Sam paused at the bottom of the staircase, then took a deep breath and climbed. At the top, she
turned to speak firmly to Trevor, who was halfway up the steps. “I appreciate you wanting to help, but I
can do this by myself.” She turned into her aunt's sitting room, but heard his feet continue to tread up
the steps behind her.
Sometimes Trevor was thick as a brick.
Sam walked through into the adjoining bedroom. When she looked at the bed where she had found her
aunt just thirty-six hours before, she was struck by a wave of grief that nearly took her to her knees..
How could she be gone?
“Are you sure you don't want me to do that for you?” Trevor stood in the doorway, looking
uncomfortable and helpless with the weight of her sorrow.
“I need to do it, Trevor.”
He opened his mouth to argue with her. Before he could draw in another breath, a sudden gust of wind
howled through the room and hit him smack in the chest, forcing him two steps backward into the hall.
He stared down at the invisible force pushing on his body; his eyes opened wide in shock. Sam ran
toward him, stopping just a few feet away as the wind continued to shove him backward.
Oh, my God. What was that? Sam's question caught in her throat as the cold air whispered over her
skin, distinctly, almost carefully, circumventing her body without striking with its force.
Her husband wasn't so lucky. He swayed backward at the top of the staircase. All color drained from his
face. His lips moved, but no sound came out, just a choke of shock.
Sam's limbs froze as she watched him teeter, arms flailing, as he fought a whistling current of air strong
enough to move his six-foot frame. Dust bunnies swirled around his feet and rose in a grayish cloud of
debris.
Sam's eyes shot to the octagonal window at the end of the hall, almost hoping to see a giant hole in the
roof or a broken windowpane, anything to explain the wind that was blowing inside the house. But the
window was closed, the glass, walls and roof intact.
The hair on the back of Sam's neck rose and goose flesh rippled up her arms when she realized the
house was secure. Whatever was happening to Trevor, its source was inside the house.
Sam's gaze returned to her husband as the wind cranked up to what sounded like hurricane force,
sweeping down the narrow hall with a deafening, freight-train roar. She stared, slack-jawed and
paralyzed, as Trevor's torso lost its battle with the determined wind. His shoulders tipped back.
Sam shook her head, closed her mouth and lunged toward him, even though her brain realized the
futility of her act. Even on the outside chance she reached him in time, she simply wasn't big enough to
offset his weight. Most likely, he'd pull her down the steps with him. At the last second, he shot one
hand out and grabbed the handrail.
The wind persisted. With his torso anchored, Trevor's feet went out from under his body and he fell to
his knees.
Sam opened her mouth to ask him if he was all right, but all she could managed was a hoarse croak as
she stared down at him, her voice and breath locked in her throat. She reminded herself to breathe.
Was that dust or frost that coated his hair?
Keeping both shaking hands latched on the railing and his bulging eyes fixed on a point over Sam's
shoulder, he backed down the staircase. At the bottom, he released his death grip on the banister, only
to turn too quickly and trip over his own feet. Sam winced as his cashmere-clad body hit the wood floor
with more of a splat than a thud. He scrambled to his feet.
“Sam. Get down here. It isn't safe up there!” But as he shouted, the sound of the wind faded away to
dead quiet.
Sam turned and surveyed the third floor hall, now deceptively silent and still. Newly disturbed dust
motes floated through the air and settled on the hardwood. Her rational mind suggested that she
should follow Trevor downstairs, but something held her back. An invisible force pulled at her trembling
body and rooted her feet to the floor. As she stood and listened for the return of the wind, her
breathing steadied. Her pulsed slowed. The calm that settled over her was as inexplicable as the
terrifying wind had been just moments before. The feeling was unnatural, yet familiar in a way that
seemed to soothe the sharp edges of Sam's grief.
A warm breath-like air passed over the back of her neck. Unlike the arctic wind tunnel released upon
Trevor, the air that caressed Sam's skin was gentle, warm, and not at all frightening, almost like an
affectionate mother's hand passing over her child's hair. It only lasted few seconds, just long enough
for the heat to smooth the goose bumps on Sam's arms. Then it was gone, and Sam was left feeling
strangely bereft.
She stopped and slowly rotated her head to look over her shoulder.
The hall was empty.
“Mommy, where's Aunt Helen?” Five-year-old Chris stood in the doorway of the bedroom. His too-large
footed pajamas sagged around his ankles. There were no tears on his face. He wasn't mature enough
to comprehend the finality of his favorite aunt's death. It would take a while, Sam knew, but he was
starting to sense that something terrible and irrevocable had happened in his world. The stuffed puppy
tucked under his arm had been a Christmas gift from Aunt Helen. He hadn't put it down all day.
“She's in heaven, honey.”
“With Grandma and Grandpa?” he asked with more curiosity than sadness.
Oh, God. Raw grief from her parents' sudden deaths the previous year in a car accident welled up into
her throat, but already, Chris barely remembered them.
Sam swallowed the huge ball of grief that choked her and tried to sound positive. “Yes. With Grandma
and Grandpa.”
“That's good. I'm glad she's not alone.”
“Me, too.” Sam wasn't sure she believed any of it, but what else could she tell her kids? The day after
tomorrow Aunt Helen was going into a box, which would be buried under six feet of dirt? Yeah, that
would make for some pleasant dreams. She made a mental note to make sure that neither Chris nor his
seven-year-old sister attended the graveside part of the service. The children didn't need that visual in
their heads when she put them to bed at night.
She took Chris by the hand, led him back to his bed and tucked him in. He clutched the dog tightly to
his thin chest. Sam picked up the book on his nightstand, aware that Aunt Helen had read to him from
its very pages just two nights before. Two chapters of Runaway Ralph put Chris back to sleep.
Sam hurried back to her room. She desperately needed a shower before Chris woke up again. Tina had
cried more than her younger brother, but at least she was sleeping through the night--so far.
“The funeral director needs you to select a dress for you aunt.” Trevor barely masked the impatience in
his voice as he strode into the master bedroom. He and Aunt Helen hadn't gotten along very well.
Okay, Aunt Helen had thought Trevor was a pompous ass and didn't pretend otherwise.
“I'll do it, Trevor. Just not right this second. It's late and I'm tired.” Sam went into the bathroom and
shut the door in his face. She wanted, needed to be alone to pull herself together. She hadn't had a
moment to herself since she'd found Aunt Helen dead in her bed the previous morning. Her two small
children struggled to comprehend their aunt's death and needed all their left-field questions answered
about death and dying. Questions that Sam only pretended to know the answers to.
She'd dealt with the coroner and police. And the funeral home. She'd signed a hundred statements and
forms, made countless decisions that seemed so... unimportant. Did it really matter how the flowers
were arranged beside the casket? There hadn't been time yet for her own grief, which surged rock-hard
into her chest as she stripped off the slacks and sweater she didn't remember selecting this morning. It
felt as if her heart had turned to stone. Sam took a deep breath and willed her hands to stop
trembling. She'd grieve later, when it was all over. If she let go now, she'd never get through it.
This evening's trip to the funeral home warranted a long, hot shower. Her clothes were going right into
the wash. They'd absorbed the smells of Lemon Pledge and carnations that Sam associated with death
since her parents were killed. She'd had Aunt Helen to get her through their funeral. She was all alone
this time.
Trevor knocked on the door, then tried the knob. She imagined he was annoyed to find it locked.
“Just tell me what you want her to wear. I'll go up and get it.” First he'd go through all of her aunt's
clothes and comment on the cheap polyester pantsuits Aunt Helen had worn to church each Sunday.
Then he'd probably suggest they buy something new to bury her aunt in. Like Helen would care.
Was she really at peace now? Or was she simply part of some huge nothingness?
“He doesn't need it until tomorrow morning. Just let it go for now.” Sam's voice took on a sharp edge
as she called through the closed door and guilt tugged at her conscience. Give him a break, Sam
thought. The past couple of years had been rough on him. He wasn't exactly taking his thinning hair or
expanding waistline in stride. She knew he wouldn't let it go anyway. Her husband was completely OCD
about details and appearances.
“I'm just trying to help.” The closed door muffled his indignant reply, but the guilt came through loud
and clear.
Sam opened the door a few inches and poked her head out to smooth his ruffled feathers. “I know you
are.”
Trevor stood a few feet from the door, checking his appearance in the mirror over the dresser. He
tucked a strand of hair back into place over his ear. Despite chauffeuring her to and from the funeral
home in the falling snow, his wool trousers were still perfectly pressed. His new Italian loafers bore no
evidence of the wet weather. How did he do it? Sam's hair was damp and frizzy. Her mascara had run.
Not only had her slacks been wrinkled, the hems had been coated with slush and road salt.
Sam shivered. She closed the door again, turned on the shower and yanked a towel from the narrow
linen closet.
“I just think the sooner you deal with it, the better.” Trevor raised his voice to be heard through the
door and over the rush of water. Still offended, his tone now bordered on condescending. “Putting it off
is only going to make it worse.”
She stepped under the spray and drowned out the rest of the lecture. The hot water sluiced over her
head and down her body. Pressure built behind her eyes when she closed them, but she couldn't allow
herself to cry. Not yet. Two more days.
She stayed in the shower until she'd used every drop of hot water in the tank. When she emerged from
the bathroom, Trevor sat on the edge of the bed, waiting. She'd been right. Mr. Anal-Retentive simply
could not leave an item unchecked on his mental to-do list.
She pulled on a pair of flannel pajama bottoms and a worn sweatshirt and towel-dried her hair. Trevor
frowned but showed a rare flash of common sense and didn't comment on her ragged appearance.
Then, with a sigh, she trudged down the hall toward the third floor. Her aunt had lived in her own suite
of rooms up there since Sam was a child, rarely venturing outside the walls of the old family Victorian.
It would take less time to just go up and get the clothes than to argue about it. She supposed he
meant well, but she didn't have the energy right now to deal with her husband's fragile ego.
Trevor followed. “We should really think about selling this house. It's way too big for us now that your
parents and aunt are all gone.”
Sam whirled around and held her hand up to his chest, palm out. She drew in a deep breath. “Please,
Trevor. I haven't even buried her yet. I am not ready to make any kind of permanent decisions about
this house.” She wasn't going to break it to Trevor tonight, but she was never going to be ready to sell
the huge Victorian. She loved this house. It was all she had left of her family. Any other house would
be empty for her.
“It costs a fortune to maintain. We could buy a brand new house.”
“We probably won't even have a mortgage. A new house would be more expensive.” She hadn't dealt
with her aunt's estate yet, but Sam assumed that she'd inherited the house free and clear. Other than
Sam’s children, Aunt Helen had no living relatives.
Sam paused at the bottom of the staircase, then took a deep breath and climbed. At the top, she
turned to speak firmly to Trevor, who was halfway up the steps. “I appreciate you wanting to help, but I
can do this by myself.” She turned into her aunt's sitting room, but heard his feet continue to tread up
the steps behind her.
Sometimes Trevor was thick as a brick.
Sam walked through into the adjoining bedroom. When she looked at the bed where she had found her
aunt just thirty-six hours before, she was struck by a wave of grief that nearly took her to her knees..
How could she be gone?
“Are you sure you don't want me to do that for you?” Trevor stood in the doorway, looking
uncomfortable and helpless with the weight of her sorrow.
“I need to do it, Trevor.”
He opened his mouth to argue with her. Before he could draw in another breath, a sudden gust of wind
howled through the room and hit him smack in the chest, forcing him two steps backward into the hall.
He stared down at the invisible force pushing on his body; his eyes opened wide in shock. Sam ran
toward him, stopping just a few feet away as the wind continued to shove him backward.
Oh, my God. What was that? Sam's question caught in her throat as the cold air whispered over her
skin, distinctly, almost carefully, circumventing her body without striking with its force.
Her husband wasn't so lucky. He swayed backward at the top of the staircase. All color drained from his
face. His lips moved, but no sound came out, just a choke of shock.
Sam's limbs froze as she watched him teeter, arms flailing, as he fought a whistling current of air strong
enough to move his six-foot frame. Dust bunnies swirled around his feet and rose in a grayish cloud of
debris.
Sam's eyes shot to the octagonal window at the end of the hall, almost hoping to see a giant hole in the
roof or a broken windowpane, anything to explain the wind that was blowing inside the house. But the
window was closed, the glass, walls and roof intact.
The hair on the back of Sam's neck rose and goose flesh rippled up her arms when she realized the
house was secure. Whatever was happening to Trevor, its source was inside the house.
Sam's gaze returned to her husband as the wind cranked up to what sounded like hurricane force,
sweeping down the narrow hall with a deafening, freight-train roar. She stared, slack-jawed and
paralyzed, as Trevor's torso lost its battle with the determined wind. His shoulders tipped back.
Sam shook her head, closed her mouth and lunged toward him, even though her brain realized the
futility of her act. Even on the outside chance she reached him in time, she simply wasn't big enough to
offset his weight. Most likely, he'd pull her down the steps with him. At the last second, he shot one
hand out and grabbed the handrail.
The wind persisted. With his torso anchored, Trevor's feet went out from under his body and he fell to
his knees.
Sam opened her mouth to ask him if he was all right, but all she could managed was a hoarse croak as
she stared down at him, her voice and breath locked in her throat. She reminded herself to breathe.
Was that dust or frost that coated his hair?
Keeping both shaking hands latched on the railing and his bulging eyes fixed on a point over Sam's
shoulder, he backed down the staircase. At the bottom, he released his death grip on the banister, only
to turn too quickly and trip over his own feet. Sam winced as his cashmere-clad body hit the wood floor
with more of a splat than a thud. He scrambled to his feet.
“Sam. Get down here. It isn't safe up there!” But as he shouted, the sound of the wind faded away to
dead quiet.
Sam turned and surveyed the third floor hall, now deceptively silent and still. Newly disturbed dust
motes floated through the air and settled on the hardwood. Her rational mind suggested that she
should follow Trevor downstairs, but something held her back. An invisible force pulled at her trembling
body and rooted her feet to the floor. As she stood and listened for the return of the wind, her
breathing steadied. Her pulsed slowed. The calm that settled over her was as inexplicable as the
terrifying wind had been just moments before. The feeling was unnatural, yet familiar in a way that
seemed to soothe the sharp edges of Sam's grief.
A warm breath-like air passed over the back of her neck. Unlike the arctic wind tunnel released upon
Trevor, the air that caressed Sam's skin was gentle, warm, and not at all frightening, almost like an
affectionate mother's hand passing over her child's hair. It only lasted few seconds, just long enough
for the heat to smooth the goose bumps on Sam's arms. Then it was gone, and Sam was left feeling
strangely bereft.
She stopped and slowly rotated her head to look over her shoulder.
The hall was empty.
| The Last Goodbye |
