Unspoken

CW: Death of a loved one

“I stole it,” Gran says, her voice pale and wafer-thin. “I stole the flamingo.”

She twists her crooked fingers around the waffle weave blanket and strains to lift her head from the pillow. I lean forward, sure she’s going to say more.

But she doesn’t.

She just dies instead.

#

The undertaker collects Gran at five-thirty and we fill her absence with Chinese takeaways and gin.

We eat slowly, scraping limp cauliflower through nondescript sauce, continuing through the motions. Our lives go on. Gran’s doesn’t.

“You okay?” I ask.

Grandpa Kev nods. “I’m okay, lass,” he says, but the mound of uneaten noodles on his plate, and his red, watery eyes tell another story.

He stabs at a piece of beef. “She was a good woman, your gran,” he says and stabs at the beef again, piercing it through the middle. “A fine wife, too.”

There’s a Gran-sized space in our conversation, and we eat in silence.

“I didn’t—” Grandpa Kev rests his trembling fingers on the tablecloth, and sucks in a ragged breath. His voice breaks. “—know it was so close to the end.”

Neither did I.

Or I wouldn’t have been in there alone.

“She talked about stealing a flamingo,” I say. “At the end.”

Grandpa Kev’s fork scrapes as he stabs another piece of beef. There’s a tension I can’t quite place. Perhaps he hoped her last words were of love and not theft, but aren’t the two often the same.

“I wonder what she was thinking,” I say.

“Nothing,” he says, the word buffeting the room.

“Oh,” I say, and the silence lingers between us. People grieve in different ways.

“She didn’t steal any flamingos.” Grandpa Kev thumps the table, and I jump, shocked at the noise and the outburst. “It was that bloody bastard next door.”

“Oh,” I say again.

He sighs. “Sorry.”

I shrug. No biggie. “Was it a real flamingo?”

He makes a noise, a huff, that might be a laugh, or just the sound of grief escaping. “No, lass. It was a lawn ornament.”

And I’m disappointed. Regret tightens as I lose that delicious image of Gran clutching a flapping flamingo and running for the hills. Her final words, final mystery, squandered.

“He had a matching one,” Grandpa Kev says, his voice green.

“Who?”

“The neighbour.”

“Oh.”

He hates that neighbour.

“Wasn't the first thing he stole, either,” he says.

I feel the tingle of a story. A morsel of Gran previously unspoken.

“It wasn't?”

Grandpa Kev pauses, leans back in his chair, stares into the distance and starts his story. He talks of Gran, of her childhood, of the high society parties her family threw, of his version of her and I meander alongside him as we traverse his memories.

And then he moves onto the neighbour.

“—shown him where the diamonds were hidden. Tens of thousands of dollars’ worth. Big money.” Grandpa Kev clenches his fist and shakes his head. “He stole them.”

“He did?”

“Wilf made quite a scene at the party, leaving early, ranting about her family and their fortune. In the morning the diamonds were gone. The only ones that knew where they were hidden were your Gran, her mother and that thieving bastard.” He slumps in his chair. “He left them destitute.”

I wait for him to say more. But he doesn’t.

“Did they call the police?” I ask.

Grandpa Kev scoffs. But doesn’t answer. He’s done talking.

“Why did they have so much money tied up in hidden diamonds?” I ask, desperate for one last morsel, not ready to leave Gran’s story.

Grandpa Kev stands. “We shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.”

What happens to Gran if all her life is sanitised, and she crumbles into unspoken memories?

#

The collar of my jacket is rough, and it pinches over my shoulders. I pull at my dress and wonder if Gran would even recognise me.

I squeeze Grandpa Kev’s hand. “You okay?” I ask.

“I’m fine, lass,” he lies and attempts a smile. “As long as we don’t have to sit next to your Aunt Marge.”

I follow his gaze to the large woman, with the loud hair and bold clothes standing by the entrance to the church.

“God, no one deserves that.”

Perhaps I’m too harsh, she turned up dressed as herself today.

Aunt Marge looks our way. I try to avert my gaze but it’s too late. She’s seen us and she strides over.

“I can’t,” Grandpa Kev says and slips into the crowd. I can't say I blame him.

“Gosh, you’re looking great now you’ve lost some weight,” she says, squeezing my arm.

Perfect. She’s feeling spicy today.

“I love your skirt,” I say, not in the mood to play.

Aunt Marge smooths her skirt. “Oh this, I got it when I was—” She whips her gaze around, and stares. “Good heavens, he turned up.”

Fingers of fear curl around my throat as I follow her gaze, expecting to see my father standing there.

But I don’t.

I see Grandpa Kev’s nemesis, Wilf, instead. And I relax.

“I can’t believe he’d show up,” she says.

I shrug. “Weren’t they childhood friends?”

Aunt Marge lifts her chin. “Oh, no,” she says. “They weren’t friends. They were engaged.” She pauses, working her crowd of one. “He left her, of course, once the family lost their fortune.”

“He did?” I ask, the words escaping before I can catch them.

“Oh yes, the families all had a huge falling out over it.”

Gossiping with Aunt Marge is like playing hide and seek with a velociraptor. You’re going to get eaten alive in the end. But I can’t resist. Another morsel of Gran’s life. And so, I ask.

“Wasn’t he accused of stealing the family diamonds?”

“If you believe that.”

“But didn't it ruin them financially?”

“Oh no,” Aunt Marge says, her voice aghast. “It wasn’t the diamonds that did that.”

“It wasn’t?”

“It was your Gran’s father.” She shakes her head in mock despair, but she’s relishing the opportunity to be in control of the narrative.

I’m more invested than I’d like to admit. And the appeal doesn’t just lie in the connection with Gran.

“He had a gambling problem. Lost a fortune. Gambled the house. Everything. No respect that man,” she says.

Clearly, Aunt Marge has no qualms about speaking ill of the dead. Even at a funeral.

She rests her hand on my shoulder, giving weight to her words. “Your Gran’s mother saw the writing on the wall. She was buying diamonds and keeping them hidden from that rodent husband of hers. They alleged someone stole them. But if you ask me, they got gambled away too.”

Aunt Marge deflates, her gossip spent, and she flits off without even a goodbye, in search of another target.

I need some air and I mingle through the crowd, accepting hollow condolences, making idle conversation, and seeking the solitude of the garden.

Wilf is standing there. Our trajectories collide before we can avert them, and we’re forced to face each other.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” he says.

His words are heavy, and I snap my gaze to his. His eyes are wet. He’s crying.

“Thank you,” I say.

 He picks a flower from the garden and turns it over in his hands. “We were close once, you know, your gran and I.”

I do know. I just found out. He left when she lost all her money.

“She called it off.” He stifles a sob. “It broke me. I loved her.”

And in the rawness of his words, I hear the truth.

Except, it isn’t that he loved her.

It’s that he still does.

#

I push armfuls of Gran’s clothes into black plastic bags and try to shove the feelings of voyeurism in there, too. There’s no privacy in death.

I pull the last of her coats from the wardrobe and check the pockets. In the far corner of the wardrobe lies a bundle of rags.

I slide it out. It's heavier than I expected. Something large tumbles out of the rags.

Something large and pink.

Something large and pink tumbles out of the rags.

Something large and pink tumbles out of the rags and shatters on the floor.

And the last tangible piece of Gran’s final words lies strewn in a million tiny shards over the floor.

She did steal the pink flamingo.

And I broke it.

I grab at the air, willing time to back, so I could protect and cherish this treasure. But time goes forward and I must do without.

On the floor beside me lies a key. I pick it up and turn it over. It’s a key to a safe deposit box.

And finally, I sink to the floor.

And cry.

#

The key slides into the safe deposit box and I pull it open, but I already know what I’m going to find.

Except when I slide open the box, I don’t see sparkling diamonds. Instead, I see a plain white envelope.

With Wilfred Manning written on it.

I dither.

The letter isn’t addressed to me. But I’m here and greedy for one last connection with Gran, and so I open it. The paper is thick and starchy and Gran’s loopy script so familiar that my breath catches and my chest aches.

And I read.

Dearest Wilfred,

I have written this letter many times over, crafted many versions of the truth, but somehow I’ve never had the courage to give any of them to you. It sits with me, the weight of ending our engagement without an explanation. I know the loss haunted you. I’ve seen you grow up, grow old and never marry.

Over my lifetime, it brought me great joy to wander onto my lawn, check under my flamingo and find a flower, a pebble, a beautiful shell left there. I heard your unspoken words in your trinkets. I hope you enjoyed the favours I left under yours. Our great unspoken connection. And if you’re reading this letter, then you’ve found the key I’ve left for you. 

I need you to know, it was me who stole the flamingos. Our flamingo affair, as innocent as it was, just didn’t feel fair to Kev. It devastated me to end it, but that was only a fraction of the pain it caused me to end our engagement all those years ago.

I did both for love.

My father had already lost most of his wealth by the time we were engaged. But the night of that party, I overheard him pleading with some rather unsavoury bookies. He was desperate. Promising them money. Promising them your money. Promising them your loyalty.

I couldn’t destine you to a lifetime of that.

We’d never be free. I couldn't see any way out, except to not marry you. And so, I called things off, to spare you the pain.

Because that’s what love does.

I am sorry you were accused of stealing the diamonds. And I'm sorry I never spoke up when you were. I had the diamonds, of course. I made them into that mosaic bird bath that sat on the front lawn. The one you always admired in our pleasantries.

I've had a good life and though our paths have remained close but never fully converged, please know I've kept you in my heart all these years and our flamingo trinkets have been one of my life's greatest joys.

Forever yours,

Eloise.

I lay the paper on the table and wipe my eyes with trembling fingers. A great unspoken love story.

Wilf loved Gran.

And Gran loved him.

Perhaps this is why we sanitise the memories of the dead. So their secrets stay unspoken, their questions stay unanswered. And there's no chance of the devastation of closure. 

I can give Wilf the greatest gift of his life. A voice to the unspoken.

And with it, destroy Grandpa Kev.

Or I can leave it unspoken.

My choice.

I close the lid of the box and slide it back into its place. The click of my heels on the tiles echoing as I walk out of the bank with long, determined strides.

I’ve got a busy day.

And a mosaic bird bath to find.