Fifíra

She's oddly content, now.

She used to cry at nights, dreaming about him. She used to huddle up in the warm space beneath the covers, curling up in the hollow he had made in the mattress, and it smelled like him; apples and cinnamon and warmth and comfort. She used to cry, wrapped in the memory of him, her heart breaking a million times over.

She sleeps alone, now, in a single bed with sheets that smell of laundry detergent. She gets up in the morning and brushes her hair, a hundred strokes every morning, even though she doesn't know why. She wears comfortable robes that hang too lose on her; she's lost weight, these days. There just doesn't seem to be a reason to eat.

She used to live through it every day. She used to think about it, to brood over it, and it seemed as if her life were caught up in him. Her only memory was the funeral, and she had lived through it every day. She used to think, pacing alone in her house--their house--harsh and bitter thoughts, full of anger and rage and a cracked despair. Even after the anger faded, the grief remained. But she doesn't think about much of anything, these days; she just lives, quietly accepting, whatever happens to her.

She used to live in fear, when he was with her; fear that he would die tomorrow, fear that he would be taken away and she left with nothing, fear that every kiss might be the last one. She doesn't fear anymore. Her worst fears have already come true.

She used to get up and go to work every day, even after he was gone, but she couldn't take it. People stared at her, pitying her, stopping by to offer comments, and she couldn't deal with it, screaming at them, anger rising in her so hot and furious that she would channel it out around her. She was fired, eventually, on paid leave, because they felt sorry for her, and she never went back. She used to sit, alone in the house they were going to live in, sitting at the head of the table, tears running down her face as she shuddered, racked by broken sobs. People used to come visit her, consoling her, telling her how sorry they were, how they felt the same way, but after a while no one came. Not after she threw the first ones away, screaming at them that they had no idea how she felt, screaming and screaming until despair washed over her anger and she crumpled to the ground, sobbing brokenly as they stared at her with pity etched on their faces.

She doesn't work anymore. She gets up early and sits on her back porch, watching the sun rise, and she looks straight into it, but it won't blind her. She drinks her morning tea, then turns straight to the crossword. She won't read the paper anymore. Later, she works out in the garden, the garden they planted together, and it is the most beautiful garden on the street, but she doesn't see it. Every time she looks at it she sees him. She doesn't cook like she used to--it's not worth the effort, for just one.

Mail piled up on her desk, but somehow she never got around to opening it, and after a while mail stopped coming. Sometimes she sits at the table on her back porch and sketches, pictures she draws with her eyes closed, the soft lead pencil making wistful lines across the paper. She puts them in a folder, telling herself that someday she'll look at them. They're beautiful.

She doesn't do magic anymore, since the war. She put her wand away in a drawer one day, kissing it lightly before shutting it, and now she can't remember which drawer, but it doesn't matter to her anyway. She has seen too many killed with magic to ever use it again.

Sometimes she goes outside, sitting in the garden amidst her flowers, and she looks like an angel; red hair falling about her shoulders, hilighted by the sun, robes the color of the flowers flowing about her, sunlight haloing her and butterflies drifting around her. She sits for hours, watching the butterflies as they flit back and forth in their intricate dance. She doesn't notice the children who stop and stare at her from the street, how the men pause when they come to her, taking off their hats and nodding, or how the women look over from their garden, how their eyes fill with a wistful pity, pity mingled with admiration. She is alone, and nothing exists but the butterflies. They flock to her garden like nowhere else in the world.

She doesn't wear black anymore; she hasn't in a long time, now. She wears reds, vivid and rich as blood, beautiful red-oranges the color of her hair, pale sky-kissed blues and deep royal blue-violet, mellow, sunny yellows, and green most often; green the shade of his eyes. It is always summer to her; summer, his birth-season and death-season, days within each other. All rains are summer rains, soft and gentle, and snow, when it comes, is light and beautiful, melting away to golden dusty afternoons where tiny jeweled butterflies flock to her garden.

She doesn't feel much, either. She looks in the mirror when she gives her hair a hundred strokes, and it doesn't surprise her that her hair is turning white, nor does it sorrow her. Her every day is filled with a peace; a hollow, empty peace of an attic room covered in dust, unused for years, with golden rays of sunlight making dust specks dance and swirl beautifully. She is as lovely as she ever was. Her joy is not as wild as it used to be, and happiness is something she has not thought about in a long time, but she watches her butterflies and is pleased. She doesn't laugh anymore, but she doesn't cry, and has not cried for many years.

She is always in mourning.

Things are fading together, now; all her golden afternoons seem as one, and she hasn't done the crossword for days. She draws more often, sometimes with her eyes open, and she looks through her old pictures, sometimes. Tastes blend together until there is no flavor to life. She sits out in her garden more, working in it less, but the flowers grow wildly and beautifully and butterflies and as numerous as ever. Sometimes, the children call to her, but she doesn't hear them. She watches the flowers and the butterflies, and then she thinks of him, the first time in many years. Only then do tears blur her vision, and she has to close her eyes against the darkness of her life.