12: Moving On

The next few weeks passed quick­ly. Brig­it and John were set to their tasks of reap­ing those who had wait­ed the longest to pass to the oth­er side. A few were un­ruly, but Brig­it found that she was be­com­ing more com­fort­able with her in­stincts and some­what used to the pos­si­bil­ity of a fight. There had been a cou­ple of close calls with the dark­er spir­its, but in the end, Brig­it had man­aged to get them through the ap­pro­pri­ate door and on to face their fates.

The sea­son con­tin­ued its change dur­ing those few weeks. The air grew cold­er; the leaves had long left their posts on the trees. Brig­it oc­ca­sion­al­ly took a few min­utes to look around her. She not­ed the changes in the scenery and be­gan to guess as to the day of the month. Her in­ter­nal clock was go­ing silent. All she had to judge time by now was Mag­gie’s leav­ing for work in the morn­ing and the set­ting sun. Sec­onds had be­come min­utes to Brig­it, and min­utes had be­come hours.

Her home time was spent in silent ob­ser­va­tion. Mag­gie’s grief was still present, but Brig­it could see that it was be­com­ing thin­ner with each pass­ing day. As each lay­er of grief was buried, Mag­gie would re­move some small re­minder of their life to­geth­er. A pic­ture here, a keep­sake there… Brig­it watched her lover take the items and store them in a small box in the hall clos­et. As each ob­ject was re­moved from its rest­ing place, Brig­it felt a piece of her heart crack with the sad­ness of it. When she lay down be­side Mag­gie in the dark­ness, she re­mind­ed her­self to stand strong in her promise to wait for Mag­gie. It didn’t mat­ter that the phys­ical re­minders of their love were slow­ly van­ish­ing. Brig­it was keep­ing her promise. Mag­gie would keep the mem­ory.

Ma­ma Dee came and went as fre­quent­ly as ev­er. Al­though she nev­er ver­bal­ly ex­pressed why, Brig­it watched her friend as she fussed over Mag­gie and en­gaged her in con­ver­sa­tion at the din­ner ta­ble. When the two wom­en would erupt in­to laugh­ter, Brig­it laughed with them. When they grew silent be­cause they had come too close to a mem­ory of Brig­it, Brig­it would sigh and gen­tly touch each of them on the shoul­der. She could feel their warmth un­der her hand. They felt on­ly the shiv­er that ran through them from where she had touched them.

Novem­ber passed in­to De­cem­ber by the turn­ing of the cal­en­dar on the wall in the kitchen. Brig­it had stood be­side Mag­gie as she had tak­en this inane chore un­der task and they both sighed deeply at the re­minder that Christ­mas was com­ing soon. It would be the first hol­iday that a tree was not dragged home and hours spent dec­orat­ing it. It would be the first hol­iday that the spe­cial presents weren’t ex­changed at mid­night and the rest of them ex­changed at dawn. It would be the first Christ­mas that their rit­uals would not be ob­served. Brig­it had reached out to take Mag­gie’s hand, hop­ing to re­as­sure her in some small mea­sure that she was still present; but Mag­gie turned and walked away. The open­ing and clos­ing of the front door let Brig­it know that Mag­gie had gone for the day.

It was two weeks lat­er when Brig­it found Mag­gie turn­ing a new page. She had just come in from the of­fice and was walk­ing through the qui­et house in search of Mag­gie when there was a knock at the door. Brig­it stopped as Mag­gie came dash­ing from the bed­room try­ing to af­fix an ear­ring to her ear lobe and ac­tu­al­ly passed through her on the way to the door. The shock of that sen­sa­tion froze Brig­it where she stood. The warm waves from Mag­gie’s en­er­gy washed through her from head to toe to fin­ger­tip. When she turned to look at her part­ner, she re­al­ized Mag­gie was dressed for a night on the town – for a date…

Mag­gie had opened the door and found Ma­ma Dee stand­ing on the oth­er side. Her gray­ing hair was cov­ered in the knit cap she had made for her­self ear­li­er in the fall. A match­ing scarf was wound around her neck up to her nose.

“Oh, it’s you, Ma­ma. Come in,” Mag­gie said as she still strug­gled with the ear­ring.

“You sure do look nice, child. Where is this girl tak­ing you?” Ma­ma Dee asked as she be­gan to un­wind the scarf from her neck. Brig­it stood in the door way watch­ing, re­sist­ing the spark of anger that was try­ing to ig­nite in her.

“To Duchevney’s on Sixth Av­enue. She’s said she would be here by now,” Mag­gie said frustrat­ed­ly.

“I hope she has a good rea­son for be­ing late,” Ma­ma Dee said with a dis­ap­prov­ing shake of her head.

“I’m sure she does, Ma­ma,” Mag­gie sighed as she fi­nal­ly man­aged to clasp the ear­ring. She stood up straight and turned for her friend to see. “Do I re­al­ly look okay?” Mag­gie asked.

Brig­it bit her lip as she looked at her part­ner. Mag­gie was wear­ing the black vel­vet cock­tail dress Brig­it had picked out for her the year be­fore on the oc­ca­sion of her own com­pa­ny Christ­mas par­ty. Mag­gie had looked as hot in it then as she did now. The spark of anger was start­ing to turn some­what green as she let her eyes wan­der down the sil­hou­ette of Mag­gie’s body.

“You look beau­ti­ful. Now, tell me again how you met this girl?” Ma­ma Dee in­struct­ed as she sank on­to the so­fa and pulled the knit cap from her grey head. Lit­tle curls sprang free at var­ious points on her crown.

“I met her on the bus three weeks ago. She works down­town for a law firm – I for­get the name. It’s long, that’s all I can tell you right now. Any­way, she’s made ju­nior part­ner and she’s ex­treme­ly in­tel­li­gent. We’ve man­aged to talk ev­ery morn­ing on our way to work. I like her, Ma­ma…” Mag­gie mea­sured her words as she said them. Brig­it won­dered why Mag­gie would have to think about what she was say­ing. It seemed as if she might be un­sure of what she was re­al­ly feel­ing. At least, that was Brig­it’s in­ter­pre­ta­tion of it.

Ma­ma Dee was about to say some­thing more when a sec­ond knock sound­ed at the door. Mag­gie jumped to open it. On the oth­er side, a huge bou­quet of flow­ers masked the face of the per­son hold­ing them. When they were low­ered to re­veal the wom­an pre­sent­ing them, Brig­it im­me­di­ate­ly de­cid­ed she didn’t like her. Quick­ly, she glanced at Ma­ma Dee to as­sess her opin­ion of the stranger. Ma­ma Dee, ev­er the la­dy, gave noth­ing away.

“Sor­ry I’m late,” the wom­an said as she stepped in­to the liv­ing room.

She was wear­ing a black pin-​striped pow­er-​suit, the teal silk shirt be­neath its coat opened to the top line of her cleav­age. Her dark brown hair had been swept up in­to a tight French curl and se­cured by an ebony clasp. Brig­it looked to the floor to see that the wom­an was wear­ing black vel­veteen pumps on her feet. It was a cos­tume she prob­ably donned ev­ery­day, Brig­it mused as she re­turned her gaze to the new wom­an’s face. To make it worse, she had a broad, charm­ing smile on her face. Brig­it took a cou­ple of steps for­ward and stood just be­hind Mag­gie, as if to re­assert her in­vis­ible pres­ence in the room.

“These are beau­ti­ful!” Mag­gie gushed as she ex­am­ined the bou­quet that had been passed to her.

“I found them on my way here. I had the limo driv­er cir­cle the block so I could buy them for you, hence, the rea­son I am late.” the stranger bragged. Brig­it rolled her eyes and looked to Ma­ma Dee for sup­port. Ma­ma Dee on­ly stood from where she was sit­ting, re­mind­ing Mag­gie that she was still in the room.

“Oh, Ma­ma, this is Lore­na Rubens. Lore­na, this is Ma­ma Dee. She’s my neigh­bor and dear­est friend,” Brig­it in­tro­duced. Lore­na Rubens strode to­ward Ma­ma Dee with her hand out­stretched in greet­ing. Ma­ma Dee took it and they shook; but Brig­it no­ticed the hes­ita­tion in Ma­ma Dee’s ac­tions. Brig­it felt a sud­den surge of re­lief. Ma­ma Dee didn’t like her ei­ther. Good, Brig­it thought, it’s not just me…

“It’s a plea­sure to meet you, Miss Dee,” Lore­na said.

“And you,” Ma­ma replied po­lite­ly.

“I bet­ter put these in some wa­ter,” Mag­gie said.

“I’ll take care of that for you, child,” Ma­ma Dee of­fered. She took the large bou­quet from Mag­gie and turned to face Lore­na Rubens. “Where are you tak­ing my on­ly daugh­ter?”

Mag­gie and Lore­na laughed light­ly at Ma­ma’s ques­tion. Brig­it and Ma­ma Dee re­mained silent in wait­ing for the re­sponse.

“I’ve made eight o’clock reser­va­tions at Duchevney’s on Sixth Av­enue. Would you care to join us?” Lore­na of­fered. “They have a won­der­ful menu. The chef is a dear friend of mine.”

Brig­it rolled her eyes again. More brag­ging. It was not an en­dear­ing qual­ity.

“Oh no,” Ma­ma replied. “You all go and have a good time.”

“Thank you, Ma­ma,” Mag­gie said as she opened the hall clos­et and pulled out the black silk wrap Brig­it had al­so picked out to go with the cock­tail dress. “I’ll call you when I get home.”

“Al­right then,” Ma­ma Dee said as she re­ceived a kiss on the cheek from Mag­gie.

“It was love­ly to meet you, Miss Dee,” Lore­na Rubens said as she opened the door for Mag­gie and wait­ed for her to pass. Ma­ma Dee made no re­ply as she watched the door close be­hind the two younger wom­en. Fi­nal­ly, a deep sigh es­caped the lit­tle old wom­an and she turned to make her way to the kitchen. Brig­it fol­lowed close­ly, her anger and jeal­ousy erupt­ing.

“How could you let her do this?” Brig­it asked as she fol­lowed her friend.

“She’s got to move on, I sup­pose,” Ma­ma mut­tered.

Brig­it stopped. Had Ma­ma Dee heard her?

“The girl can’t spend the rest of her life alone. It’s a shame, re­al­ly. She was so hap­py with Brig­it,” Ma­ma went on. Brig­it’s shoul­ders slumped and she sank against the wall. “But this girl here, she looks like maybe she can take care of Mag­gie. That’s what she needs. Some­one to watch over her.”

“I’m watch­ing over her,” Brig­it replied.

“She needs some­one to hold her and love her,” Ma­ma added.

“I hold her ev­ery night and I love her for all eter­ni­ty,” Brig­it put in.

Brig­it watched Ma­ma Dee take a large vase from the cup­board and fill it with wa­ter. Then, she set to the task of re­mov­ing the bou­quet from the cel­lo­phane wrap­per and trim­ming the stems be­fore ar­rang­ing the bou­quet in the vase. A stub­born si­lence had over come Ma­ma Dee as Brig­it watched. When the bou­quet was set, Ma­ma Dee swept the trim­mings in­to a pile on the counter be­fore scoop­ing them up in her plump hands and force­ful­ly dump­ing them in the garbage. Ma­ma was an­gry; but at what, Brig­it had no clue.

Care­ful­ly, Ma­ma set the vase on the kitchen ta­ble so Mag­gie would see it when she came in to make her cof­fee in the morn­ing. She paused af­ter set­ting it down. She could feel the cold spot to her left and she knew she wasn’t alone. Ma­ma had felt it be­fore and she had the in­cli­na­tion that it was a fa­mil­iar spir­it that moved through the rooms of the apart­ment Mag­gie had shared with Brig­it. Once, Ma­ma Dee had thought, she had even heard the fa­mil­iar voice. It was a feel­ing she had pos­sessed since the night of the ac­ci­dent – a gift she had car­ried silent­ly since child­hood. She could feel and hear the un­seen and, late­ly, it had been grow­ing stronger than ev­er. Slow­ly, Ma­ma turned away and walked to­ward the hall. She paused in the door­way and looked back.

Brig­it met her gaze.

“You should keep a close eye on your girl,” Ma­ma Dee in­struct­ed to the emp­ty room be­fore turn­ing around again and leav­ing the apart­ment.

“I will, Ma­ma,” Brig­it whis­pered in a promise.

Her at­ten­tion turned to the bou­quet Ma­ma Dee had set be­side her. Slow­ly, she ex­tend­ed her hand to touch the bright red rose that was on the verge of bloom­ing. As her fin­ger­tip neared the edge of the out­er­most petal, it be­gan to deep­en in col­or. In sec­onds, it had turned black. Brig­it pulled her hand away and eyed the re­sult.

She had nev­er done any­thing ma­li­cious. She had nev­er re­al­ly fought with Mag­gie about any­thing. There had been spats, but noth­ing that had nev­er gone un­re­solved be­fore go­ing to bed…. Yet, the feel­ings in­side her now were churn­ing like a bub­bling brew in a large caul­dron over a roar­ing fire. How could Mag­gie move on so quick­ly af­ter ten years of hap­pi­ness? Slow­ly, Brig­it ex­tend­ed her fin­ger to the large white Calla Lily at the top of the bou­quet. She watched as it slow­ly turned brown and with­ered un­der her touch.

That was enough, she de­cid­ed. She was sure she could find oth­er ways to make her point, to let Mag­gie know she was un­hap­py with the sit­ua­tion. She couldn’t en­tire­ly kill some­thing that had brought a gen­uine smile to her part­ner’s face – no mat­ter who it had come from. Brig­it stood and walked to the front room. As she sank in­to Mag­gie’s read­ing chair, she thought about Ma­ma Dee’s ad­vice. She would keep a clos­er eye on Mag­gie. Some­thing about Lore­na Rubens didn’t set right with Brig­it. She couldn’t put her fin­ger on it yet, but she couldn’t do any­thing to stop what had been start­ed ei­ther. Not yet, any­way…