The Moth and the Candle

Aisling fiddled with the contents of the car boot. After several moments she extracted a garden shears from the mass of canvas bags, plastic containers and the other detritus. She held the shears by their black foam handle and walked over to the headstone. High winds had plucked the flowers from their vases and scattered them despite the lumps of granite that Aisling had wedged into place . She bent over and quickly plucked the dead stems and petals from the ground, counting each one silently though she didn’t know why. As she pruned the flowers that were left into a semblance of acceptable order Eddie stood before the grave with his hands behind his back.

- The flowers look nice, he offered, especially the lilies.

He knew all told that the flowers meant very little. It was the look of the thing that mattered, that was to be kept tidy and neat but not for social propriety or through fussiness. It was done because it was the one tangible part of Cora’s memory that could be attended, that they both could participate in without dwelling on what happened. Rather this grooming of the grave was the ritual of memory that let them both, temporarily, to forget however briefly.

When she finished with the shears Aisling stepped back from the headstone. Her shoulders slumped and she leaned against Eddie. He draped an arm around her thin shoulders . Sadness flowed though them both like a blood that circulated only occasionally. Eddie felt Aisling’s chest begin to heave and wrack. This triggered off the same thing within him. Why did he have to have Aisling’s feelings to initiate his own emotions? Where was the spontaneity within him to reach out for little Cora and hold her memory tight? The male part of him mocked and felt, hid and fought imaginary demons that assailed him when he slept. Rage and frustration ran hand and hand in his nightmares as they had in his life before now and would continue to do so.

Aisling comforted herself. She didn’t even really feel anything physically when she visited Cora’s grave. Her pain was within her, a part of her being so intense that at times like this it filled her whole world and was the only horizon she could see. She twisted into Eddie and cried softly. She felt his tight grip but it was like he was holding another person. The loss that had occurred gave rise to intensely real feelings of micro-distance in which Aisling saw herself behaving and talking and acting but did not feel or think it. She was an actor on a screen coming out with her lines in rote order with just the right amount of passion and verve, all things just so meeting all the expectations she felt from previous experiences of death and so deftly looked for in the reactions of others, particularly her family.
They looked at the thin screen of grass the shoots of which were only now beginning to assert themselves over the mud they grew upon and both felt so very alone. They held each other in numbness.

- Perhaps, Aisling said, we should have the headstone inscribed. It has been six months. We should really have something on it by now.
Eddie shifted his weight.

- I think you’re right. But what should we put?

Aisling stared at the headstone and said nothing. She hadn’t even wanted Aisling’s agreement on the inscription. She wanted to say it out loud, to get it out of her, to put words around the horrible idea of writing her daughter’s epitaph. She knew she couldn’t explain it to Aisling anymore. To attempt to would upset the fragile peace that existed between them now. She knew, as she turned to him, that she was the strong one now. He looked into her face and saw her eyes change. But what change was taking place he could not tell.