LJ Idol Three Strikes: Prompt 19 — Mamihlapinatapai

[flipflop_diva]

Aubrey held the papers in her hands, her entire world shifting on its axis. Everything she thought she knew, everything she was so sure about … all of it fading away, transforming, leaving something else entirely in its wake.

She wasn’t sure how to feel, or if she felt anything at all. She just stared at the papers, reading them again just one more time. Just to make sure …

--

“Ours was a fairy tale!”

Aubrey tried not to roll her eyes. In her fourteen years of life, she had heard her grandmother’s story at least a hundred times. Always the same, always with the same excitement in her voice.

“We met as children. He lived on the other side of the tracks.”

He did. That was true. But Grandma never mentioned that the tracks were less than a half mile from the home she grew up in, and both her and Grandpa’s fathers worked together in the town’s main factory. It wasn’t exactly a tale of a little rich girl and the poor boy she wasn’t allowed to associate with.

“He fancied me from the day we started school, always staring at me but never talking to me. And of course, I fancied him back, but I couldn’t tell him that.”

When Aubrey was little, she used to ask questions — “But why didn’t you tell him, Grandma?” — but now she just let her grandmother’s words wash over her. Her mom was always telling her that she would miss these stories someday, but she felt pretty confident that she could live the rest of her life without hearing this tale and be just fine.

“I became friends with his sister. Best friends. We were always together. And so I was always around him too. People always said we would get married, but we would laugh at them. Of course, I wanted to, but I could never say that out loud.”

“Of course not,” Aubrey mumbled to herself now.

“After high school, he went away to the war. I thought I would never see him again. I started dating a nice chap. We talked about getting married. But then …”

Grandma’s voice trailed off, as it always did here. It was the tragic part of the tale. Aubrey used to feel sad about it, but it was just one more thing she had heard so many times.

“Your Uncle Tom passed away so suddenly. One minute he was fine, and the next minute he was gone. He’d been everything to me. I was just devastated. But then, on the day of the funeral, who should walk into the church but your grandfather …”

And here Grandma’s voice became dreamy. Also, just as it always did.

“He saw me crying, and he came over to me, and just held out his arms. It was like going home. That night, we talked and talked until the sun came out.”

Aubrey cut in here. “And two months later, you stole away to the little chapel and got married. And then you had three kids and lived happily ever after.”

Aubrey realized she probably sounded a bit sarcastic, and instantly she felt guilty, but Grandma was still smiling at her.

“Yes,” she said. “We did.”

It was the same thing Grandma always said, but this time her words made Aubrey pause. It was almost as if there were something in Grandma’s voice that Aubrey had never heard before. And for the first time in a hundred tellings, Aubrey found herself wondering if there was something Grandma wasn’t saying.

--

Aubrey’s older sister, Sabrina, now held the papers in her hands. She stared down at them, her face a mixture of disbelief and sadness and confusion, but like Aubrey, there was also excitement and understanding mixed in.

Sabrina looked up.

“Grandma has those boxes of pictures,” she said. “I think we need to look at them one more time.”

--

“Ours was a fairy tale.” Grandma choked on her words, the last bit coming out as a sob. Aubrey squeezed her hand. It felt so old and withered and fragile against her own.

The monitors beeped. There were so many of them.

Aubrey watched Grandpa’s chest rising and falling, wondering just when it would stop. The doctors said soon, but that didn’t tell her anything.

“We met as children. He lived on the other side of the tracks.”

Grandma’s voice was so soft. Aubrey wished there was something she could do. Anything she could do.

“He fancied you from the day we all started school. He was always staring at you, but he couldn’t admit it to anyone. But I was his twin. I knew.” Aunt Jo took over, her voice steady and clear amongst the sadness of their surroundings. Beside her, Aubrey’s mom and Sabrina sat, wiping away tears.

Grandma lifted her face from her hands, her eyes meeting Aunt Jo’s.

“You’ve been my best friend almost my whole life,” she said. “You know me so well.”

“I’m always here,” Aunt Jo said. “Now where were we?”

Aubrey squeezed Grandma’s hand again as Aunt Jo resumed the story — the one of the boy and the girl who were destined to be together and lived happily ever after. Until now.

--

“We found them when we were packing up Grandma’s house,” Sabrina said gently. She and Aubrey sat across from their mother, as she looked at the photos, examining each one as if she had never seen it before.

And she probably hadn’t, not in that way.

The letters Aubrey had found were also on the table. The envelopes she had found them in were there too. All addressed and stamped but never mailed.

The one that Aubrey hadn’t been able to stop reading for the last two days lay in front of her.

“I’ve loved you since the day I met you. I know that now. I wish I had understood that before, but maybe it’s not too late for us, Jo. Maybe this is our time.”

Their mother picked up another photo. Taken at Grandma’s wedding to Grandpa. But it was of Grandma and their Aunt Jo. And Aubrey could see it now — what had always been there but she had never noticed.

“Do you think Aunt Jo knew?” Sabrina asked.

Aubrey looked at the photos spread around the table, at the letters her grandmother never sent. The ones that were wrinkled and stained in some places. Like maybe from someone’s tears.

“Yeah,” she said. “I think she knew.”

--

“Ours was a fairy tale!”

“Grandma!” Aubrey laughed as she brought in another box from Aunt Jo’s car. It had only been a few months since her grandfather had passed, but she had seen how lonely her grandmother had been, how sad. Now, with Aunt Jo agreeing to move in, she seemed happy again, upbeat.

“Oh, sweetie, you know how your grandmother loves her stories!” Aunt Jo grinned at Aubrey, reaching for the box in her arms.

“Awww,” Grandma said. “But this is a new story!”

“Is it really?” Aubrey asked.

“It is,” Grandma said, nodding. “It’s about two girls who met as children and became each other’s very best friend.”

Aubrey saw Grandma’s eyes flicker to Aunt Jo.

“I hope they lived happily ever after,” Aubrey said.

“Oh, don’t worry.” It was Aunt Jo who replied. Aubrey saw she was looking back at her grandmother. “They surely did.”



Fiction.



This was written for therealljidol Three Strikes Mini Season. If you liked my entry, please consider voting for me! You should also go read all the other amazing entries. You can find them all here. Voting should be up Thursday night!

Comments

[breakfastatholly]

Oooh Grandma and Aunt Jo had a secret!! You know this is one of my favorite kinds of stories and I hope those two ladies had a whole lot of fun once they became roommates.. :D

[banana_galaxy]

Oh wow that ending. This probably makes me sound like a jerk but it kinda makes me wish Grandpa has passed a bit earlier...

[mollywheezy]

Wonderful twist at the end! Loved it! :)

[roina_arwen]

Aww, that’s sweet! I’m glad Grandma finally got to be with her truest love.

[ofearthandstars]

Oh, I love this! So glad Grandma had some sweetness in her life near the end.

[dadi]

Ahhh! I kind of got confused at first, but now I got it! Lovely! I hope they still have some great time together!

[gunwithoutmusic]

This was so sweet and sad at the same time. I wish that they could have lived how they wanted to, without any fear, without any worry about what the outside world would think. But things were so different back in the day. This story made me thankful to live in the time that I do, despite all of the other craziness around us. Good work :)