It hurts to lie to him. The treachery of it is ripping her, destroying her, but she hides it well behind her smiles and loving eyes. Each time her mask cracks, Cerva glances to their unseeing daughter until she is composed enough to look him in the eyes again. She hopes he doesn’t notice this or how her eyes occasionally dull with the knowledge of what she’s doing. This is difficult. Everything she has invested her heart into is slipping through her fingers, but it’s no longer against her will. This time, it’s her own choosing, but that doesn’t spare her the pain and agony.
Stay strong, she tells herself as her smile wavers.
Atrani tilts her head up to blindly search for her mother only to weakly ask, ”Why, momma?” Is this because father abandoned Cerva? Is she being punished for what father had done? Is this her fault?
Accusatory knives stab through her, and she hesitates when mother dismisses the two of them. This is wrong, but what are they to do? Reaching out, she finds father’s shoulder and nibbles his coat in confusion. She can’t do anything. She can’t look into mother’s face or search for her answers in Cerva’s gaze. There is no other option except to obey father’s nudges and caresses. He guides her a few steps away, obliging Cerva in a most unhappy way. He mirrors the heartache and uncertainty that is treading through Atrani’s thoughts, but nonetheless, he agrees to mother’s wishes. There is a soft touch (she feels him lean into Cerva) and a reluctant withdrawal, then there is a loving kiss placed on the arch of her neck. The small child tries to smile through the panic, tries to savor this adoration, but it ends quickly leaving the spot on her neck iced over.
Cerva clutches desperately to these moments even as her vision phases in and out, even as the strength in her body ebbs. The tears brim her eyes, but she never lets them fall; she refuses to let them know that this is goodbye and not see you later. She wants them to believe that she still has vigor.
She wants to leave them with a sense of hope.
They don’t realize the battle raging inside her heart, mind, and soul. They – Dovev, really – only sees the false smiles and the glances of a lover. He doesn’t know how her mind is closing to the world, how the blood is still draining relentlessly from her.
She won’t let them know.
When they leave, Atrani pressed blindly to her father’s shoulder, Cerva watches. What remains left of her leaves the meadow with them. Her legacy, her love, her memories, are leaving her here in the meadow. They think she will find them. They don’t realize the finality of the moment.
Patiently, Cerva watches as their bodies disappear into the distance. Atrani glances back one last time and Cerva wishes the girl could see the way their eyes would have met, how their love for each other would have blossomed with that final look. A feeble smile quivers across her lips. ”Goodbye, my loves,” she whispers into the warm breeze before finally turning away from them. She walks toward the trees, but doesn’t stop there. She forces her legs to move for as long as she can until she passes a threshold where the pain subsides and where her heartbreak is mended. There is a lightness in her step again, a sense of youth in her nutmeg eyes. Oddly enough, she is not with Dovev and Atrani and yet she is, somehow. She can feel her heartbeat thrumming inside the small child. Her memory and love wrapping around Dovev’s mind.
Cerva doesn’t question where she is, or how she got here, or if she will ever awaken. She simply lets it be, smiling as the sun kisses her skin.
Cerva