FIC: Twenty-One Years (AB)

[mhalachai]

Title: Twenty-One Years
Fandom: Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter (master list here)
Characters: Anita
Prompt: 010 -- Years
Word Count: 531
Disclaimer: Laurell K. Hamilton owns all things Anita Blake. Only the story is my own.
Rating: PG

~~*~~
The church was quiet when I slipped through the door. At two in the afternoon on a Tuesday, there was no one around as I walked down between the pews toward the alter.

When the Catholic Church excommunicated all practising animators a few years ago, I wasn't really bothered. It only gnawed at me one day of the year. This day. I had wondered at first if God would hear me the same way in an Episcopalian church as if I was in a Catholic church, but I got over that. God didn't allow petty earthly difference to bother him.

I stopped in front of the alter and crossed myself. The sunshine shone through the stained glass windows right on the crucifix over the alter, as I continued to the row of candles along the wall. Kneeling, I crossed myself again, then drew a tiny piece of paper out of my pocket.

When I left the house that morning, Micah had asked me where I was going. I hadn't answered him. I wanted to tell him, to explain, but the words stuck in my throat until it was hard to breathe and I had to escape.

I lit one candle with a taper. The flame flared, then burned down to a soft glow. I held my little slip of paper and didn't know what to say. I never knew what to say.

I stared at that flame for a long time before I propped the paper, a tiny photocopy of a photograph, against the candle. My mother's sparkling, beautiful face seemed to stare up at me.

It had been twenty-one years to the day since she died, taken from me in a car crash that ripped her life and my childhood away. I'd been six when I lost her, and for twenty-one years, I'd never been able to tell anyone how much I missed her, how scared I was because she went away, how much I wanted her back with me. Dad didn't want to hear it, my step-mother didn't deserve to know.

Now, even though I was surrounded by people in my life who loved me, I couldn't tell them. I didn't want to appear weak, and still grieving for my mother after all these years... I didn't think any of them would understand.

The air moved slightly as someone opened a door somewhere in the church, startling me. The candle had burned down farther, and I realized that I had just been kneeling here, lost in my thoughts. Bowing my head, I said a quick prayer, something rote and simple, but what I was feeling didn't go with that prayer. What I felt was, please, God, love my mother as much as I do.

Something lightened in my chest as I stood up. As I walked out of the church, it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, Micah or Jean-Claude wouldn't think that I was weak if I talked to them about what today meant to me. They may not understand, but they might just be there, if I needed them. For the first time in years, I realized that I had someone, lots of someones, who were there for me.

--fin

Comments

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

(Actually, I was tearing up while I was writing this in the coffee whop. No doubt I looked rather silly, but oh well.)

[iamabee-buzz.livejournal.com]

I try never to read in public because I always cry or laugh out loud and I look like a fool. ;)