Bone Lines by Stephanie Bretherton

Author:Stephanie Bretherton [Bretherton, Stephanie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Unbound

15

Eloise carried in the little shroud and placed it near the back door. She would bury Newton in the morning. She had spoken to Anna while at the vet’s, waiting, hoping for the right decision to come. But now she wanted to call someone else. She tried another old friend before remembering that she was off traveling with Médecins Sans Frontières, as her voicemail confirmed. Who else might be available?

KC? No. They were getting along well enough and their working styles had a pleasing balance and compatibility, she thought they might be forming that friendship after all – but calling him now would be too weird, too needy. Besides, he hadn’t known Newton, it could mean little to him. She thought for a moment about KC, his family. (Did they have pets?) This didn’t help.

Then she tried to focus on the work and thought of Sarah, hoping it would distract her, trying to picture her. How would she have coped with grief? Death would have been so commonplace, so visible, so unremarkable, a daily occurrence of one form or another. She would have had the closeness of her tribe and all their traditions to mollify against loss. If they had allowed themselves to feel much of that at all? Surely Sarah would have felt no sentimentality over the death of an animal?

But this detour was only sharpening her sense of separation and could do little to pin back her pain. Eloise needed to call on her own tribe now, her own traditions. She thought of John. What was his number? No, he had too many other people to care for. Besides, there was a good chance he was on one of his regular visits to Pentonville prison tonight.

She rummaged around in the storehouse of her consolations, looking for an alternative, for something or someone who could lessen her pain, or at least appreciate and commiserate with it. Who else had known or loved Newton? And who had Newton loved in return?

Oh no, she thought, here we go. She had resisted the rush of remembering him, the young lover she had once been so passionate about, but she was too raw, too enfeebled to keep fighting it. As she lost all resolve, he swam upwards from his padlocked chamber to surface into her consciousness and she acknowledged that he was the only living person that she wanted now, the only one who might offer the comfort that she needed. But as quickly and as willingly as he might have come (in person and not mere memory) even after all these years, she had put him beyond her own reach. Where he must stay. It was for the best, yes, she still believed that to be so. He, like John, had others to care for now. At least she hoped that was the case, otherwise what would all that wrenching apart have been worth?

What else could she do? If she opened a bottle now she would finish it too thirstily. Then she would sleep, yes, but badly.

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