Offered to the Triplet Alphas novel Chapter 1

“I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.” — W. B. Yeats

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[Xanthea Plath]

I limped into the graveyard, clutching my broken arm with the other hand. Blood mixed in the rain trailed down from my shoulder to my elbow, down my wrists, making its way to my fingers that clutched the small bouquet of forget-me-not flowers.

Every flower of the bouquet was crushed and marred with blood-stains. The blue ribbon that once tied the flowers together was long lost.

The white gown, soaked by the downpour, hugged my body as if it sought to suffocate me. Inked scarlet, its hem absorbed the black tint of the ground as it glissaded over the sharp blades of overgrown grass.

Today was my mother’s twenty-third death anniversary and my twenty-third birthday.

I forced another step on the muddy grounds of the graveyard with my sprained leg. A thick curtain of rain obscured my already blurry vision. Streaks of rain trailed down my cracked glasses that hung loosely on my nose.

Panting and stifling my moans, I dragged myself closer and closer to my mother’s grave.

Perhaps it was the tears in my eyes, or perhaps it was the rainwater tracing its way down my face. The only sensation that wasn’t a struggle was feeling the coldness of the rain being absorbed against my feverish skin.

My ribs hurt with every breath.

‘No matter how much of a struggle it is to breathe, you never stop breathing. Because you know the struggles are only temporary. What’s permanent is life that death has not yet kissed.’

My mother’s words echoed in my head. I gritted my teeth, taking a deep breath even when it hurt.

Tears stung into my eyes as I gulped down the trembling lump clogging my throat.

I found my mother’s gravestone.

Freya Plath

And below her name carved on the white marble gravestone was the epitaph — “Forget me not.”

I didn’t need much effort as I sank to my bruised knees and offered the blood-stained flowers to my mother’s memory.

I bowed until my nose touched the ground and finally broke into tears. The flood of emotions that had sustained me through the harrowing journey finally snapped.

I had never met my mother when she was alive, but now she lived through me.

And through her diaries, she had come alive to me. My heart filled with an unfathomable warmth and the utmost respect when I thought of her. I knew her closer than any daughter would have ever known their mother.

I knew her like a friend, like a secret keeper, like an equal. Through her words, I knew her heart and now it feels as though my heart had been replaced by hers, filled with her smiles and laughter that I never got to see or hear. Yet I felt them all so closely, it hurt.