Work Text:
Stories never end so simply. There are always consequences....
*****
Natalie stood by the graveside. There were few mourners; and her attendance was obvious. After Patrick tossed a ritual handful into the grave, Peggy Bolger came over to speak to the stranger.
“I know she used to live in Toronto,” she said to Natalie. “Were you friends?”
“We had friends in common,” Natalie said, choosing her words.
Mrs Bolger turned to look at Patrick, who was staring at the men who waited, with tactful impatience, until his departure.
“Her brother never came.”
Although the woman strove for a level tone, Natalie could hear undertones of condemnation. Unless he were lying at death’s door in hospital, Janette’s brother should be here—but, of course, he wasn’t. And couldn’t be.
There was no way to explain.
“Do you know him?” Mrs Bolger asked.
“Yes,” Natalie admitted, to this woman as she had not done to Tracy. At some times, in some places, honesty is the only policy. She could not lie at the grave. It could, after all, so easily have been the woman’s own.
Or Patrick’s.
Natalie looked at the slight, short figure. He had loved Janette; and now he had lost her—his stepmother, she supposed he considered her—as well as his father, both within the month. He was left to the custody of an aunt he had only visited a few times. It was understandable that he looked bereft.
Mrs Bolger followed her eyes. “It’s hard for him,” she said. “You know, all he had in the world was packed in a suitcase and a couple of boxes; and we lost everything in the fire. He doesn’t even have a photograph of his father any more.”
She didn’t mention her own loss; but Natalie knew through the police grapevine that the insurance company was refusing payout, claiming liablity only for accidental fire coverage. And, of course, it had been arson.
*****
Later, much later, she visited the grave again. By then, the ground had settled and so had Sun Life Insurance. A headstone had been erected: In memory of Janette de Brabant, it read. Why she had been using Nick’s name, Natalie had never found out. Nick claimed not to know; and Janette, of course, was no longer around to ask.
Whether she would see her again, she doubted. Vampires always move on.