Thread: Levirate (Google and skittish_butterfly)

Constance hung up the intercom and pressed the button to unlock the building's front security door for her dad to come up. It was about Rory was all he'd said, still using her husband's name like it was some kind of epithet, like even now he couldn't acknowledge she'd married him over the strenuous objections of her father and the High Council of Elders. And even that, just hearing his name in her dad's disdainful voice, was enough that the hot tears threatened to spill down her pale porcelain cheeks yet again, their wet heat scalding her sad green eyes. Three months since the crash, two months since the last search was called off, one month since the High Council of Elders had petitioned the courts and had her husband declared dead, making her a widow and starting all the legal proceedings about Rory's estate, proceedings Constance didn't give a damn about. She couldn't shake the feeling they had killed him, the Council and her father, so eager to get that certificate declaring him dead so they could start forgetting about how she, one of the faithful, had all but been stolen out from under their noses, out from under their control. Five years of marriage and now he was just gone, with no body, no closure, just an aching, gaping whole in her heart, throbbing anew just from hearing his name again. The elevator was stately and slow in this swanky old building so even though their apartment -- no, HER apartment, which just sounded so wrong -- was only on the fifth floor, Constance had a good couple minutes to try to straighten up the living room and herself, to pretend everything was ok so her dad would just get his visit over with and leave without making her feel any worse while thinking he was trying to make her feel better. She grabbed a spare shopping bag and bent her slender legs to crouch and stuff into the bag all the pictures she'd scattered around herself on the floor, the vacation shots of the two of them skiing in Switzerland, their bathing suits in Barbados, the wedding pictures, Rory's adorable first grade picture and his college graduation looking so handsome in his valedictorian robe, the big party when his company had gone public. So many pictures of what she'd lost, and none with her dad in the shot. Obviously none with her mom, whose pictures she kept in a separate special place, a place she'd probably add Rory's pictures to. But not yet. She wasn't ready. Constance swallowed hard to avoid having to add any more tear-dampened tissues to the pile she swept from her spot in the middle of where the pictures had been strewn. On the mantel she paused to check how her face looked in the small mirror, finger brushing her long silky red hair back over one shoulder the way Rory had always loved so much, not finding it all sexy now but trying to smooth it out so she didn't look like she'd just been sitting in the apartment grieving for the last three months rather than finishing her own senior year in college. Jenny and Mark were emailing her assignments and class notes and she made a vague stab at trying to keep up, but even with her professors allowing for the loss of her husband, it was going to be hard to graduate on time now. She didn't care. After how hard she'd worked just to get to college, to graduate high school against her father's wishes, unlike any woman in their family history according to him, now she couldn't stomach the thought of going back. Rory had been such a part of it, of helping her keep her high school grades up when they'd gotten married, getting her out of her father's house and religious control to make it possible in the first place, urging her to shoot for the state university rather than settle for city college. Her lips looked pale and it wasn't just the dim light in the darkened room. Constance fumbled in her bag for her lip stick, trying to put a little color back on her face, to pretend she was alive and not half dead, like Rory. He wasn't dead, not fully, just half dead in her mind. They hadn't found him. Only half dead. She applied the lip stick until at least her lips looked a little like her picture on the mantel again, the one Rory had picked so he could look at it every day, the way she'd looked back when she was happy, confident and unexpectedly married to the kind of man she'd never even imagined existed when she was a little girl listening to her dad's plans to marry her off like a business transaction, when he'd planned to marry her off to Rory's awful brother. Constance stared at her own photo for a bit, and at her reflection in the mirror set above it. She looked nothing like it now, at least in her own eyes, her face pale despite the lipstick, no joy in her eyes. She was wearing an old tshirt and comfortable shorts, nothing like that black dress in the picture Rory had insisted she wear for her first day of college, making her look so independent and free and other things Rory had explained to her without needing words later in bed that day. Another life in that picture, not the one she was living in now, not without Rory. She brushed off his picture, his kind face, so handsome, blond hair and blue eyes shining with life and love for her, his picture in the frame right beside hers. img392x500 The doorbell startled her from her reverie, tore her eyes from her beloved. She'd missed the sound of the elevator doors squeaking open down the hall. Constance crossed the living room's cream-colored carpet, taking no comfort from the plush feel of it against her bare feet. Without even bothering to cheek the peephole she took the door know in her slender fingers, suddenly aware she hadn't worn nail polish now since the morning he'd left for that three day meeting. The door opened with that swishing sound it made as she pulled it open against the resistance of the thick carpet beneath it and she did her best to greet her father with words that could at least charitably be construed as pleasant. Dad, how nice to s-- The sight of the Council Elder at her dad's right shoulder stifled her greeting. And the sight of Rory's brother at his left shoulder brought a frown to her lips, making clear the lie of her lip stick, that she wasn't happy to see them, not one of them.