David's Redemption

David’s Redemption.

By Daryl Mc Shane

The tears running down his face are joined by company from heaven as it starts to rain, just as they’re lowering the coffin. He can hardly see, his eyes flooded, he tries to look stoic but only looks more inconsolable as they bury his lover, his best friend, his wife, his Felicity.

As the last of the mourners and family left to leave him with his dead wife, now six feet below him he fell to his knees in the mud beside her fresh grave, he held his face in his hands and cried. The family looked back and felt his sorrow, all of them were her family, he didn’t have any, he was alone. Although they never cared for him when she was alive, they disapproved of their union, he was from a poor background, and  he worked as a labourer, not the type of young man for their Felicity. Felicity felt otherwise of course, he was the type of young man for her, loving, caring, loyal, and brave, he was her husband, protector, her David.

David doubted he did enough for her, he felt he could’ve been a better husband, that he could’ve saved her, he was meant to be her hero, but he let her down, the car was too heavy…

“David? David, come on! It’s freezing out here, you’ll catch your…”

David’s head turned to face the speaker, “Don’t say it!”

Felicity’s brother Andrew stood over David, he looked sheepish for a second realising what he was about to say and where. The graveyard was empty now, a few minutes ago it was packed to the gates with the living, now just the marble and stone slabs and small pots and wreathes of flowers, a garden for the dead.

David stood up, his knees covered in muck, he didn’t notice until Andrew said he had a change of trousers in his house, Andrew was one of the few Travers family members that liked David and both had come to be good friends whilst Felicity was alive. Andrew had more charisma around him than the rest of the family, he and his sister seemed to be the only ones that did not think they were above every living thing, and never sought after the millions they would inherit when their father died. The rest of their brothers Timothy and Eric, and their sister Alice had a vindictive, over controlling nature, they were extremely jealous of their now deceased sister, she was her father’s favourite, even after she had eloped with David.

The father, Thomas, was a good man, a very strict man, but generous, David could never put a finger on it, what he was really like but Felicity loved him, that was enough for David to forgive any faults he found, and vice versa as Thomas did not approve of the marriage it was only to protect his precious daughter, but only to find it was in the safest hands there was, in the hands and arms of the man who loved her as much as he did.

Her mother blamed everything that went wrong in the family on the scourge that Felicity’s marriage to such a commoner brought, if one of Timothy’s stocks went down it’s certain she’d have said,’ That David has brought as much bad luck to this family as the ten plagues would.’ Or something to that extent.

David could hear her now in the back of his min, what she would say to him, not that she kept her thoughts to  herself, he could hear her earlier at the other end of the grave, ‘If only she hadn’t married HIM!’

David found himself thinking this for a long time, if only she hadn’t married him, she’d still be alive. The tears started to well up again as he saw her beautiful smiling face in his mind’s eye, the dimple beside her mouth when she spoke, her short golden hair and stark brown eyes. The small glint in them filled him with such hope every day, every morning he woke up he knew it would be a good day, because he’d be coming home to her. Not anymore, now he’d go  home to a silent house, his footsteps echoing in the hallway, the doorbell telling him strangers were at the door. No one called for him, and if they did, he’d tell them to go away. He was always the private type, only Felicity knew his secrets, his not so satisfactory or savoury past. She knew the villain in him, but she knew the hero in his story too, only the fact was that she was the heroine in it all along without realising it.

Weeks had passed, the answer phone full of messages from Andrew all duly noted and ignored, David couldn’t bring himself to talk to anyone, to face anyone but the delivery guy or girl from whichever take away he chose that night. Bills started coming in, then final notices, then the eviction. Now the tie was broken, he had nothing to link himself to his dead wife but memories and photographs, he couldn’t take comfort or solace in the ghosts that haunted the house they called their home anymore.

David found a small place, a one bedroom apartment, on the other side of the city, not as quiet as the suburbs, but he found the noise of the overhead train passing by and shaking his insides while lying face down in the pillow, comforting. It drowned out most of his thoughts, thoughts of wondering whether he could  accidentally kill himself without the whole morality debate attached to the act of taking ones life, he knew she wouldn’t approve, if looking down on him, she’d be crying at how low her beloved had become, how utterly pathetic he really was.

Cold sweat ran in rivers down his back, curling off the tails of his untidy hair, the train passed by roaring as it went, in harmony with what sounded like a scream. His soaked back hit the mattress and dust flew into the air and danced towards the ground. Then the scream again, he jumped up out of his bed and looked out his window, no one below, no one that he could see. He rushed to the other side of the room throwing on whatever clothes had been lying there probably since he moved in and down the stairs, he walked out onto the street looking left and right trying to place where the scream came from, then the subtle tapping of high heels could be heard coming around the corner. A woman with long red hair, straight down her face in an old fashioned female business suit, came walking along, cursing as she tried to find something in her handbag.

David waited for a second, then dismissed the whole thing as a figment of his unstable imagination, he turned to go back into the building, as he walked up the first flight of steps to his apartment, the woman screamed, and back down David ran, to see the red head being pulled into the alleyway facing his doorway.

Without hesitation, he followed into the darkness,  no light to reveal where the attacker had taken the red head, he stopped and listened to the sounds of the night, a soft rustle and a whimper, and he pin pointed them straight away. The guy was big, his shadowed form swallowed all of the woman apart from her legs, her pale skin now easier to see as David’s eyes started to adjust to the blackness.

He ran at the beast accosting the beauty, bringing his right foot up with as much force as he could muster without losing accuracy and connected with the guy’s chin, knocking him out instantly and further down the alleyway than anyone would have expected. The woman just sobbed, almost inaudibly, she threw her arms around him and cried into his shoulder. Looking down at her shaking in his arms, he thought it was Felicity for a moment, and for another split second he swore he could hear her voice saying, ‘You were always my hero, David.’

David double checked, seeing the beautiful face of his departed wife only for a moments glance but realising he was looking into the scared eyes of another beautiful woman. The name almost slipped from his lips. “What did you say?” David asked. The red head smiled at him and repeated, “You’re my hero.”

Her voice was sweet, and as she spoke a dimple appeared beside her mouth, all of a sudden David’s world didn’t seem so bleak. For the first time since he had last seen the dimple on Felicity‘s face, David smiled.