Oblivion

Jill put a rose on Edwin's grave, because no one else would. She thought little about Edwin on her way back home, lest she would lose her way. At 10, she was quite oblivious to many such things. Betty and Sam stood still on seeing her.
"Is Dad inside?" she asked them.
"Yes," replied Sam staring at her. Jill went straight inside. Her father was there, in the kitchen.
"Where have you been?" He gazed at her with a frown.
"At the cemetery." She glanced away, her voice steady.
"You stubborn lass! I told you not to go there." Jill looked at him. He was fierce. She trembled, turned back, and ran out. She could hear her father behind, yelling at her, " Jill stop! I am telling you if I ever..."
At the school Jill didn't sit in the class; she used to forget lessons and get scolded for it. She stayed beyond the fence, hiding behind the walnut tree, and watching the boys and girls play on the green grass. Rain came and changed the scene. They all ran inside, closing the doors and windows. Jill stayed there, still as if she had forgotten to leave. Raindrops trickled down her golden brown hair and she looked at the ground in trance. Voices of laughter and cries of excitement faded slowly, but they were there, still there; and she felt them oblivious to the rain and cold.
At supper, she refrained from looking at her father. She finished earlier than everyone else and went to her bed without saying a word, or hearing one. Edwin's photo was inside her pillowcase. She took it from beneath her head and gazed at it. He was smiling in his uniform, holding a gun in his hands, which was the very thing that ended his life. She heard footfalls outside her door. Quickly placing the photo inside the pillowcase, she closed her eyes. The door was pushed open meekly. It's Betty for sure, she thought lying still.
"Jill," Betty called faintly. Jill opened her eyes. Betty must have been asking something, so Jill sat up in the bed
"Yes," she looked at Betty who seemed so thoughtful, sleepy, and confused.
" What does traitor mean?" Betty asked. Jill was cold.
"Have you been asking Sam?"
"Yes, but it seems he doesn't know and Dad won't tell me." Jill got out of bed and came to her. "People say a person who leaves faith is a traitor." She was looking into her sister's eyes.
"Faith?" Betty frowned.
"Trust Betty, I think it means trust." She herself was uncertain. A haze of thoughts clouded her head.
"Jill, you don't know either." Betty turned back in disappointment. "Who am I supposed to ask? She went out and Jill could hear her say, "Miss Neve says words I can never understand." It was times like these when Jill would be afraid of Betty. Her little innocent questions were like open wounds. She felt the pain, but she couldn't touch.
The next day there was a thunderstorm in the early morning. Jill was happy at first. It was pleasing to work in the warm kitchen, giving Dad a hand in making breakfast, with rain showering outside. But as she thought of Edwin's grave, a hidden albatross held her. She must cover it with something, a plastic sheet perhaps, but it wasn't possible. There were heavy showers outside and Dad was home. She watched Dad. He was calm and nonchalant. Obviously he wasn't going out to work today; no one would come to get riding lessons in the rain. And as she got sure of his presence at home throughout the day, her heart sank within her. Sam and Betty were sent to tidy their room, and Jill started to cut the vegetable. Dad was cleaning his gun, and oiling it. She worked quietly, peeking at the clock and then at Dad from time to time. At 10:25, when Dad was repairing the closet, Brady, the farm's watchman, called for him aloud. Brady sounded worried and as Dad went out to see him, Jill became all ears in hope of hearing Dad saying, "Okay, I am coming with you." This didn't happen. Dad entered in again.
"Is everything all right?" she asked.
"Well, Timmy has hurt his leg playing and I need to go with Brady for half an hour. Don't leave the house till I am back. Right?" Jill's heart was strained. It sprang at first on hearing that he was to leave, but half an hour was too short a time for her to cover Edwin's grave. Dad took his mackintosh and went out. She stood silently, utterly confused about what to do. Then, at once she rushed to the store to find a plastic sheet for covering the grave. She decided to feign something like hearing a cry outside, or so, but she must go no matter how heavy the rain or how muddy the path be. A large plastic sheet wasn't there in the store. She went back home and got in the basement, trying to remember where she had once put an old plastic sheet. Looking behind the boxes and under the junk, she couldn't find it. Her heart started stewing. 'The stable, yes it must be there', she said to herself and ran through the intervening lawn to get in there. This was only to stymie her. Father was expected back soon, and Sam and Betty would be looking for her to help them. It was showering heavily outside and she had forgotten where she had last seen that plastic sheet. She grew all in, returned cadaverously to the kitchen and sat on the stool looking exhaustedly at the pieces of carrot lying scattered on the table. Sam came down and saw her.
"Have you been to Edwin's grave?" he asked.
"No " she replied softly. "Why?" Sam didn't say anything. He just stared at her face. Jill felt awkward, feeling as if Sam knew what she had been looking for.
"Edwin's grave is fairly sheltered. The tree cover there is quite thick. I don't think we need to cover it, or do we?" Words were uttered out spontaneously from her lips.
Sam shook his head and said," I am going to do my homework. Will you help me?''
"Yes, let's go! ''. And they went up the stairs, both of them keeping silent.
Miss Cowin was happy to see Jill in the class after a whole week. Noticing her solitude, she called her to the office. She was alone there.
"I am sorry for your brother, Jill." She was very polite. Jill always liked her.
"Thank you Miss Cowin. "Jill looked down.
"Do feel confident to ask me for anything I can do for you."
"Yes." She stayed silent for a while and then looked at her teacher, " People hate Edwin. They say he was a traitor. Is that right?"
"Oh Jill! What do you think?" Miss Cowin was affectionate as ever. Jill kept silent. After a minute she looked up,
"I don't know". She felt like crying.
"Then tell me, what do you want to know, that your brother was a traitor or that whether it's right to hate a traitor after death?" Miss Cowin asked. Jill watched her face with teary eyes, saying nothing as if trying to select the right question; it was another one of her trials but Miss Cowin wouldn't let it loom any longer. ''Whether Edwin was a traitor, or not means something different to different people. He may be a bad man in other's eyes but not in yours or mine, and I am sure that you are certain of his fairness as I am. And to whether we should hate someone after his death or not, I say no. We can love someone after his death, but we shouldn't hate him. Beyond our world is no place for fear, anger, or hatred. I suppose love is the most decent and perhaps the only gift we can offer the dead. Isn't it honey?" And Jill burst into tears. Miss Cowin hugged her. And Jill was all tears in her arms.
Dad was arguing with people of neighboring houses along the stable. Jill went straight into the house. Mrs. Canes had come to wash the clothing, so Jill started to give her a hand. Dad came in after half an hour, his face shedding irritation and sadness. As he exchanged a brief look with them both, Mrs. Canes seemed to hide something, something she would have talked about had Jill not been there. Dad went into his room and Jill flashed into her thoughts: Young, jolly Edwin had joined the army by his father's will and when they heard about him selling national secrets to an enemy state, they were all shocked. He was then sent to a disputed tract along a creek. From there came his mutilated body, shot all over. His coffin didn't bear the national flag and he wasn't given a bath. They just thrust him underground, without even an epitaph. But no one knew that Jill had secretly prepared a wooden epitaph for Edwin's grave. It lay there beneath the toys in her toy box. She intended to fix it by the grave in the evening.
Betty was running a temperature and Sam sat with her on the bed reading to her from her favorite storybook.
"You are going to be fine." She caressed herb sister's hot cheek. Betty didn't attend to Jill because she was absorbed in the story that Sam read continuously. Jill went out and heard Dad saying, "They bury him elsewhere, burn him, or throw away his carcass in the wild, I don't damn care. I have no...."
"But Mr.Laurel, it's a sin. They can't take the dead away from his peace...
Mrs. Canes argued and the voices grew dimmer, though they were still there. Jill came back to her toy box, took the wooden epitaph out and went out into the garden. From the flowers there, she plucked some white daisies, took out the ribbon from her hair, and bound them into a bunch. She felt herself slipping into a stew again. Edwin was going to be taken out again and perhaps thrown away in the wild or a river, or he may be buried somewhere far away. She must put the flowers and fix the epitaph on his grave. Although she didn't know what use it would be, she just knew she had to do it.
"Miss Canes," she called, "they are going to dig him out, aren't they?''
"Oh Jill! Honey."
"When?" Jill stared at her sharply and still.
"Well! Listen..."
"When?" she cried. The lady knew she couldn't stop her now.
"They'll be on their way by now, I suppose. Can you please..." And Jill rushed out. She remembered how well she ran in times like these. With her staggering breath, pounding heart, and strained eyes, she remembered the way she had been, and now was. Her hands clung to the flowers and held the epitaph tightly to her chest. The first drizzling drops of rain kissed her face, but it was still a long way to go, a long and tortuous, gravelly path. If they hadn't made it yet, she would quickly fix the board, put the flowers on the grave and say the prayer. But what if they reached Edwin's grave before her? What if she found them digging him out when she arrived there? Her heart grew fainter but her pace was as steady. She ran and ran, dodging the bushes and boulders in the hilly ascent. But the grave never arrived. Drizzling increased. Her tears joined the raindrops. She wanted to get to Edwin's grave, but now she knew she wouldn't make it. She had lost her way again. Her strides shortened and eventually she stopped. She was all in, so she sat on a rather flat boulder, surrounded by mulberry trees. Rain soaked her and she was bellowing breaths in and out. Tears ran from her eyes, trickling down her cheeks and finally fell down on the wooden board lying in her lap with white daisies on it. It read:
"Only Edwin."