Page 39 of Time After Time
“Mrs. Marley?” Sylvie voiced the question that eluded me.
Sebastian immediately grasped the confusion in her words. Mr. Marley had been ill, bedridden under the doctor’s orders, which is why Sebastian and I had agreed to help out on the farm during his recovery. It struck me as odd that Sebastian wasmentioning her when I was expecting him to be talking about Mr. Marley—the one who had been sick.
“Yes,” he replied, taking another sip and glancing in my direction. “Mrs. Marley.”
My mouth opened and closed several times as I felt the room closing in on me. So many questions ran through my head, fast and immediate, that all words clashed with each other, only creating more confusion.
“What happened?” My mum asked, her voice barely a whisper. I didn’t need to look at her to sense her grief. There was a flutter in her voice, which had become high-pitched, and the sniffs made me think tears were likely streaming down her face.
“Natural causes,” Sebastian answered. He went on to describe the heart-wrenching moment when Aria found Mrs. Marley asleep on the couch, never to wake up. The image of such a peaceful end sent a shiver down my spine, knowing how deeply Aria would be haunted by the sight of someone she loved, lying still in what should have been a simple sleep.
“Is there going to be an Embrace Parade?” Sylvie stepped forward, walking closer to our mum and looking like a kid as she grabbed her arm, pushing herself under it and allowing herself to be hugged tightly.
The Embrace Parade was an equally heartbreaking and beautiful tradition we had here. It was our way of saying goodbye—of showing love and gratitude for the ones we’d lost. An entire community coming together, honouring the memory of someone who was gone forever but never forgotten.
Sebastian glanced at the kitchen clock.
Time hadn’t stopped, even though it felt like everything else had.
“In a few minutes,” he said, one of his hands escaping from mine as he rubbed his nose aggressively with the back of his hand. “I’m going to join them.”
“What are you guys carrying?” Sylvie asked.
Sebastian took a moment to gather his thoughts. “We’ve got an old photo of Mrs. Marley and Mr. Marley from their younger days, and a more recent one.” His eyes drifted to the ground for a second. “And there are some of her favourite flowers from the farm, a couple of her handmade blankets, and her sun hats.”
All those things mentioned seemed just like objects, but they were things that reminded everyone of Mrs. Marley. She had the biggest collection of straw hats I’d ever seen. Every day, without fail, a breeze would lift one off her head, sending everyone into a scramble to catch it. She loved flowers, too—never a day went by without her tending to the ones in her garden, refusing to cut them, afraid they’d die too soon. And the handmade blankets? I don’t think there was a single person in town who hadn’t been gifted one.
Concern creased my brow, my mind jumping from one Marley to the other. “Is Mr. Marley going?” I felt a knot tightening in my stomach, worrying not just about his health, but how this loss was weighing on him.
Sebastian drained the last of his tea and passed the cup back to my mum, offering a grateful nod. “He’s trying to,” he said. We all knew how much Mr. Marley wanted to be part of things, even with his health going downhill. He’d always seemed so tough and indifferent, but I could now see how much he had relied on her to soften the edges.
“Aria’s been trying to reason with him. He’s trying to get out of bed and join the parade, but Doctor Windsor is there, doing his best to calm him down.”
“Do they need company? Mr. Marley and Aria?” Without waiting for a response, I let his hands go, even if he had tightened his grip, to move towards the front door, grabbing my house keys hanging on the wall.
“Maybe they could use some company.”
“I’ll take her to the farm,” my sister said, arms crossed tightly in front of her chest, a shiver rippling through her as if the cold had seeped into her bones.
“Alright,” Sebastian said, his eyes flickering between us. First, on Sylvie, “I’ll see you at the parade.” Then he focused on me. “I’ll come find you when it’s over. We can walk back together, alright?”
I wincedas the door slammed shut; the sound echoing louder than the rain falling all around me. The force behind it caught me off guard, and I felt a tremor in my limbs. My attention shifted to the farm, eyes squinting and gasping as I spotted Mr. Marley, who sat on the porch, his gaze lost somewhere in the distance. Without looking back, I lifted my hand in a wave to Sylvie, hearing the engine roar back to life as she drove away.
Approaching cautiously, a shudder rushed through my body. Even though he was shielded beneath the porch, the weather couldn’t be suitable for him to be outside. “Mr. Marley,” I halted before him, still drenched from the rain, attempting to embrace myself against the chill. “What are you doing outside?” Receiving no response and noticing his bare feet, I spoke again, this time with greater gentleness, fearful of having him break down into pieces. “You are going to catch pneumonia.”
When Mrs. Marley had told us about his declining health, she called him the stubborn man who refused to rest, toiling in the heat and rain even when he had a fever and weak limbs. As I looked closer, I noticed his skin was paler than I remembered, stripped of the sun’s touch, and he appeared thinner than before. I hadn’t noticed any of this yesterday, too caught up in their smiles to see past them. And what struck me mostwasn’t his choice of attire—a white shirt and shorts in this chilly weather—but the complete lack of expression on his face. When he finally spoke, his raspy voice barely reached my ears as he avoided my gaze. “The love of my life just died, girl. Pneumonia would be doing me a favour.”
Unsure of what to say or do, I grappled with the loss of Mrs. Marley, a woman I loved as if she were my own grandmother. But I couldn’t compare my grief to his. Both were acceptable, but he had spent and shared a lifetime with her. When words failed me, I let my actions speak instead. I moved closer and sat beside him on the porch, leaving a small distance between us.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a slightly chipped and discoloured photograph in his hands. The image showed a woman laughing in a light dress, her head thrown back in pure joy as a man held her around the waist, her feet lifted off the ground. The man’s eyes were fixed on her, his face lit up as though she were the sun. And something about the way his eyes shone made me blink and take a closer look—his chin resting on her abdomen. She was focused on the camera, her hands gripping him tightly, while he seemed completely absorbed by her. Just her. Had he even realised someone was taking that picture at that moment?
“That’s a beautiful picture,” I said, taking in the moment frozen in time. The rain kept falling, softer now but still relentless and creating somewhat of a melody when it fell on top of the ceramic small sculptures that Mrs. Marley had placed in front of the house. “It reminds me of one of those classic films. She really looks like a film star.”
“She’s always been a star to me.” He sighed and leaned back, giving me a better view of the photo. “It was the day we bought the farm after so much hard work. Everything felt tough back then, but that day, it was like life was finally smiling at us.”
Before I could ask about the story behind the photograph, the front door swung open, and Aria stepped out, carrying a tray with three steaming cups. She placed the tray on a small wooden table with care, then disappeared back inside. A few minutes later, she returned with a blanket, draping it gently around her grandfather’s shoulders, and a pair of slippers, which she slipped on after drying his feet with another towel. I excused myself to the bathroom to dry off, feeling like they needed to be on their own.
In the bathroom, I decided to call Sebastian, fully expecting to hear his voicemail given the parade outside. To my surprise, he answered after just two rings. “Gen? Is everything okay?”
