Love Forever After (Candle Light Series) Read online

  Love forever after

  For richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, in death and in life

  By Christina OW

  This is a fictional work. The names, characters, incidents,

  places, and locations are solely the concepts and products

  of the author’s imagination or are used to create a fictitious

  story and should not be construed as real.

  Love Forever After

  Christina OW

  Copyright Christina OW 2013

  Published by Christina OW

  Cover:Image courtesy of Piyato at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

  UK English

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or

  reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written

  permission, except in the case of brief quotations, reviews,

  and articles. For any other permission please contact the author

  Dedication

  To all who have loved and lost, but never forget.

  Candle Light...

  With the sun gone and the nights dawn,

  I fear the darkness.

  Grasping for hope, grasping for light where there is none,

  I wander in the darkness.

  A hole in my core, a leak in my essence,

  I bath in the darkness.

  Waiting for that moment to come,

  Waiting for the pained peace to settle with the dust,

  No longer waiting for that sweet song,

  I cherish the darkness!

  I am one with the darkness,

  I am reborn in the darkness!

  But then.... like a train from a far,

  A gentle light.... a threatening light....

  Like a breath of new life....

  Comes... the candle light...

  -Christina OW

  Chapter One

  The church bells rang loud, filling the cold quiet dead air. It was a suitable sound track for what was happening. The scenery also looked set- specially constructed, with purple flowers scattered on the ground complimenting the green grass- just for this moment. This perfect heart wrenching, dream crushing unbearable torturous moment. It was the first scene of my new forever lonely empty life and the last scene before the credits rolled, of our perfect loving short life.

  I’ve always wondered how it felt like to lose someone close to you- a friend, a family member or a loved one- but now I know. I know the pain so well sometimes it feels like an extra limb.

  A limb attached to my heart. Its sole purpose is to crush, shred and rip apart my heart over and over again like a wild animal devouring a poor helpless prey just at the thought of her; or when I feel her empty side of our matrimonial bed, or when I walk around our apartment expecting to hear her laugh echo and bounce off the walls making our home warm- a home that was now empty and hollow.

  Yes, empty and hollow because you aren’t here to fill it, my love. Every essence of you made our home full and warm, but now it was cold and empty- like me.

  Who would have figured it, me empty, cold and hollow after so many years of happiness? Our happiness was in such abundance it should have lasted forever... right?

  No, not really. Never because I can’t feel it now, not even a little bit.

  Maybe it’s because you aren’t here... definitely because you aren’t here. What other explanation could there be?

  Well it should have. After you were taken from me, the least it could have done was leave me our happiness to go along with our memories. I should remember you and feel happy, not an aching sadness! I deserve that much!

  Damn you death!

  I’ve felt the wretched hand of death before. When my dad died I felt its impact, but I don’t remember it being like this- intense, malicious, tormenting and painful, amusing itself by making fun of me, at how vulnerable and impairing it had made me.

  Someone should give it a taste of its own medicine, see how it likes it!

  I looked around at the crowd surrounding the beautiful mahogany coffin. Everyone she loved, everyone who loved her, was here. They were all dressed in black crying as the priest said his prayers. They were sad, sadder than I have ever seen any one of them before. They were suffering a great loss. But she wouldn’t have wanted to see any of them cry over her death, but celebrate her life.

  The thought drew a sigh out of me. My wife wouldn’t have liked this one bit.

  When I suggested a party instead of a funeral, they all thought I’d lost my mind. My mother Gloria was so horrified she called a psychiatrist to come fix me. I knew it wasn’t only for my benefit- her English pride needed her son to be sane in front of all the people who would come to the funeral.

  My wife’s brother Morris and sister, Sandra however agreed with me. They knew her- not as well as I did, but well enough to know what she’d want, and a depressing gloomy funeral wasn’t it. Gloria wasn’t going to let us have a party, so she took it upon herself to organise everything. It was a classy dignified funeral; she even gave out instructions on how our family was to dress.

  I chuckled, knowing how much of a fight my wife would have put up against my mother and the high class funeral she had organised.

  Mother moved to stand next to me. She looped her hand on my pocketed arm. She looked up at me, her eyes red and wet, her cheeks stained with tears. She must have seen me laugh- wrong move. I held back a sigh. Now she was going to be my constant unshakeable companion.

  They brought a basket full of lilies to me- her favourite type flowers. I looked at the person holding it. His face was glum, patiently waiting for me to take one. Mother nudged me, pulling my hand out of my pocket. I reached out and took one, then moved forward and laid it on the coffin. I lingered over it for a while, imaging how small it could have felt for her being inside it. She hated the dark and even more so, small spaces.

  A shudder rushed through me. It was a good thing she wasn’t inside it.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Morris. He placed his purple lily on the coffin. Sandra came next. She placed a white one, then leaned over it and kissed the coffin before she moved back and stood next to me. Her eyes were red, but she wasn’t crying anymore, she had a smile on her face. She moved to stand between Morris and me, and then tip toed so she could reach our ears.

  “Will, if your mother finds out she’s not inside there, she’ll kill us and cram all three of our bodies in it!”

  “You know she would have haunted us if we put her in a box. I’d rather face an angry Gloria.” Morris said with a chuckle, but the sadness at the edge of it was very evident.

  “She’s still going to haunt us for letting mother throw her an uptight funeral.” I whispered as someone came forward and placed a lily on her coffin.

  My wife was a free spirit, she hated confinement and rules. She was an earth lover, an environmental activist. That’s why we cremated her and spread her ashes in the sea. It was hard for me to see her reduced to specs of dust, but there was no better way. She would keep being a free spirit- roam the world as the wind carried her.

  She loved helping people- that’s why I donated all her organs. She would still help them even in her death. I remember the day she gave me the organ donor forms to fill out. She shrugged her tiny shoulder and said, “Why burry parts that could help a person in dire need of them. As much as we don’t like it, we are all spare parts to someone else’s body.”

  Well, in a way, she is still alive, inside other people, her body was still alive. If only it was possible for me to share my body with her soul. I would live inside my head to be with her and forget the outside world.

  My wife was the type to chain herself to a tree or bre
ak into a cosmetic lab and free all the animals. She went by the motto ‘do unto the environment and animals as you would do unto yourself’. I became a vegetarian because of that- but I always stuffed myself silly with burgers when she was on one of her long protesting gigs.

  When we got engaged, I opened an account in her name for bail money that the bank was instructed to pay immediately she wound up arrested. I wanted her to be taken care of when I was abroad on business or visiting my mother in England. The thought of her spending a night in jail always gave me the chills. She thought it was the most romantic wedding present she ever got- I scored some serious points there.

  We had been married for three years before this happened. Before someone, decided to take her away from me out of sheer selfishness.

  “Will you please step back, you’re hovering!”

  We jumped at Gloria’s scolding voice. She was really going to run this funeral by the script. We moved back a few feet, but still stood close to each other.

  I watched as they lowered the coffin into the dark hole, and got a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach. I was gladder now that she wasn’t in it. Sandra grabbed my hand and held it tight. I looked at her. She was staring at it, pain in her eyes. Her breaths sounded short, strained. Morris wrapped an arm around her shoulders and held her tight against him. I could see he was trying to be strong for both of them, but the loss of his youngest sister was taking a toll on him too.

  “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust...” the priest went on with his prayers when the coffin hit the ground with a thud. The resonating thudding sound tied my insides in knots.

  The same man, who previously held a basket of lilies, stepped forward with a shovel full of red dirt in his hands. He held it in front of me and waited. I took a pinch of it then he moved to Sandra, and then Morris. The two of them moved forward and poured the sand into the hole.

  I stood there frozen. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I knew she wasn’t in there... but this felt too real, too final. She was dead and never coming back. My chest tightened, all the fears of never seeing or touching her again flooded back drowning me with all the moments we would never share again.

  Why did she have to die? Why not me? How could I be here and she wasn’t, this wasn’t how we planned to spend the rest of our lives!

  “Will...” I turned to see Sandra look up at me, “its okay she isn’t in there,” she whispered.

  I nodded. She was right my wife wasn’t in there so this shouldn’t be so difficult. I took a staggering step forward and faced the dark hole. I raised my hand over it. Forcing my fingers to relax, I let the red sand flow out of it.

  A long line of people followed, pouring sand into the hole as they made their way back to their cars. This was their final goodbye before everything went back to normal in their lives. But for me it was the beginning of my slow long lonely death.

  I looked down at the head stone and read the beautiful engraved marble. The phrase set in stone made more sense to me now. It felt like the words were not only curved in the rock but I could feel the pounding, chipping of my heart as the words were etched in it too.

  Christina Lee James-Stanford

  Loving daughter, sister, wife and humanitarian

  Your shinning light will forever be missed.

  Chapter Two

  I walked into my office feeling like a different man, a happier man. I had three months paid leave but I only took one. There was no need to stay home any more. Everything was right in the world again.

  The walk up the corridor to my corner office was like walking down a cat walk with a ridiculously crazy outfit on and the audience was staring at me like I was equally crazy. All my co-workers watched me like some moving advertisement. Most of them called out their condolences other just gave me a pity smile, but I was sure they all were wondering why I was walking around with a smile on my face after the tragedy I just suffered.

  Well I had a reason for my smile- a long legged, petit, beautiful hypnotising reason.

  I moved behind my desk and sat down. It felt strange being in my seat again, but great to be back at work. I loved advertising. It gave me the platform to use my imagination and let my creativity run wild. My wife always said it was my witchcraft and I was the best at it.

  “Mr. Stanford, you have Mr. Wesley on line two.” Sarah my secretary spoke on the intercom.

  It was just a matter of time before the grape vine about my arrival reached John. And I bet he too must be wondering why I was back so soon. I picked up the phone expecting to play twenty one questions with him, “Good morning John.”

  “Will, what are you doing back so soon? You have two months left.” He sounded worried and very perplexed. But I knew I was bound to encounter that kind of reaction.

  “I didn’t see a reason to keep staying at home.”

  “Your wife just died.”

  I felt a small pinch in my chest when he said that. “I know that, you don’t have to remind me. I need to work.” The long pause on the other end echoed my own thought. I did sound a little bitter and resentful. I didn’t mean to. I just hated it when someone put those two words, ‘wife’ and ‘dead’ in one sentence when addressing me.

  But I didn’t have a reason to be bitter and resentful anymore, that part of my life is long gone.

  “If you think you are ready... then it’s fine by me.” He said, sounding reserved.

  I bit my tongue wishing I could start the whole conversation all over again. I shouldn’t have been so harsh. I appreciated his concern for me but if he knew what was happening in my life, about this new light in my world, he wouldn’t be worried at all. “Thanks. I have a lot to catch up on, see you around.”

  “Sure,” his voice echoed doubt.

  I was glad he wasn’t going to push even though he may think that I can’t keep my head in the game. There was nothing I could say that would change that, the only thing I could do was show him. I placed the receiver back in place and opened the files on my desk. They were all accounts that I had already concluded. John must have given my pending work to someone else.

  I pressed the buzzer on the intercom, “Sarah, would you please get all my accounts back. I’d like to have them on my desk as soon as possible if you don’t mind.”

  Within the next twenty minutes I had all my files back. I hit at them one by one, going through the changes and additions already made, cancelling what I didn’t like and adding my own ideas to them. By the end of the day, the gossip in the office had done its rounds. Most people thought I had suffered a nervous break down, others said I was burying myself in work to cope with my loss. I didn’t pay much attention to it. I was back at work because I wanted to be here, there was no other reason behind it.

  *

  Everything felt normal, like nothing had changed in my life. I took a cab to my Manhattan apartment like I always did, I greeted the door man on my way up as usual, I made polite conversation with my neighbours in the elevator, I walked down the hall to my door dodging the kids running around and opened the door to my home. And met the most glorious sight that I was eager to kiss, of the woman I love slaving over the stove to prepare me a meal befitting a king.

  I placed my briefcase down and hanged my coat in the closet. “Hi honey.”

  “Hi, how was work?” Kristy answered back with a beautiful smile on her face. I had only been gone for the day and I’d missed her so much. I walked to her, pulled her into my arms and gave her a long deep kiss.

  She smiled up at me, “What was that for?”

  I held her tighter against me and looked down into her big beautiful brown eyes- they were so hypnotic. “I missed you.”

  She laughed, “You’ve only been gone eight hours!”

  The laugh in her voice was musical. I looked forward to hearing it every minute of every day.

  I rubbed my nose against hers, “It felt like eight years away from you.” She laughed even louder.

  “When you pull out your English charm it always means
something’s up, so what’s up?” she raised her brow and starred at me, suspicion written all over her face.

  I pulled away and sat on a stool at the counter facing her. “Am I only charming when I have something to confess?”

  “When you’ve done something wrong or you want something or when you want to sweep me off my feet. So which one is it?”

  “I’m not telling. You’re suspicious nature just cost you that answer, but I will answer your first question.” I picked up an apple from the fruit basket on the far corner of the counter and bit into it, “Work was amusing.”

  She went back to her cooking, chopping vegetables and pouring them into the pot, “Why?”

  “My colleagues think I’ve suffered a nervous break down because I’m back at work so soon.”

  She stopped what she was doing and turned to me, confused. “What else were you supposed to do?”

  I loved the way her eyebrow rose and her eyes widened a bit when she was confused or didn’t understand a joke or when I practiced my work presentation with her as my target audience and she had no idea what I was talking about.

  I picked up a very orange carrot piece and munched on it, “Hide in my apartment and wallow in my misery and sorrow.”

  “Stanford’s don’t wallow they face their problems head on or use their money to make it go away.” I stared at her wide eyed.

  “You aren’t included in that last part,” she quickly added. “They should meet your mother.” Her voice had an undertone of annoyance.

  Kristy and mother never got along. They had different opinions on the same subject and were totally and completely opposites of each other. Maybe that’s why I loved her so much.

  Gloria was extravagant with money while Kristy saw it best to save and donate to as many charities as she possibly could. Mother ranked people’s importance depending on their background and the amount of money they had while Kristy saw everyone as equally important except for those who destroyed nature for personal gain.