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The Message

Can you ever truly know someone?

By Nadia CowperthwaitePublished 3 years ago 9 min read
15
The Message
Photo by Max on Unsplash

Mia woke up comfortable and warm in her bed and had a brief, blissful moment of contentment before the memories of the last few days came crashing down around her and she realized that today was the day of the funeral. She was past crying now, but her face ached from the tears she had already shed. She knew that later today they would flow once again.

Will had passed away three days earlier in a motorcycle accident.

He had been riding home from a landscaping job across town when a car had ploughed through a red light and then through him and just kept going. The driver still hadn’t been caught and the car hadn’t been located even with CCTV footage from a nearby phone repair shop capturing the moment. Mia hadn’t seen the footage but had imagined the moment in a thousand different ways and angles in her head.

The morning passed in a daze where Mia felt like she was on autopilot, her soul retreating into the depths of her body so as to not feel the pain. She dressed, ate, and moved around the house and myriad of family who had come to help her. She wanted silence and space but that was not going to happen.

Her sister, Jo, came in with coffees for everyone from Will’s favorite café and the mail that she hadn’t touched in two days. Mia leaned on the kitchen table and rested her head on her arm, staring at the coffee. The edge of a large brown envelope caught her eye. Addressed to her, the large “M” swirled in Will’s handwriting and she snatched the envelope from under the pile.

Staring at the address, she felt her chest constrict and she couldn’t breathe. What? I don’t understand. She couldn’t see when he could have posted it. The date stamp was for the day after the accident and from the local post office.

She turned the envelope over in her hands trying to understand and think through the fog in her mind. Something small and solid sliding around within. No name or return address. Could she be imagining it was Will’s writing?

“What ya got there?” her dad asked, putting his plate in the sink.

“I don’t know,” Mia replied not taking her eyes off it.

“Are you going to open it or just look at it?” he asked with an awkward laugh.

“It’s from Will.”

“Oh, love,” he said with sadness in his voice. “Are you sure? Sometimes we want something so badly and it just leaves us disappointed.”

She slid her finger under the edge and carefully opened the seal, trying to not damage it, feeling like it was her lifeline to her husband.

Other family members had entered the kitchen, all watching on quietly as she reverently opened the envelope. She peered in and saw a little black book. Pulling it out she saw that it was old, and the gold embossing had faded with just a hint remaining on the corners and spine.

She opened the book and let out a little sob when she saw it was a collection of poetry by William Blake.

“What is it?” Will’s mother asked, tears already streaming down her cheeks.

“William Blake, he used to joke that he was his favorite poet when we were at uni,” she said.

“Will didn’t have a favorite poet,” his brother said incredulously.

“When we met, I was taking a poetry course and he said that Blake had to be good because his name was William. It was just… silly,” Mia told them.

There was an inscription in the front cover.

Mia,

You’re my ingfinity.

I’ll love you for eternity.

Will

X

“Did he misspell infinity?” Jo asked.

“Jo!” Her mother said. “I think everyone needs to give Mia a moment and we all need to start getting dressed.” She herded the family out giving Mia the peace she craved.

Mia finished her coffee while re-reading the inscription, memorizing each swirl and dip in his precise lettering.

She held the little book close to her heart as she walked back the bedroom they had shared and sat it on Will’s pillow before heading to the ensuite to get ready.

The book left her mind as she carefully applied makeup to her still puffy eyes and dressed in a simple navy dress that she had worn when they went on a night out the month before.

Mia had hoped to have a small ceremony at the graveside funeral but well over a hundred people had showed up. Many she knew, their friends, work colleagues, other landscapers, extended family she hadn’t seen in years but there were others she didn’t recognize.

Telling the gathered mass of her love for her husband and the life they had enjoyed some lines of poetry came to her and her tears once again flowed as she shared the words.

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour

A Robin Red breast in a Cage

Puts all Heaven in a Rage

“Well, you are now in heaven, and I feel you looking down on me,” she concluded, sitting back down holding her face in her hands while several more people spoke.

She stood to drop a rose on his casket, watching the flower as if in slow motion. As she looked up, she noticed three more people, two men and a woman, watching from a distance. They were dressed in suits and stood beside a new, dark sedan. She noted the curiosity but her mind, too soaked in grief, let it go.

The afternoon passed and Mia would only remember flitters of it.

She dropped her dress on the floor and tumbled into bed not long after the sun went down but all thoughts of sleep left her when she saw the book on Will’s pillow.

She sat bolt upright and turned on the lamp.

Grabbing the book, she touched it to her forehead. Oh, Will.

There was a corner folded in the middle.

Eternity

He who binds to himself a joy

Does the winged life destroy

He who kisses the joy as it flies

Lives in eternity's sun rise.

Mia smiled feeling Will’s love through the pages.

Some of the letters were circled and she realized they spelled the word three. Flicking through the pages there were letters circled all throughout the book.

She grabbed a notebook and pen from the drawer beside her and started writing the letters down. Each page gave her a number, leaving her with a seven-digit number. She quickly went through every page, now disappointed that there were no more circled letters. She stopped towards the end. One word was underlined.

In the poem London the word Chimney was underlined. She stared at it for a moment before running downstairs.

Their house did have a fireplace, but it had been built in long before they had bought it. The little nook was home to some pot plants that Mia had managed to not kill.

She got on her hands and knees and carefully pulled the plants out of the way, trying to not wake the now sleeping house. Peering up there was no hole. It was cemented over. She knocked on the grey section, but it was solid.

Replacing the plants, she sat back disappointed. She stared at the plants, feeling like maybe she was overthinking it. Maybe it wasn’t a message for her.

A light sliver of wood caught her eye as she glanced up. The dark, mahogany fireplace was ornate and one of the reasons they had chosen to buy the house.

She took the photos down one by one. Their holidays, their wedding, Will’s grandfather’s clock, all now sat on the coffee table.

Mia ran her fingers along the light piece of wood where the mantle didn’t quite sit right. She expected it to not move at all but the whole shelf lifted easily.

Using her phone as a torch, she stood on her tip toes and looked in but there was nothing. She moved the phone around and then walked to the end. Down in the pilaster there was a shoe box. It was jammed in tight and she had to use her fingertips to pull it up by the lid.

She sat on the floor and started to lift the lid.

“What the hell?” her dad’s voice came from the doorway.

“Ah… I thought… Um... I’m just fixing it?” Mia said, pushing the box under the armchair.

She started putting the mantle back on and her dad came over and helped. Lining it up and giving it a small thump to lock it back in place. They replaced the photos and clock and Mia quickly reached under the chair for the box.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Nothin’, Dad. Night,” she said heading upstairs feeling like a mischievous child.

With her bedroom door locked she sat on her bed with the box. Slowly she lifted the lid. The first thing she saw was a gun. She slammed the lid back down. She panted trying to stave off panic.

Mia jumped off the bed and closed the curtains. Noticing a black car that looked much like the one she had seen at the funeral, she peaked back out from behind the curtains to get a better look. Yes, it was the same one with two people sitting in the front.

Inside there was a pile of money, thousands by Mia’s estimate, a small gun, and several passports. The passports were for both Mia and Will and in a several different names. A slip of paper fell out with seemingly random letters, numbers, and symbols.

Something itched at the back of her brain. A password? But for what? She took the book and made herself look through it again. Rereading the inscription brought tears to her eyes.

INGFINITY

It’s just not like him to misspell something like that. She tried to make sense of it. Did it mean something? What?

Ing, ing, ing. She was going over it in her mind. Ing, ing, I, N, G.

She grabbed her phone, opening the internet app. Her hands shook as she googled ING, then typed the numbers into the client login and used the slip of paper for the password.

She was in. The page filled with a list of transactions, all deposits, and the balance at the top of the screen read $253,682. Mia dropped the phone on her bed like it had burnt her. She looked down at it, too afraid to touch it.

Reaching out a finger she slid the page to listed bank accounts. There was only one. Their joint account from when they first moved in together. They had stopped using it when they’d bought their house and moved all their banking. She hadn’t even realized it was still open.

It was now 3 am. She glanced out the window. The car was still there, and she caught them looking straight at her.

Quickly piling everything into the box she put it in the top of her wardrobe amongst shoe boxes that actually contained shoes.

Holding the book to her chest she laid on the bed, sleep overcoming her though she tried to fight it.

She woke a few hours later. The dawn breaking through the curtains.

She went downstairs, ready to confront the men in the car. She had lost enough, and she wanted answers.

As she opened the door the men looked at her.

“Good morning, Mia,” a woman said from the chair on her front porch. She was dressed in a sharp black skirt suit.

“Who are you?” unable to keep the anger from fraying her voice.

“I was Will’s employer. He was a secret agent.”

fiction
15

About the Creator

Nadia Cowperthwaite

Aussie mum living in the Outback with a passion to share stories.

I have degrees in journalism and media, an MBA, currently undertaking a research degree.

Facebook: @nadiacowper

Instagram: @nadiacowper

TikTok: @nadiacowper

Twitter: @nadiacowper

Reader insights

Outstanding

Excellent work. Looking forward to reading more!

Top insight

  1. Excellent storytelling

    Original narrative & well developed characters

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