“I don’t think she’ll be able to get over him,” one lady whispered to another.
“Poor girl,” someone behind her said. “And they both just recently got married.”
Officer Adeline looked at Mrs. Gowon, worried. She knew that the widow could hear all the whispers and rumors around her. As though losing her husband right after marrying him wasn’t bad enough that she had to deal with this now.
Adeline ordered the guards to drive the crowd away from the funeral house and walked over to Mrs. Gowon, who was kneeling in front of her husband’s coffin. No one except a few of the guards, a few of her co-workers, and them were present in the eerie funeral house, as the staff and priests had gone to attend to the other people who we injured and died in the war.
“Um, Mrs. Gowon?” Officer Adeline couldn’t get a proper look at her face, as the curtains of her hair covered the side of her face. “I’m afraid it’s time to close. We’ll provide all the help and necessities you require.”
“Why would you do that?”
Officer Adeline’s heart skipped a beat. Her voice sounded hollow and monotone as if someone had snatched her soul from her. “Um, because, well, you are the wife of Mr. Flint Gowon, a respected man of the army-”
“Were.”
She was not making this any easier. “Well, do you need any assistance?”
Mrs. Gowon looked her straight in the eye, and Adeline tried not to wince. Her sunken-eyed face was streaked with tears and dirt, and her lips were purple with dried blood. A nail scratch across her left cheek seemed fresh, making a small pool of dread open up in Adeline’s stomach.
“No,” Mrs. Gowon said, looking away and staring at the coffin. “You should be taking after the soldiers who got injured. Why are you wasting your time here?”
Several answers ignited in her head. “Excuse-”
“Please leave me alone. All I need is to be alone. Please leave.”
Adeline sighed, exasperated. “I need to lock this place up, ma’am. So-”
“I’ll do it for you then. Please leave.”
Adeline wished she didn’t feel so much unnecessary irritation. On one hand, she could understand what this woman was saying and feeling. On the other hand, she was not the only one going through a grave loss. “Ma’am-”
“Adeline!” one of her co-workers, Nash, called out. He was walking out amongst the other guards. “We need to go.”
Adeline pointed at Mrs. Gowon. “I need to lock up this place but she is not moving.”
Nash frowned. “Then give the keys to her and tell her to lock up. Officer Declan is going to eat our heads if we’re one minute late.”
Having no choice, she handed the keys over to Mrs Gowon, told her to lock up before a specific time and left the place with Nash. Her matter could wait; there were so many people who needed assistance right now.
***
Mrs Gowon wiped the little speck of dust from her husband’s coffin, waiting for the female officer to leave. She knew exactly what they all were thinking and feeling. The annoyance, the pity and impatience. She didn’t blame anyone for that. There was nothing to blame.
When that officer left, she stood and cleared her voice. She hadn’t drunk any water for the past two hours because of all the crying, mourning, screaming and acting like she had gone through such a rough period. If Flint wasn’t one of the higher-ups in the army and so ‘respected’, she wouldn’t need to do much pretending. People could just pass her on as a crying widow. Nobody would really care about her enough to help.
Curious, she lifted the head of the coffin and gazed at her dead husband’s pale face. It was a shame that he didn’t look this good in his last seconds of living. She could’ve given him a painless death if he had kept this beautiful expression.
A smile crept up on her face. She couldn’t help it. All of this was too good to be true. “It’s funny,” she whispered to the dead man, “how everyone believes your ‘gruesome’ death was done from fighting in the war. Wait for me in your next life!”
