I open the blushed red door to my small cottage-like house. My father doesn’t sit on the floral couch reading his very dated newspaper. Silence echoes off the warm light orange walls. Something feels different, like someone has rearranged the room but then put everything back not quite where they where. The large painting of a beach in summer is taken down, the perfect elegant flicks of the brush, it’s my favourite painting. Various photos of grandma have been taken out and the frames are all fallen over or cracked.
“Mum?” I ask not too loudly.
No response. Then I hear it, a soft sob coming from upstairs, it’s bitter weep is so quiet, she’s trying not to cry too loudly but I can clearly hear it. I skip up the stairs taking the steps one by one. At the top of the stairs lies two dull white double french doors, I place my hand on the chilled gold handle and opening it hesitating slightly.
“Mum? Are you okay?” I ask seeing the slouched slim figure on the side of the bed.
“Um… Sweetie, sit down.” she says patting the empty space of bed next to her.
“What’s wrong, are you hurt?,”
“In a way.”
“What happened?” I ask.
“Your grandmother passed away this morning.”
“What! No, No! I don’t believe you!’
“She was old.”
“But she wasn’t that old, she was healthy, she was fine, she was beautiful!”
She sighs, “I think you deserve the truth.”
“The truth…?”
“It was a heart attack.”
I knew it. Grandma was constantly going to the doctors after grandpa died.
‘I shall live forever!’ she used to say. I purse my lips and shake my head. But why did she lie? Her own daughter, a thirteen-year-old is surely mature enough.