The Collapse CCVII: Death And Mending Fences

 16 December 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

We were startled this morning by a knock at our door. Imagine my surprise to find one of our Erstwhile neighbors on my doorstep. His hands were plainly in view, breath steaming away from the pulled up edges of the jean rancher jacket into the crisp and cloud free morning air.

“There has been a death” he said flatly.

I nodded back. I had been expecting something like this to start sooner or later.

In a few minutes I was out with him, trudging back through the snow on a path beaten down by his coming. Pompeia Paulina I had sent off with the snowshoes to get Young Xerxes and whomever else he could rouse in short order. The walk itself was silent, the crunch of boots on snow, breaths hissed in and out like steam engines.

We wound our way through the streets of Birch, existing paths more clearly laid out in the midst of the snow – but even with that, the lifting and setting of feet, the brushing through of those holes as they merged together into a path...I hate the snow at times, Lucilius, for all that I moved here willingly.

By the time we arrived at the house – a house I recognized a little too well, that of Terentia, the wife of the man shot by Cataline in self defense– a small crowd had gathered, both of our Erstwhile neighbors as well as Young Xerxes and a few of his volunteers. I pushed through the circle, as much as through assuming I could do so as any moral authority I might still hold with everyone here: the last thing that was needed was a fight in the snow.

Inside, a smaller group was there. I recognized some of Terentia’s family and The Fashionable Woman from the trial. They were weeping, but stopped long enough to give me a cold stare as I went by through the hall into a bedroom.

There, in bed, was Terentia.

Death had found her, it seemed, at night: she lay under covers, one eye closed and the other one bolt open looking up the ceiling. I forced myself to check her with a touch (How much I hate the thought of touching the dead, Lucilius): cold and unyielding. Whatever had happened – my guess would be some kind of heart attack; I had seen similar cases long ago – it had happened some hours ago.

The man I remembered as her son came in. We nodded at each other, then looked at his mother.

“Thoughts?” he quietly said.

“Likely a heart attack or some such thing” I responded. “It was quick.” We stood in silence for moments longer, the wails of the mourners filling the background.

I looked straight at him. “Any particular reason you called for me?”

He stared straight back. “Mostly to let you know it happened and make clear – to you, to me, to everyone – that it was a natural death, not something that was contrived or carried out. Things are already tense enough.”

I nodded back. “Will you need anything from me, or us?”

He shook his head. “No. We can bury our own dead.”

We stood there in silence together for a few more minutes. “My condolences” I said as I started to turn to leave.

“You know” he said as I started to trail from the room, “she never blamed you in the end. Although she refused to really confront the truth about my father, she eventually got over you. She was just too proud to tell you so.”

I turned to look back at him and then, on a whim, offered him my right hand, which he took. “Sometimes we can all be too proud to take the first step”, I responded.

The trip back to The Cabin was quiet, Pompeia Paulina giving me the space to think through what I had seen. As Young Xerxes and Statiera peeled off to go back home, I suggested perhaps he and a couple of his friends offer to help with relocation of the body.

It is never too late, Lucilius, to try to mend fences.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca