Mornings After the Fire

“There’s nothing like morning light to show you exactly where the ash settled.”

The morning light, filtered through peach-coloured drapes, cast a warm but unwelcome glow across the room, painting everything in a falsely gentle hue. It was the sort of light that might’ve felt comforting on another day—soft, golden, forgiving—but today, it felt like a spotlight on my regrets.

I groaned inwardly and burrowed deeper into the blankets, as if I could dig my way into a pocket of silence where time didn’t pass and consequences couldn’t find me. The events of the previous night clung to me like smoke—thick, acrid, and impossible to ignore. Burning the label. Gladys’s slurred insistence on secrecy. And that name—Cody—ringing in my mind like a note struck on a bell I’d never heard before but somehow recognised.

The tapestry of it all was tangled now, the threads of truth and half-truth wound too tightly together to unravel just yet. I had questions—too many questions—but no appetite for the answers.

Despite my attempts to coax myself back into the forgiving depths of sleep, the sounds of Gladys clattering around the house had shattered any remaining illusion of rest. Pots clinking, cupboard doors opening with undue force—her personal brand of subtlety. Clearly, she was up and about. Clearly, she had no intention of letting me wallow.

My head throbbed—a dull, sour pulse that stretched from my temples to the back of my skull. Wine. Regret. A restless night spent shifting and twisting in sweat-damp sheets.

Then came the knock.

A gentle tap on the door, soft yet insistent, sliced through the fragile remnants of sleep still clinging to me. “Beatrix,” came Gladys’s voice, barely more than a whisper, but laced with an urgency that had no business being wrapped in such a calm tone. It felt intrusive, like a foot in the door of my last safe place.

“Are you awake yet?”

“Oh,” I moaned, dragging the word out like it might buy me some time. My voice was muffled by the pillow as I turned my back to the door, curling inwards. “Go away, Gladys. It’s too early to get up.”

The words were less refusal and more plea—a wish whispered to the gods of procrastination. A few more minutes. A few more blinks in the dark. Just enough time to pretend the day hadn’t already started without me.

The door creaked open, its groan slicing through the quiet like a blade, a herald of the end of my resistance. The soft sanctity of the room—what little comfort it had offered—was breached, and with it, any hope of retreating back into sleep. I let out a heavy sigh, long and laboured, the sound of surrender. The warm cocoon I'd managed to wrap around myself dissipated as a draught of crisp morning air crept in, curling around my exposed skin like cold fingers.

Gladys entered like a woman on a mission, her footsteps brisk, her energy somehow undimmed by the wine and weight of last night’s confessions. She came straight to my side, moving with a purpose that brooked no delay. “Come on, Beatrix. Get up,” she insisted, her hands landing on my shoulders with a grip that startled more than stirred. There was urgency in her touch—not quite panic, but something close, like she was afraid of what might happen if I stayed in bed a moment longer.

It was too much, too fast. The contrast between her unrelenting determination and my cocooned vulnerability was jarring. Her fingers, brisk and commanding, felt almost clinical against the hush of dawn, a violation of the stillness I had desperately tried to preserve.

I rolled over, blinking against the soft morning light, and faced her. My voice emerged croaky, hoarse with exhaustion and the bitter remnants of sleep. “How the hell are you even functioning this early?” The words escaped before I could shape them into something softer. I sounded more accusatory than I meant, the sharpness not entirely unjustified. Her briskness felt like an affront to the slow, spiralling grief still coiled in my chest.

“Oh wait,” I added, unable to stop myself. A sarcastic bite twisted the tail of my words. “I forgot. Of course, you’d be fine.”

Her face stiffened. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she snapped, the brittle edge in her voice splintering the air between us. The tension crackled like static, invisible but palpable, ready to ignite.

Raising my eyebrows, I met her stare, my own exhaustion lending steel to my tone. “Do you really need me to explain that?”

There was a beat of silence, heavy and pregnant. I felt it then, like an old wound reopening. My voice faltered only slightly as I added, “I swear, sometimes you are more messed up by Brody’s death than I am.”

The words stung as they left my mouth, and they lingered, bitter and raw in the space between us. They weren’t meant to hurt—but they did. For both of us. Because even in that accusation, even in my defensive sarcasm, lay the truth neither of us wanted to admit: that grief had marked us differently, but just as deeply.

The change in Gladys was immediate—palpable, like a shift in atmospheric pressure before a storm breaks. Her lips pressed into a tight, bloodless line, sealing off whatever emotion threatened to escape. It was a dam built from pain and pride, a silent barricade against the sting of my words.

"That's not fair, Beatrix," she protested, her voice trembling at the edges. It was caught in a tug-of-war between anger and something more fragile—vulnerability, raw and unguarded.

"Well, it's true," I snapped back, the words spilling before I could temper them, jagged and unkind. I knew it even as I said them—knew the damage they carried—but something inside me refused to yield. Maybe it was shame. Maybe it was fear. Or maybe it was just easier to lash out than to look inward.

Gladys’s reply was not words so much as a wound torn open.

"You're not the one who found him lying in his own blood!" she shouted, her voice cracking on the final syllables. The sound ricocheted off the walls, shaking the air between us like a physical force. It was a cry of anguish, of trauma, not just remembered but relived.

Her pain hit me like a slap, hot and unforgiving. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe.

That image—Brody, lifeless and surrounded by scarlet—rose unbidden in my mind, imagined with a clarity that made my stomach twist. The truth of what she had endured slammed into me, sharp as broken glass. I bit down on my lower lip, hard enough to taste metal, the gesture a poor substitute for the apology I couldn’t yet bring myself to say aloud.

Guilt surged through me like a rising tide, cold and merciless. I had known. Maybe not all of it, not every detail—but enough. Enough to have acted. Enough to have warned him. And I hadn’t.

I had failed him.

While I had busied myself with the day-to-day distractions of running the shop, chasing dreams built on vintage treasures and half-shared ambitions, Gladys had faced the nightmare. Alone.

She’d found him. Not the police. Not me.

And when the authorities had shrugged and filed it away under ‘tragedy’, she’d carried the unanswered questions, the horror, the silence—without ever knowing the truth. Because I hadn’t told her.

I’d let her believe it had been random. Meaningless. Just another cruel twist of fate.

And she’d borne it like a curse, etched into the fabric of her days and nights.

Now that knowledge sat between us, an unspoken indictment. Not just of what I hadn’t done—but of what I’d let her suffer alone.

I inhaled deeply, the air thick with the weight of unspoken apologies and the hangover of too much wine and too many truths.

"So, why do you want me up so early?"

Gladys's expression shifted—subtle, but telling. The shadows from our confrontation retreated, smoothed over by something resembling normality. It wasn’t forgiveness, not quite. But it was a step. A breath. A pause in hostilities.

"I thought you might like to come and visit Luke with me," she said, shrugging as though it were the most casual of invitations. "I have to go round to collect the small truck I left there yesterday."

"Oh," I murmured, caught off guard by the sudden pivot from confrontation to logistics. My fingers moved reflexively to my face, brushing at the gritty corners of sleep clinging stubbornly to my eyes, like ghosts reluctant to leave. "Sure. But I need a shower first, and coffee."

Gladys's chuckle came soft and unexpected. A flicker of warmth that cut through the morning’s stiffness. It was the kind of laugh that used to punctuate our childhood breakfasts, before life fractured and reassembled itself around loss. I hadn’t realised how much I missed that sound—her lighter self, uncloaked by grief.

"I'll take you home first," she said, her tone gentler now, less armour, more skin. “Come on, get up.” She patted the bed beside me in a gesture that seemed to say: we don’t need to talk about it. Not now. Maybe not ever. But we’ll keep going.

I shut my eyes tightly for a moment, wishing the simple act could erase the bruising weight of the last twenty-four hours. My limbs felt heavy, reluctant. My bones ached not from physical strain but from emotional erosion—like stone worn smooth by relentless waves. I rubbed my fists against my eyes, not just to banish sleep, but to claw back some semblance of self.

When I opened them again, the light seemed marginally more forgiving. I pulled a breath into my chest, held it like armour, then released it with a sigh of surrender.

"Okay, I'm coming,” I said, the words tasting like both obligation and resolve. I swung my legs over the side of the bed, movement coming slow and mechanical, like the winding of an old watch brought back to life.

Gladys turned and moved toward the door, and I rose to follow, though with every step, something deep in me clenched. Visiting Luke. Collecting the truck. Such ordinary things, really. On the surface, mundane.

But nothing felt simple anymore.

Every choice, every movement, every moment now seemed layered with subtext—memories we weren’t yet ready to revisit, truths we couldn’t yet say aloud. As I followed her down the hallway, it struck me that the day ahead wasn’t about errands. It was about navigating the fragile scaffolding of sisterhood we’d rebuilt overnight.

And hoping it held.