Chapter Text
Even with the chill in the thin air and the snow coating the ground, the meeting room of the church is sweltering. Get enough bodies dancing in one place and you’re sure to raise the temperature.
She’s been sweating practically since she’d walked in the door. Her heart pounding, her eyes clear.
Tonight, she knows what she's about.
The town buzzed for weeks whenever there was going to be a dance, but to be fair, it didn't take much to get people in Jackson excited. Any sort of reprieve from the day to day mundanity that didn’t involve death was always welcome, and the mood in the room had been up-tempo the entire evening. The music twangy, raucous, and loud. Laughter coming easily and drinks flowing. Kids playing games off around the edges of the room like “Catch the Clicker”, as though the infected were something to not to be afraid of. They didn’t know how dangerous the world was.
Dina supposed that's the way things should be.
Among all these neighbors and friends allowing themselves to be happy, her spirits are high, but she has to hide that her hands are trembling. Shaking. Her nerves betraying her like they never had before. And to think, everyone always said she was the confident one.
Well, just because you’ve made up your mind doesn’t mean your body isn’t getting ready to run the fuck out of here, she figured.
Fuck her nerves. This was happening.
Her hands keep trembling anyway.
She dances along with the crowd, moving between partners, her eyes tracing over to the door every chance she got. Waiting, hoping. She politely, even energetically accepts offers to dance with boys with those sly, confident “I’ve got this” smiles. Afterall, she’s always been the charitable type.
Even when her and Jesse had been in a relationship all those years, there had been others practically bursting at the seams to let her know they were just biding their time, waiting in the wings for her to be single. It seemed tonight they all thought This is it. This was their chance.
None of them know though.
Her heart has been spoken for longer than even she's known.
Tonight isn’t going to be these boys' nights.
While dancing with one of the Thomas brothers, her breath hitches when she sees the one she’s been waiting for across the room. Standing there alone. Aloof. Nursing a tumbler of whiskey like it's the last one in the world. Hair barely cleaned. “Dressed up” in the same clothes worn all throughout the day. The most beautiful thing Dina's ever seen.
She knows… she knows it's right then or never when the song ends and their eyes meet, the music shifting into a slower number for the first time all night. She needs to remember to thank whoever is spinning the records. Good looking out for your girl.
Dina doesn't waste time, striding over, finishing the whiskey herself, and taking Ellie by the hand, pulling her to the center of the room. They wrap close around each other on the dance floor. Close enough for people to take notice. Close enough for Dina not to care. Her skin tingles, coming alive where their bodies meet, even through the mess of her sweaty clothes.
She’s spent so long denying this, and now with the feel of those hands on her, she can’t for the life of her think of a single goddamn reason why.
She rushes to get the requisite verbal sparring out of the way as Ellie tries her best to appear casual, making the same kind of quips she would any other night.
You idiot..., she thinks to herself, fighting the urge to run her lips against the open span of Ellie's inviting neck right in front of her, ...we’re not here for that.
Not tonight.
Not after the long months… the years of indecision.
Of second guessing.
Of being so close to something so beautiful and incandescent and real that all Dina had ever needed to do was reach out and touch it but never has.
Even tonight she hesitates, unable to summon all the courage she had resolved earlier to have, just playing along with Ellie, joking that all the guys staring at them are just jealous.
“I’m just a girl… not a threat”, the most dangerous thing Dina’s ever encountered mumbles out, without a hint of humor. Dina can almost taste the sadness dripping off those words.
She pulls away, so that Ellie can see the truth of what she has to say written large across her face, and reaches up to slowly tuck a loose strand of that red hair behind Ellie's ear.
Dina takes in everything in that moment. The shift from lonely but accepted defeat to surprise and awe on Ellie's face. The near reverence Ellie has for her but never noticed is mirrored in Dina's own eyes… they’re things she doesn’t think she’ll ever forget, in this life or the next.
“Oh Ellie… “, she breathes, resting her hand on the back of the pale girl's neck, pausing a second longer to drink in the experience, to make it last.
Every note of the song.
How the stringed up lights fill the room with that certain type of soft ambient glow.
Every freckle on Ellie’s face.
Every tiny shift in her expression.
The green of Ellie’s eyes, the color of the forest.
Of something wild, trapped, and longing to be free.
An endless field of tall grass to get lost in forever.
Everything about Ellie in this moment, she knows then she needs to remember. Some deep, primal part of herself recognizes this is the kind of moment that changes everything.
Finally, She exhales the feeling she realizes she's always known but never been able to speak.
“...I think they should be terrified of you.”
Without hesitation or doubt, her lips are on Ellie’s, and the lights, the music, the oppressive, wet heat in the church room and everyone inside it is gone.
There’s only Ellie’s hair tangled between her fingertips.
Ellie’s arms, tightening around her waist, pulling her closer.
The warm taste of whiskey on Ellie’s tongue.
The unexpected softness of Ellie’s lips.
...Ellie's lips.
Oh god, Ellie’s lips.
And finally when they break apart, that smile.
Ellie smiles at her in a way she swears could shatter her into a thousand pieces, a thousand times over, and each time she’d happily pick up her remains and put herself back together if only it meant she could see Ellie smile like that just one more time.
For a few moments in this world that could be so horribly cruel, the world that had taken her father and her mother and Talia from her, and so much more from so many… it's just the two of them. Here together, and for these few moments that's all that matters.
She knows then, with a certainty she’s never experienced before, that Ellie Williams is going to be the death of her.
Looking up at that damn smile, breathless, her heart in her throat, with their whole lives to come stretching out in front of them, Dina gets ok with that idea real quick.
----------
A week after Ellie has left the farm, Dina can’t cry herself to sleep any more.
The tears still come in the dark. The sleep, not as much.
All she wants to do is sleep.
----------
A few days after that, she had lost her temper with JJ for the first time since he was born.
She had him in his sling around her chest and just… just needed a moment to herself. This one moment, just for her.
While doing the laundry, humming lightly to JJ, she had absent mindedly picked up one of Ellie’s worn down flannel shirts, almost thinking to call out to ask if she wanted it washed before she remembered Ellie wasn’t there to answer.
The shirt was a subtle dark green and blue plaid cast in large bars, the size of it slightly too big for Ellie’s frame. She'd had it a long time, as far back as Dina could remember and still picture the exact clothes Ellie was wearing. Still picture exactly what she looked like on any given day.
So, she supposed, pretty long. That redhead had caught her eye young.
She remembered when Ellie had found it buried in a box inside of his house, that Joel said it made her look "grunge", whatever that meant. It had sounded like both an insult and compliment coming from him. You never could tell with that man.
It was in good shape back then. Now there was a fraying hole around one of the elbows, seams coming undone at one of the shoulders. It had been worn roughly, like most of Ellie’s clothes. A button was hanging on for dear life.
It was never a particular favorite of Dina’s. Her breath caught dry in her throat all the same as she ran her hand over the soft, worn fabric.
Dina brought the button-up close to her face, slowly closed her eyes, and deeply breathed in the lingering scent.
It smelled like…
...like the earth out in the woods.
Like the soap they all shared in the bath, tinged with lavender.
Like the oil she had watched Ellie rub into the fretboard of her old guitar.
Like whiskey.
Like Ellie.
She could swear in that brief second Ellie was still there with them. She was sure she could feel Ellie’s hands wrapping around her waist, tugging at her hips. She could feel Ellie strong against her back, her neck being brushed with the only lips she ever wanted to feel on her ever again, asking her if she wanted it to stop.
How did she ever tell Ellie to stop?
She should have never told her to stop.
She was broken out of the trance by JJ reaching from the sling, grabbing the loose button in his little hand, and giggling as he yanked it clean from the thread.
Before Dina even knew what she was doing, she was yelling at him.
“Damnit, JJ, NO! That’s hers! It’s mommys! It’s hers!”
Didn’t he understand? Doesn’t he know she’s gone and this fucking shirt is precious? An artifact? How could he ruin one of the few parts of her they have left, especially if she never...?
Of course, JJ doesn’t understand. How could he?
Dina doesn’t even understand.
JJ just wailed loudly in his sling, gripping the button, and almost immediately, Dina was sobbing too, whispering rushed apologies to her son, wrapping him in her arms and in Ellie’s stupid faded flannel shirt, newly short one button.
“I’m sorry pota-… JJ. I’m sorry, my little goober.”
Ellie’s nickname for their son still stuck in her throat.
“I’m so sorry.”
She doesn’t think she’ll ever forgive herself for it.
She doesn’t think she’ll ever forgive Ellie for it either.
That night they both sleep clinging to the shirt.
The next morning while JJ is still asleep, Dina sews the button snuggly onto Olly's chest. She doesn't know if JJ even notices, but she has more affection for the stuffed elephant.
----------
Two weeks pass, and she becomes distinctly aware that Ellie isn’t changing her mind, isn't coming back. Aware enough to admit it to herself out loud.
After JJ falls asleep that night and she places him in his crib with a kiss, she goes back down stairs in the dark and declares out loud to the empty quiet of the house.
“Fuck it, El, I’m getting drunk without you”
She takes Ellie’s half empty bottle of whiskey off the cabinet in the corner where they… where she keeps their… her liquor, taking a moment to glance at the framed picture sitting on it. Tommy had...
...Tommy.
All her time in Jackson, she’d always liked the gruff but likewise affable man, even with his ridiculous blonde ponytail. Joel's younger brother had always seemed like a fair and even hand, helping Maria lead Jackson. He had been one of the first people Dina had met when she arrived nearly a decade ago, and he had been good to her, and all the residents, ever since. But after the last time he had visited the farm, bringing the news that took Ellie away, his name tastes bitter to her now, even just to think it.
Dina picks up the photo, bringing it closer to her face in the dark. Tommy had taken it soon after Ellie and Joel had come to Jackson, maybe just a few weeks later. That day the two brothers surprised Ellie, taking her to the stables to meet her horse, Shimmer. Tommy snapped it right when Shimmer came over to Ellie and Joel for the first time, the moment after Joel had removed his hands from Ellie’s eyes to reveal the big surprise.
Ellie told her once she had thought they were taking her to clean an outhouse or something because of the smell. When Dina laughed and asked what she had done to deserve that, she just shrugged and mumbled something about stealing things from Tommy.
The look on Ellie’s face in the picture is pure glee. Child like. Not one Dina thinks she had seen now in years.
She guesses she’ll never see it again.
Ellie really loved that horse.
Shimmer was dead now.
Joel was dead.
Ellie was-
Dina locks that thought up tight, not even close to ready to examine it, and takes the bottle outside, away from any of those intrusions on her drinking.
Sitting heavily on the stairs of the porch, she gazes around the property, seeing nothing that shouldn’t be there, trying to ignore the chill on the wind.
Got the remedy for that right here, she thinks smugly to herself, unscrewing the lid with a flourish that no one is around to see.
The honey colored liquid inside smells astringent, but promises that it’ll help her forget, or it’ll least allow her not to think for a fucking minute or two.
Fuck, she’d kill for some weed right now. The thought makes her pour a little of the whiskey out onto dirt.
“Miss you, Eugene," she says wryly to the stars, "Hope there’s a vast collection of porn wherever you are.”
She chuckles slightly at the thought of the old man, tips the bottle and her eyebrows with a nod to the sky in a salute, and then raises the rim to her lips.
As soon as the burn touches her tongue, all she tastes is Ellie.
Ellie kissing her for the first time in the heat of the church.
Ellie sitting next to her on the couch while she’s pregnant, arm draped around her, casually tracing circles on the exposed skin of her stomach, trailing faint kisses down the side of her face, teasing her that she can’t share the drink in her other hand.
Ellie after dinner, grinning that grin that’s somehow both wolfish and sheepish, taking her hand and dancing with her in the living room while JJ giggles and babbles in his high chair, Ellie singing softly for the three of them.
Ellie leading her up the stairs to their bed, whispering how much she loves her.
Ellie. Ellie.
Ellie...
All the drinking leads to is another night of tears and very little sleep.
Dina doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to taste whiskey without thinking of Ellie.
She thinks back to their first time together, in the middle of a blizzard on a ratty couch in Eugene's Weed and Porn Warehouse (as they had come to call it), only hours before their world was smashed in by a hateful monster with a golf club...
...and she can only hope the same isn’t true of weed.
The next day Dina moves all of the liquor out of sight into Ellie’s art room upstairs, across from the bedroom they had once shared. She hadn’t opened the door since Ellie left, and maybe this was her excuse for going in, but she only stays long enough to put the bottles on a shelf and leave. She can’t bear to look at anything else. Ellie is everywhere in there.
Ellie is everywhere in the whole house.
----------
Time passes by. Days. Weeks. Dina and JJ settle into an Ellie-less life, if Dina can even call it that. She isn’t weaving anymore. No longer fucking around with the insides of that old radio like Eugene had taught her, trying to get it to work. There’s none of the music there used to be. There’s no dancing except when Dina sways with JJ in her arms to get him to sleep. No one calls him “potato” or “spud”. No one holds her and tells her they love her.
She feel’s Ellie’s absence in her bones. Down in her toes. Whenever she thinks of a pun. When she does the dishes and Ellie doesn’t kiss her cheek on her way out the back door. When JJ laughs and she looks over and Ellie isn’t there to smile with her.
Jesse’s parents, Robin and Mitchell, come by “just for a visit”, but with bags packed to stay for a couple days. They’re not used to not hearing from the three of them, so even at their age, they ventured outside of Jackson up to the farm just to see their grandson and his mom's. Dina tries to put on a brave face, but the cracks are evident all over, there’s hardly any use in covering them up.
Robin is beside herself that Ellie chose to leave the farm, to leave Dina and JJ. Mitchell just shakes his head.
It surprises her how happy she is they’ve come, her relief at having company overcoming the usual pangs of guilt that usually accompanies seeing them. She used to think those might fade away after JJ was born and at least some part of Jesse was alive again, but it had really only made things harder, his absence more keen. Robin and Mitchell never say it, but it's always clear on their faces how much JJ reminds them of Jesse, and how that hurt will always be there.
All the same, Dina finds nothing but relief at their visit. She’s always loved them like her own family, and after a month of no one in the house except herself and JJ, she hadn’t realized just how lonely she’d become. Not just missing Ellie, but missing talking to anyone.
Dina hadn’t been alone for this long since Talia had been…since she had died, in the long year before Dina had found her way to Jackson.
Not that JJ was bad company, the kid was just fucking hard to hold a conversation with. Talked over her all the time, barely paid any attention to what she had to say.
His counterpoints were, if she was honest, rarely apropos to the topic at hand.
And god, he was just like his father. Absolutely OBSESSED with boobs.
Men.
If Robin and Mitchell were made uncomfortable by how much longer her hugs lingered than usual, they didn't make it known.
The whole time they're there they try to convince her to come back to Jackson, for her and JJ’s safety. Hell, they thought it had been unsafe even when there were two “adults” around. Mitchell walked the fence, looking for holes or weak spots any time they visited, as though Ellie hadn’t done that each and every day.
Robin is especially adamant they move back to town. She says she’ll sleep better knowing they’re close and safe. Dina knows that Robin looks at JJ and sees Jesse as a little boy. Her own little boy, lost to her forever. Dina can’t even imagine the kind of pain that brings Robin… Mother’s should never have to bury their children, no matter how often it happened these days.
They’re probably right. It probably is unsafe. It probably is stupid to stay there.
She should move back.
Dina won’t hear of it.
She had always wanted a farm. Even when she was a kid. Somewhere out away from everyone. A beautiful, peaceful place to call her own.
People said it would be lonely.
She told Ellie once it’s only lonely if you’re… if you're alone.
Ellie has taken so much already. She can’t take this too.
The wind is heavy coming down off the mountains the night after Jesse’s parents leave, and it feels like it shakes the whole house. After midnight an especially heavy gust takes one of the shutters off of the front room window.
Ellie had talked about needing to nail that one back down after the last storm.
The next morning, Dina goes out front with the hammer and nails, and the step ladder they… she keeps in the barn.
She stares at the fallen shudder for what feels like a long while, resolutely deciding to put it back up.
The minutes pass as she decides this again, then again, and about ten more times after that, but still she just stands there, hammer loose in her hand, nails still in her pocket.
She walks back inside, and just leaves it there, leaning against the house.
Really… what’s the point?
----------
The windows are open. Maybe she wouldn’t have heard it if they were shut, but the sound spills wildly into the bedroom like a siren and pulls her mercilessly from sleep.
Distant screaming in the woods outside the perimeter fence.
It sounds like a woman.
It sounds like…
Dina’s hand is on the pistol inside the nightstand in an instant, and she’s down the stairs just as quickly.
By the time she reaches the door, the sound is louder, closer.
She doesn’t stop for her boots. She doesn’t stop for anything.
Dina knows she’s sprinting across the field, but she feels like she’s never moved slower in her entire life.
She can get there in time.
She will get there in time.
It seems like she’s been running for miles when she reaches the broken down tractor halfway between the house and the fence, and the cries have reached the front gate.
The pained chorus is joined by a new sound, one that never fails to send chills up Dina’s spine, no matter how many times she’s heard it.
That distinctive clicking.
That horrible screeching.
Even if it's just one chasing her, a single Clicker is enough.
Ellie's immunity from being infected won't save her from being torn apart.
She knows she doesn’t have a lot of time.
The voice rings out true, desperate and terrified.
“PLEASE DINA!”
Oh god, it is her.
It’s Ellie.
Dina would know her voice anywhere.
She’d know it in her dreams.
She’ll know it long after she’s dead.
Ellie is pulling frantically at the gate when Dina reaches her. Wounds covering her body, deep gashes and bite marks everywhere. The dark rivers of blood that spill from them making her skin look slick and black in the moonlight. Dina barely recognizes her.
Ellie tries to climb the fence but she slips, the blood wetting her hands from so many punctures allowing her no purchase.
“Dina! Please! I’m so fucking scared!” Ellie cries to her. She’s screaming, but her voice is somehow small and more afraid than Dina thought she would ever hear again.
It reminds her of Seattle.
Of after Nora.
Not far off, Dina can hear the Clicker rushing to reach its prey, sweeping the brush and branches aside in it’s blind, clawing hunger to take her heart away from her again.
“Just hold on! HOLD ON!”, Dina begs, their eyes meeting in the dark, the fear and panic and loss mirrored between them.
Dina struggles against the lock bar, but it won’t budge. The bolt stays firmly in the latch no matter how hard she pulls, like it had been welded there. As though it were a single solid piece made to keep them apart.
Ellie whimpers, turning her head to look at the infected creature, emerging out of the yawning darkness of the trail.
She looks back at Dina with tears streaming from her eyes, clearing clean lines through the blood covering her face, and stops fighting.
Dina’s eyes go wide, “No! NO!”
Ellie’s hands drop from the fence.
Done. Defeated.
She just stares at Dina with all the love and regret that’s left in the entire world.
“NO! FUCK YOU! You don’t get to do that!”, Dina sobs, ferally tearing at the barrier between them, slicing her hands open on the metal, beating them raw against the rough wood.
“COME ON, MOTHERFUCKER, OPEN! ELLIE PLEASE!”
Kicking the latch with her bare feet. Slamming against it with her entire body until she’s numb to the pain.
It’s going to break.
It has to break.
“ELLIE, PLEASE DON’T DO THIS! GOD DAMNIT, ELLIE, PLEASE DON’T STOP!”
She can feel the gate starting to snap, the latch buckling under the pressure of her rage.
Of her will.
Her love.
She’s going to save this stupid girl if it kills her.
And then she’ll never let her go again.
Nothing in this whole goddamn world can keep her from Ellie.
Ellie never takes her eyes off her, just softly extends her bloodied hand through the wire mesh, reaching for Dinas tear soaked face.
“Dina...”, Ellie’s pale fingers just barely ghost along Dinas wet cheek, setting her skin ablaze before the Clicker is on her.
Dina raises her arms to level her forgotten gun at the monstrosity's head, but the weapon is nowhere to be found.
By the time she can even register what’s happened, the thing is pulling Ellie away from her, dragging the love of her life into the seeping black void of the woods, it’s grinning teeth sinking deep into Ellie’s neck.
It’s face isn’t covered in fungal plates.
Instead a blonde braid falls over it's shoulder, turning deep red as it soaks in Ellie's blood.
It looks just like Abby.
Dina screams but no sound escapes her lungs.
When she wakes up, the woods are silent. JJ is sound asleep beside her, gripping Olly and snuggled into Ellie's flannel shirt. The windows are closed. It’s still dark out.
It should be peaceful.
But Ellie isn’t here.
She isn’t here.
----------
The next morning, Dina takes JJ and rides to Jackson to tell Jesse’s parents she’s moving back to town. She just… she can’t stay in that house any longer.
They insist she move in with them. They have plenty of space, even a separate room to be a nursery for JJ, whenever Dina is ready for that. It’ll be for the best. They’ll be a family.
Dina doesn’t argue.
Mitchell comes back to the farm house with her, bringing a cart and some other helpful hands. Boys from around town who seem very eager to pitch in. Everyone loves Robin and Mitchell. Everyone loves Dina. Everyone tries to comfort her.
Dina doesn’t say much about it.
They pack everything but the heavy furniture. No place to put it in Robin and Mitchell's house anyways. Some of the boys do their best to wrangle the sheep. Dina tells them not to worry about the crops out back. Just let them stay where they are. She wasn’t a great farmer. Nothing grew well here.
She can't bear to bring anything of Ellie’s with her. Not the paintings Ellie did that brought such vibrant color to their home. Not Joel’s western statues he had carved. Not her guitar. Not the old vinyl records.
Nothing.
Everyone waits outside while she brings the last of it up to Ellie’s room herself. Everything about it stings just a little more. The comic book collection. The trading cards. The posters of bands they’d never see. The books about space and dinosaurs and time machines. The silly toys. Every bit just a needle with it’s own particular barb digging a little deeper into the soft parts of Dina’s heart.
While shoving the boxes under the desk on the paint stained floor, she does find herself idly picking through the records, stopping on a certain one, a familiar cover she’s pretending not to be looking for, and takes the vinyl out. She stares blankly at it for a long time before picking up the old wind up player, placing it on top of the desk, and deciding to listen one last time.
The first familiar strum of the guitar fills the small room.... the picking of the banjo… the mournful hum of the cello. How many times had Ellie and Dina held each other listening to this song since the first time at the dance in that crowded room, a lifetime ago? Before she even realizes it the hot sting of tears hits her and Dinas eyes are running over in an instant.
She can’t close the cover on the player fast enough. She can’t be in there another second.
Slamming the door of Ellie’s room, and rushing out of the house, she only stops to weakly say to Mitchell:
“I’m ready.”
He’s kind enough to not ask about the commotion or the fresh tears in her eyes.
Dina doesn’t look back as the farm house disappears behind the trees.
There's no point.
She knows she's never coming back here again.
----------
Two days later, she’s back.
She left JJ with Robin, saying she’s just going for a ride around the walls of the town.
She doubts Robin believes her, but if the older woman suspects it, she doesn’t say anything. Just smiles at the girl a bit sadly, picks up her grandson into her arms, and goes about her business.
It takes a good part of the day to get back there. It really shouldn’t have taken that long, but she can’t find the will to hurry herself down the trail. It’ll be long past sundown by the time she gets back to Jackson going at this rate.
The key lingers in Dina's hand, hovering in front of the door for what feels like an eternity before she finds her courage and walks into that place that had once made her so happy. The place where she thought the two of them had been happy.
She doesn't linger, heading straight up the stairs.
Walking softly back into Ellie’s room, she picks up the things she came for.
The framed picture of Ellie and Joel and Shimmer.
The embroidered “E” in it's frame that she had done to match the “D” and “J”.
The painting Ellie had done of JJ when he was just a couple weeks old.
The portrait Ellie had made her sit still for for hours, pretending to start over so many times just to keep her in the chair. Dina still remembers exactly what she had looked like sitting across from her behind the easel.
Under the tipped over photo of herself that Ellie kept on her desk, she finds the ripped away portion of another picture. One that used to include her, Jesse, and Ellie. She had removed Ellie from the equation in a fit of spite at the girl some weeks ago, leaving the fragment in the room to collect dust with the rest of the memories. She stares at it for a moment before sticking the smiling face into the breast pocket of her shirt, next to her heart.
The last thing she takes is the black and white portrait Ellie had done of Dina and JJ in simple brush strokes, taking it down from the wall. She knows Ellie had done this one from memory. The care in it is so evident. The love.
Even though it wasn’t enough.
She trace’s her fingers over the signature, her fingers gliding slowly over each letter.
“You fucking idiot”, she says into the empty room, though she doesn’t know if she’s saying it to Ellie or herself.
She rolls it up and takes it too, closing the door quietly behind her for the last time.
She goes down the short hall into the bedroom and sets the neatly folded linens she's brought onto the corner of the bed she and Ellie had shared, placing a kiss on top of them.
She doesn't even know what she's hoping for, leaving them there. She tells herself it's just for whoever comes here next.
Her eyes fix on Ellie’s side of that lonesome bed, and she whispers a prayer before she leaves the room.
It’s the first time she’s prayed since the morning Ellie left.
The prayer is the same as it was then.
When she leaves she only closes the screen door behind her. It doesn’t have a lock.
She doesn’t come back after that.