March 21, 2006
It’s been a while since I wrote in this puppy and it feels good to actually do so. Especially since I can see it’s killing Spike wondering about what I’m writing. He’s pretending to munch on the roasted peanuts, but his eyes keep drifting.
I just yelled at him for straying eyes. He glared at me and I laughed.
The mark up of good days far outweigh the bad, journal.
I should have known that Spike would throw himself into therapy and getting well as diligently as he does everything else. For someone that was so averse to it, he has certainly thrived. Not to say there haven’t been bad days, there have been, but as I said, the good has far outweighed the bad. I’m actually quite jealous. He has done better than I have in a short period of time, but as Lorne said, everyone is different.
The house was sold last week after a grueling month of offers and counteroffers and Spike’s broker calling constantly. But, finally, it was done and now he moves into a huge ass apartment next week that one day he hopes I’ll share with him. I haven’t said so yet, but I will.
We’ve done well the past month. We’ve come far, and it seems only fitting that I should be penning this as we touch down in Logan Airport in Boston. It seems odd in a way that today is the first day of Spring. Today the earth awakens, a rebirth occurs. But whose? When my mother died it was fall, nearly Samhain (Halloween) and the Earth was dying, preparing for a loss of sun. And now…now my father is dead and it’s Spring.
“Buffy, baby, we’re here,” Spike said gently touching her arm.
“I know,” she replied absently and smiled weakly at him.
“Feel better that you wrote?”
She nodded, shoving her journal in her industrial sized purse. “I do. Sort of. I feel like I have more inside me, more to say.”
“There will be time.”
Buffy nodded, contemplating that. Was there time? Would there be time? Time, she was learning, was fleeting. It went by so fast or so slow, depending. She was learning that how you spent that time was all that mattered. Did you spend it in misery and hate, or did you spend it in joy and love? Did you fight for yourself and others, or did you just lie down and die, alone?
“God,” she muttered to Spike as they filed out of the plane, “I hate my thoughts sometimes. I hate this whole dying business. I hate how it makes you think.”
“Where are we meeting Judith again?”
“We’re not. I don’t want to be there. Can we just check in to our hotel instead? We have time.”
“Sure, luv. Do you want to see Giles after?”
“Thinking I might need to commit myself again?” Buffy asked, only slightly teasing as they made their way to baggage claim.
“Well, since we’re in town and it is the day of your father’s funeral…”
“Yeah, I guess I could. I should call.”
“I’ll call. Just focus on our luggage.”
Buffy watched him walk away, whipping out his cell and she had to smile softly. That was Spike all over, worried about her till the end. She had to say though, she was faring well. Not knowing how to feel did that. She felt numb, but not the kind of numb she felt when Joyce died. It was more shock at this point and the feeling that once her father was buried, she would have no choice but to bury other things with him.
Patting her pocket, she felt for the letter she’d written the night before and sighed with relief on feeling it still there. Yes, lots of things to bury with him.
The cemetery had a mix of grass and melting snow, which caused mud. Buffy’s boots sunk into the mud as she listened to the priest say a few words over his casket. Every so often she would lift her boots up, one at a time and took pleasure in the suctioning sound of them being draw up from the wet dirt. Her stepsisters would giggle through their moderately shed tears each time and Judith would give them and then Buffy a stern look. Spike seemed oblivious, lost in his own thoughts as he watched the proceedings, and Buffy clutched the letter she would drop in the ground with her father.
When Judith had called to tell her that her father was dead, Buffy had frozen and gone silent. Spike had been there and when she didn’t even answer him, he had snatched the phone from her to talk with whoever “the blazing hell got her so upset”.
Buffy remembered the thought that went through her head at that moment. It’s over.
Apparently his cancer was worse than anticipated and in other places that seemed to spread rapidly. It was as if the second he found out he had it, it grew and took on a life of its own. It had a life of its own.
Cruel and sudden death.
“Ashes to ashes…dust to dust…” the priest said.
And then came the obligatory pouring of Earth on his coffin. Buffy sat down in her chair behind her and waited. She didn’t need or want an audience for this. Instead she watched the people file out, watched some cry, some somberly just walk away.
“Will you come to the house?” Judith asked as she led Eveline and Madeline away.
“I might,” Buffy replied, not really wanting to. Unsure if she should or even could.
Spike squeezed her hand as he sat quietly beside her and she smiled at him gratefully.
“Well, if you do, I have some things you might want,” Judith continued.
Buffy nodded and stared down at her father’s mahogany casket with gold trim. Even in death he was in style.
“Do you want to go there?” Spike asked her once Judith was out of earshot, sloshing through the mud and yelling at Eveline for stomping.
“No,” Buffy replied, shaking her head, “I don’t want to.”
“You sure?”
“For now, yes.” And she stood then, drawing her letter out of her pocket and standing before the hole.
“What’s that then, pet?”
“A letter to him. I wrote it last night.”
“Do you want me to give you some privacy?”
“No. I want you to stay and hold my hand.” Now the tears were coming and her voice was trembling with the fight to keep them at bay. “Will you?”
“Of course,” Spike whispered and stood, clasping his hand in hers as she held the letter open with her other hand.
Taking a deep breath, she began.
“Dear Dad,
I love you even if you don’t want me to. In some ways I will always be your little girl.
I forgive you, even if you aren’t sorry and didn’t ask for forgiveness, or think that you did anything to be sorry for.
I wish you peace.
Love, Buffy.”
The tears came as soon as she dropped the letter in with him. Not a lot written, but it was all she really needed to say. There was no reason to say anything hateful or mean. Spike pulled her into a hug and let her sob her heart out as much as she needed, which was a lot. She wasn’t sure how long she stood there, him holding her, but when she pulled her boots from the mud, it took some work and the suctioning noise was louder than before.
“I’m ready to see Giles now,” she said, looking up at Spike.
Spike smiled gently and pushed some hair from her face. “Come on luv. Let’s get a cab and call him, eh? Have a drink and catch up with an old friend…”