"Nicolette!" Mother yelled as we arrived home. "Nicolette!"

"Yes Mrs. Stewart," Nicolette hurried down the stairs.

"Pack your things and get out of this house!" My mother shouted like a mad woman.

"Mother wait," I got in the middle of it.

"I never want to see you anywhere near my family again!"

"Mrs. Stewart please," Nicolette had tears in her eyes.

"This is your fault Nicolette! If Joan had been properly looked after her fever would have been dealt with! It was a fever for God's sake! How could you let her die!" Mother lunged at Nicolette to hit her but I stepped in between them.

"I swear I did everything I could, I tried to..." Nicolette cried so much she could barely talk.

"I will not hear one more word from you! Out! Out of my house!" My mother said ready to choke Nicolette to her demise.

"Please go Nicolette, I will make sure you are looked after I promise." I hurried her knowing this was not my mother's normal behavior and the staff was put to humbleness around my mother for the first time.

In her white bed laid Joan, my little sister had been dead for two days and my mother stared from the door at her then rushed off into her bedchamber and I walked in to see Joan laid asleep blue and frigid so I covered her with her blanket up to the neck as if I could somehow make her warm again. Alas, I fixed the little white bonnet on her head and put a couple of flowers that were by her bed on top of her so that her body might not smell rotten, the chills it gave me to touch it, the heavy weight of such a small little thing as I dressed her in the prettiest outfit we had for her.

And after arranging Joan I tried to console and persuade mother to go see Joan, "mother may I come in?"

"No stay away!" Mother yelled from inside her locked room.

"Mother come see Joan, please."

"No! She is not here anymore!"

"Mama..."

"Go away Alice, leave me in peace, I need to sleep!"

"Alright, if you need anything call me," I said but she did not respond.

"Milady? What happens now?" Edna asked looking to me for some direction of what to do with Joan and mother.

"Tell Mrs. Miller and Mrs. Trudor to arrange the funeral and you Edna guard this door, guard mother and nothing else please."

"Yes Milady," she stood by the door and I rang Mrs. Trudor to give Edna a chair to sit while she guarded the door.

The day of the Joan's funeral was upon us, the tragedy was sent to the papers under the obituary and small letters written by me were sent to the few families we were close with to be in attendance. Edna helped me into a black dress, a black veil, shoes and gloves although I had looked forward to celebrating Spring I was forced once more into the blackness which never left me alone for long.

"Is mama ready?" I asked Edna.

"Yes she is, she said she would wait in her room until you were ready to go," Edna passed the news.

"Thank you," I walked over to mama' room but there was no trace of my mother and outside the window of her bedchamber I saw her heading east by herself.

"Mother!" I shouted wanting to know what could she possibly have to do moments before Joan's funeral.

"Edna my mother has gone out I am going to her, do not let anyone start the funeral!"

"Yes Lady Alice," she said from my room and I followed my mother through the busy streets of London where the dirt and bad smells looked endless.

Then I knew where mother was going, she was heading into the slums where our home was, where the amount of hungry children was overwhelming, I kept stopping to put coins into their calloused working hands but found I soon ran out of them. The slums overwhelmed any human with a heart, where the dirty faced hard workers lived, where there were no gentlemen or fine ladies laughing without worries, this was still so real yet I had almost forgotten all about it. How could I when I was just living here? How could this new life have made me forget this so easily? Lost in my own flaws I forgot about where I was going or who I was following and felt tears coming out when another little hand reached out asking for bread so I gave it my gloves instead and once I looked up there was mother beholding our house from a distance then I saw a glimmering from the silver of a gun in her hand.

"Mother!" I yelled and she saw me.

"No Alice stay back!" She held the gun up to her heart and pushed me off her.

"Give me the gun mother!" I said with an open hand as our situation was muffled by the busy London life happening around us.

"Go home Alice and take care of Daniel," she asked crying.

"No how could you think of doing such a thing! And on the day I have to bury Joan!"

"Yes on the day I have to bury my daughter! My daughter Alice! This is not right!"

"No but if you have any chance of seeing her again this is not how you do it!"

"Alice I cannot go there, I cannot see another person I love, another one of my kin, born out of this body in a coffin! This is much too anguish to handle, I am not strong, I thought I was, but no I am not, I am not like you," her tears drenched her face as she talked sitting on the dirty London floor.

"Yes but I am here and so is your son! Take courage mama."

"You are not here for long you shall marry soon and as for your brother he already belongs somewhere else and you are all he needs from here on out. You both will better off in society if you do not have to drag your father's mistake through life so you must let me do this, while I still have the courage."

"No this isn't courage? Courage is for the living! Courage is to endure this pain which dangles us over the abyss of hell while we live! Now give me the gun and I shall promise to be your constant companion for the rest of your days however many those are. We can go away to the country house and rest from society for as long as you want but this right here I cannot let you do this! I have seen the deaths you have seen and you cannot ask me to watch this one as well, you are my mother do not do this to me please," I asked her with my hands open waiting for the gun.

"Oh Alice!" She let the gun tumble on the floor thankfully it did not shoot and I reached to grab it, "how you have suffered too my dear, I am sorry, forgive me Alice, please, forgive your foolish mother."

"I forgive you mother, shhh, I forgive you," I hugged her then got her up from the floor put her in a coach to take us the church.

The first part of the funeral began at the church where everyone wore black and the priest said a few words before the hearse picked the coffin to go to the cemetery. Mother attended only the church part of the funeral because her reaction sent her nerves into a downward spiral and Mrs. Trudor and a doctor took her home after she fainted.

"Daniel!" I said as a tall boy walked through the church's door, it was my brother in pale distress.

"Sister," he came in and embraced me with tears in his eyes, "was that our mother being carried off from the funeral?"

"Yes, you must imagine how difficult it is to attend her daughter's funeral." I would not let him in the problem; I wanted him to grieve in peace without worrying for mother's well-being which would be up to me.

"I should visit more often, I will, I promise it's just there is so much learning and I had to fit so many studies into a small amount of time to follow in step with the others students..."

"I know, I know, do not worry, you have not been negligent, just come here," I said and Daniel cried quietly on my shoulder until it was time for the procession.

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No part, character, names, plot, setting, conflict or resolution, point of view, theme or symbolism of this story may be replicated.

Copyright: All Rights Reserved to A. Sena Gomes.