Isobel Part 5

 This is it so far but I wanted to hear your thoughts at this point...

She hadn’t considered that their grief together in one space could possibly be too much. She had thought that she could offer him some kind of protection but in fact she had only breeched her own securities. There was nothing left to give. When she came home and found his door shut she knew better than to knock, she could feel his mood as soon as she’d opened the front door. The washing up was done but the kitchen hadn’t been disturbed since, there was no trace of him throughout the house. She went to her bedroom to change with the vague notion of getting their mum there for back up. The dressing table was in disarray; nail varnish remover rolled to a stop by the wall, moisturiser balanced on its side. Her three framed photographs were knocked flat and as she leant in to pick them up she noticed that one wasn’t there at all. It was impossible to stop the immediate flash of rage that went with her brother in her bedroom but she made herself sit down in the high-backed chair. She looked out at the nothing landscape of lit up city buildings until her eyes found the dark blankness that signified the sea; as she did the light pinpricks in the buildings windows blurred together and the flat expanse disappeared altogether. That picture was hers. It had belonged to her before he even knew Isobel and now he had taken that too. She got up silently and closed her own door. The sound of it meeting the frame disturbed Chris enough for him to recognise his sister’s presence in the house. He sighed and let the coldness seep into his mind, now he couldn’t help but feel the ache of holding the same position and he had to get up from the end of the bed. He ran his hands over his face and into his hair as if checking he had returned from an invisible state. He knew he had to leave the room. It was one of the reasons he had chosen to move into his sisters house; to make him move when all he would do is sit and stare. He went into the bathroom and splashed his face with warm water. He found his hands aching at the feel of the hot water and he ran them under the tap until it got too hot for him to bear.
    Janey heard him move and her anger left her replaced only with relief. If he could get up from that photograph then she would have to too. She redid her make up and got into jeans and three layers of thin jumpers. She turned all the lights on in the house and switched the heating on. She put the TV on and turned up the volume of the news and with that the house felt inhabited more by the living than by a ghost.
“Did you make your list?” She asked once she’d dished up a prawn stir fry.
“No. It was a crazy idea,”
“Not really.”
“I mean where do I start?”
“What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know or I’d do it.”
“Not one thing but just ideas about the bits of jobs that you like.”
“Like what?”
“People?”
“No I don’t like people.”
“Chris.”
“I don’t, not anymore.” She had thought his anger diminished but now she heard it biting at the edge of his comment.
“Okay.” She went on eating although Chris’ fork stayed in the middle of his half empty plate.
“Sorry.” She waved his apology away with a look that suggested it made no odds to her.
“About the picture.” He said quietly not looking at her. She blushed.
“I’d like it back.”
“Of course.” She picked up the plates and cleared them to the sink.
“I went to find some paper to make this list of yours and I saw it. I didn’t mean to take it or anything.”
“It’s okay.” She said finally.