My grandma's untold secret: Part II

This is Part II of my grandma's story.
You'll find Part I of her story here.

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Part I ended with her finding out about her husband's death. This is what happened next:
She told the family about what had happened, and they all came to see her and the kids and to give them support. It seemed like there were more people coming every day, everyone bringing heaps of food that remained untouched.

People from the Communist Party came to see her and they told her they’d bring his remains home the next day. In the morning she dressed the kids in their Sunday clothes and told them not to get dirty because important people would be coming soon. The boys were excited; their favourite cousins came to see them!

They wanted to go to the playground with them, but their mother ordered them to stay inside the house and sit. The oldest boy was 10 years old, so he understood what had happened. He helped out his mother with his younger brothers, trying to make things easier for her and she was thankful to him.

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She still hadn’t cried at all. People thought how strong she was, that she kept herself together for the boys. But really, she didn’t feel sad enough to cry and she hoped people wouldn’t notice that. Everyone kept telling her how sorry they were, that she must have been devastated because he was such a good husband, they loved each other so much… of course, she didn’t say otherwise.

All day they were waiting for the coffin to arrive, the kids trying to keep clean. Every time they snuck outside, someone shouted at them and ordered them to come back in. They didn’t understand what was going on, why couldn’t they just go and play?! It was unbearable, sitting inside the house in the heat all day, all her family squashed inside their 2 bedroom apartment. Everyone wanted to help, but really she just wanted all this to be over. The night came and the coffin didn’t arrive.

The communist party’s leader told them the coffin would probably come the next day.
In the morning she went through the same routine again, dressing up the kids and herself in their Sunday clothes, ordering them to behave and sit inside all day. The two younger boys cried a lot, they were bored despite their older brother’s efforts to entertain them. This day crept by even slower than the one before. Someone was on watch in the window the whole time to look out for the coffin and the communist leaders, but darkness came again and there was still no sign of the coffin.

She didn’t know how much longer she’d be able to do this for, waiting for her dead husband’s body to finally arrive from Bulgaria. She started hearing gossip now; they were saying her husband didn’t really drown, but he was killed by some rebels against communism. She didn’t tell them how good of a swimmer her husband was. Despite the gossip, there was never any official investigation into his death, or at least not one my grandma knew of.

Finally late into the third day, she saw a long black car coming into the yard. That was it, she thought. Slowly, she took her 3-year old in her arms, the two older kids beside her, and they walked out to the car. There were men in black suits surrounding the back of the car, they greeted her, giving her their condolences, not saying anything about the 2-day delay. They said the Communist Party would pay for the funeral of course.

They buried him a few days later and she could have sworn everyone she’d ever known came. She still couldn’t cry, she felt nothing inside but relief. Finally, she and her kids would be left in peace, and she could bring them up to be good, caring men. She would do everything for them to become the very opposite to her late husband.

During this time the friend who had always supported her, came to see her whenever he could, helping her with the kids, staying with them when she couldn’t. She was very thankful to him, she knew that without him things would have been much more difficult. Sometimes she wondered though, wasn’t he too nice to her, didn’t he look at her too long sometimes? But she knew she’d never want another man in her life, and she was careful not to encourage him.

She struggled a lot bringing three kids up on her own, earning just enough to clothe and feed them, but she gave them all the love in the world and she was happy she had them. All three of her sons became good men and loving husbands, just like she wanted them to.

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People kept asking why she never remarried. She responded by saying that she still loved her dead husband too much. The only one who knew the truth was her loyal friend. He gave her support until his death, and on his deathbed, he finally confessed to my grandmother. He told her he was always in love with her, while she was married and after that too. What he said after that shocked my grandma. According to him, my grandfather’s death might not have been an accident after all. My grandma didn’t know what to say. Did he mean he killed him or somehow helped him to his death? She kept his confession to herself though, he was probably delirious and didn’t know what he was saying.

The love between my grandma and her husband has always been legendary. She never told anyone the truth… until much later. She was in her 80s when my mum (her daughter-in-law) was visiting her and they were talking in the kitchen about things in the past. My mum asked why she never married again, wouldn’t things have been easier with a man in the house? And that’s when my grandma told her everything, the whole story of her unhappy marriage. In the end, she said ‘He was such a bad man, I swore I’d never marry again because for me marriage meant suffering. I was happier on my own’. My mum was shocked ‘But I thought your marriage was perfect?’, she uttered. ‘Yes,’ my grandma answered ‘everyone thought that I never wanted anyone to know the truth because they’d think I failed.’

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Now you’d think that’s the end of this story, but not yet. There was another blow, the hardest of all blows that hit my poor grandma when she was in her 60s. Her youngest son, my father died when he was just 40 years old. I can’t and I don’t want to imagine the pain she was in. I thought it must have been so hard for her, both her husband and then her son dying so young! But she lived through the pain, although I don’t think she’d ever been the same smiling, kind grandma I used to know.

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