4. The Very Last Time

Chucky Chevre kneaded the dough. Viola went over to him and squealed excitedly.

A stranded tray lay nearby, butter paper pressed onto it. "Can I grease it please?" Viola asked, looking up at Chucky Chevre.

Chucky Chevre nodded and muttered something inaudible.

Viola looked at the cookies and forgot all about the trumpets and her mothers orders and finishing school. She picked up the bar of butter nearby and thumped it onto the tray. She picked it up and thumped it again, until it broke into two. She continued to do the same until the butter was all tiny pieces, which she rubbed over the butter paper with her ring finger.

Chucky Chevre looked over at her in utter disgust.

"That..is not how you grease The butther," he scowled. So did Viola.

Chucky Chevre came over and artistically brushed over the remanants of the butter over the platter. Viola felt offended, but he was the chef, so she glanced once more at her clock and slid off as Chucky Chevre slid the cookies into the oven. What did it matter if the trumpets kept blaring? She had to leave soon.

As she went back into the hall, she silently thanked each one of the poitraits for watching over her all these years. She remembered all the times she had spent in the hall, and the house. With her mother..and the servants. Running around as they chased her, yelling "Mees Viola, eet is thime for yoor baath!" Playing in the mud, naming worms, and breaking all sorts of rules, and then watching the attempts of all the servants to hide what she had done from her mother, and then Naydia the maid accidentally spilling it out anyways. Making them play trains and princesses and animals with her. Forcing them to do her homework. The time they had all attempted to make her look good for a last minute fancy dress competition, and had wrapped her up in old newspapers and magazines. When they had gone to the beach and they had almost drowned her, since they had never seen a sea before and didn't know how it worked. Racing up the stairs and sliding down. No one would hurt her more than they did, but no one tied the bandage better. So many countless memories that ran like a tape through her mind, filling her with overwhelming love and nostalgia.

Sometimes, the servants had served more as family than Viola's actual one, with her dad being dead and her mother being the police. She had laughed with them, she had laughed at them, and despite them being forced to answer her at the ring of a bell, they would never deny her orders, or get mad at her(visibly) but would do everything to make her feel at home, at her own home. The servants may have been one of a kind, but they were still..her friends. The only friends she had ever known. Her childhood. And now she was all on her own. Sometimes it's hard to let go.

Because it's only when you let go that you realise how tightly you were holding on to something. And how tightly it was holding on to you. And then you don't want to let go. Even if you have to. Because someday, you do.

It was Viola's turn to let go today. To let go of everyone she had ever known and loved all at once. Without anyone to eye roll at she knew her eyes would cry tears of boredom and the pain of losing. Who was going to tell her that there was a car coming to her right? Who was going to show up at her first show, or clap for her when she baked a cake all on her own? Who was going to tuck her in? Or jolt awake when she sneezed? Or nag at her to eat her food, or take her bath? Or put her book down, "you've been reading for too long,"? She used to hate their love but maybe what she really hated is that she knew it wouldn't last. Because sooner or later, every car has to brake. Every show has to stop. Every cake has to finish. Every book has to come to an end, even the book of life. And its not up to you whats the last page. Thats up to destiny. And so is everything else.

As Viola turned towards her new chapter, more thoughts of love and loss and pain and childhood and impermeneance flooded her mind, as if she was analysing a poem. But she wasn't, she was analysing reality, not that there was much difference. And she reached the living room for the very last time, and she took as much as she could in, and then she let it all go into the void of thoughts in her head, and went to the front lawn, where her entire family was waiting.

And from there it was a flurry. Goodbyes were waved, cookie packets were handed, things were checked, wishes for a safe journey were given, and a few tears were shed, mostly by Bowram the butler, but that's fine.

An Viola sat in the carriage for the very last time, and as she turned over she looked at her home for the very last time, knowing very well she would never come back, for that is what destiny desired. The white structure loomed high up, the shape of a typical house, purple linings, long glass windows with red velvet curtains where she had so often peeked and read, a fine backyard where she blew bubbles and ran around and jumped and swung and played in the mud and made nests, a small chimney jutted out where she had hunted for Santa Claus, the little white mailbox to which Chucky Chevre had lifted her up and let her peek inside, and the little balcony where she had written poems and had discussions with Naydia the maid, and through the grilled window she saw the room, the room where she was just sitting, her first room, her last room, her childhood room, her only room, but it seemed long ago, so long ago, never to come back as the house faded into the distant past and the carriage drove away to the looming future. She turned around and sat down firmly, fingering the ends of her frock, a nervous habit.

And soon enough unfed sedatives called anxiety kicked in and lulled her to sleep. And she drifted off to dreamland, as Molly, Polly, and Dolly, took turns holding her little finger and patting her back and she dreamt about strange figures who spread their lips out widely at her and threw her up in the air only to catch her again and stuffed things into her mouth and put her off to sleep, mouthing something that spelt out something like "love." And she went to sleep wondering what it was, for the last time, for the very last time.