Frankie woke up to the darkness and silence of her bedroom. For just a minute she felt a calm that she suspected she had not felt in a long time, then came the panic, and then like a big rush everything came back to her. Slowly she turned and looked at the bottle of pills at her bedside table she contemplated taking more and going back to sleep, but she knew she had to face the world sometime and why not then? Slowly she walked to the bathroom and opened the door. For an instant she just stood there looking at the shower, remembering the last time they had been there, together! Happy memories, hats what they ought to be, but instead they were nightmares! She gave herself a mental shake and closed the door again. It didn't matter what she did, everything was a nightmare! Every place in her house reminded her of what she had done, what they had done. She could see it painted all over her house. INCEST! INCEST! INCEST! INCEST!

Yesterday she had scrapped off all the sheets from her bed, gotten new ones and spread those instead, but still she had not been able to sleep until she had taken a slight overdose of some sleeping pills! Now, she couldn’t bring herself to use the shower at her place, too many memories, too many curses, she rummaged through her handbag and retrieved her phone. She had switched it off since she had been avoiding calls from her mother. Slowly she sat at the bed as she started replaying the scene of that fateful day in her head!

The room had been silent and both Greg and Frankie were staring at her mother like they were expecting her to burst out laughing and say this was some kind of a joke. But that didn’t happen, instead, she lifted hey eyes to her daughter and she had tears in her eyes…

“I’m sorry,” she whispered he voice heavy with emotion, then turning to Greg she started to apologize but Greg held his hand up to stop her, then without giving Frankie a glance he walked out of the house! Frankie was too dazed to speak! The nightmare seemed to be going on and on and no matter how hard she tried she just didn’t seem to be waking up from it. She gasped when she felt a hand on her shoulder, she turned to seethe tearful face of her mother, she was openly crying now as she said on and on how sorry she was. What was she to do? Feel sorry for her? She had just ruined her life! They had just ruined her life!? She just couldn’t think straight just then, she wanted to be alone, she needed to be alone.

“Please Ma, just go!” She knew what she had just told the daughter was breaking her heart. And that heart her too. But she also knew the sane thing to do was give her time, there would be room to talk, but right now, right now, she needed to be alone. Gathering her bag that she had dropped down when she came in, she left the house, all the time praying and hoping there would be room for her to talk with her daughter!

Frankie had just stood there feeling lost! Then finally, she had wanted to get as far away from the house as possible. So after closing up the house and putting back her set of keys that Greg had given to her under the door mat, she had taken a taxi home, locked herself up in her room, got herself drunk with all the drinks that were in the house, then finally, slept!

She had twelve messages on her phone, six were from her mother and she didn’t bother opening them. Five were from friends, each just worried and asking why her phone was off. And one was from Greg, with trembling fingers, she opened it.

“We need to talk, meet me at the office tonight at 10pm!” That was it? What else had she expected him to say? Did she even think it was a good idea to meet and talk about anything right now? It had just been two days since the nightmare began….they still needed more time to come to terms with everything, or so she thought. But then, would they ever come to time with anything? How did people move on after going through what they were going through? She looked at her watch, 9:25! If she hurried she would be able to make it to Wairimu’s place, have a quick shower before heading off and meeting with Greg. He needed closure, they needed closure, and talking could just be what they needed to do to achieve that!

Frankie knocked the door to Greg’s office at about quarter past 10. She had tired to make it on the appointed time but Wairimu had had so many questions that she had worked on avoiding to answer and by the time she left for the office she was already late. She knocked again, harder this time, and then tried the door, it was open. Slowly, she opened it wider till she could see Greg standing at the far end of the room. Slowly she stepped into the office and closed the door. At the sound of the door closing Greg turned around and they stood there stating at each other for a long time, then he gave her a wan smile.

“You look beautiful,” he drawled! Frankie stiffened, he wasn’t supposed to say things like that, not now, she thought

“Thank you!” She said as she returned his smile with a similar one. She wasn’t too sure what else to say. Then after a silence that seemed to stretch on forever Greg said,

“I don’t want to keep you here longer than necessary,” he said as he removed one of his hands from his pocket. Frankie took her gaze away from his face to look at his stretched hand, and saw the small velvet box, quickly her gaze turned back to his face, there was that smile again, “Take it,” he urged quietly. Slowly her hand reached for it and after a minute’s hesitation, she opened it. It was a ring. The most beautiful ring she had ever seen. It wasn’t expensive, she could tell that, but it was beautiful. “Sorry I don’t have some romantic line that goes along the lines of it belonged to my grandmother or anything like that!” He said with a smile. A real smile. Frankie was getting more and more unsettled. This was not how this meeting was supposed to go. This was not what she had expected. She had expected to see a disheveled man, yet Greg looked all smart and calm. Except for the sadness in his eyes he was just about his normal self. And now he was giving her a ring? And making a joke?

“Greg,” she started but Greg interrupted by putting a finger on her lips silencing her. Another wrong move, too many memories. Greg’s hands dropped to her shoulders.

“I was going to give it to you that night.” He said with a bitter smile, “It’s yours. Keep it! I want you to!” Then giving her shoulder a little squeeze, he let go of her.

“I don’t know…,”she started but her emotions got the better and her voice broke

“Am going away Fran, tonight! I just wanted to say goodbye.” She nodded. Not trusting her voice to speak. “Its is best!” He added giving her the sad smile again.

Taking a deep breath, she finally responded.

“I know!” she lifted her tear filled eyes to him, “where are you going?” she wasn’t even sure she wanted to know. But there was a part of her that did. He was her brother…had been her lover!

“I think it’s better if you don’t know that.” He said slowly. He was right. It was better that way. She still loved him, she probably always would, as a lover, and getting to run into each other wouldn’t be very helpful.

“I think I should go!” She whispered as she turned to put the velvet box into her purse. She looked up in time to see him nod his agreement. The he was in front of her; his hands went around her in a fierce hug. The tears were streaming down her cheeks and dropping on his suit. After about a minute he pulled back, and she saw the tears in his eyes too.

“Goodbye Frankie,” he said finality in his tone. Then dropping a kiss on her forehead, he moved away from her. She waited a second to recollect himself before she headed for the door. “Whose fault was it?” The question was asked just as she was about to open the door. There was a long pause before Frankie said the same thing she had said to herself over and over again,

“It doesn’t matter Greg, it doesn’t change anything!” She didn’t turn and see what his reaction was to that. She quickly yanked the door open and let herself out. Stopping at the front of the elevator between sobs. This meeting hadn’t helped, nothing was helping, and she just wished that Greg could be happy whenever he was going. And that they could both forgive their father for all this.

She heard the breaking glass way before she heard the scream, instinctly she ran back to the office just in time to hear the rest of the scream, then the final thud, then silence. Slowly she walked to the window and looked down. The shock of the moment didn’t allow her to cry. She saw the various security guards run to the scene and confirm the death, then cover his shattered body with one of their jackets. Like a fall from the fifteenth floor still needed confirmation. Slowly she backed away from the window, slowly, as in daze she backed herself on a wall. Slowly she sank to the floor, she felt drained, she just sat there, too dazed to even speak to the security guards that had made their way to the office. She saw one of them pick up a note. An apology, she heard her tell the next guard. The room started spinning. In a distance she heard the sirens, the spinning increased as she shut her eyes and buried her head between her knees, it wasn’t helping. In a distance she heard the men shouting, but in a clearer voice she heard him say,

“Am going away Fran,tonight! I am going away!.”

“Take me with you!” was the last thing she is reported to have said!