Chapter Text
Dana was an unequivocally a morning person. Always the sharpest in the first few hours of the day, waking up early no matter how late she slept the night before. No alarm necessary, she was awake by five in the morning at the latest. Considered staying until six lazy. She had been like that for her entire life, for as long as she could remember, rising before the sun like her body just knew, like her atoms called to something she couldn’t understand. A little blonde head crawling out of bed, tiptoeing down the stairs and sneaking out the backdoor, climbing the tallest tree in the backyard while still clad in her pyjamas, not for any mischief, but just for the chance to breathe in a world suffocating her. She wasn’t entirely sure she understood the sermons she listened to every Sunday, but she expected heaven to look like a version of this, in a way only a child ever thought of the afterlife. From her vantage point, she’d see the sun creep along the horizon like it was reluctant to show itself, peaks and sunbeams until it crested like it was being dragged up. Watched the colours change and the clouds illuminate, and some rare mornings even caught a glimpse of the moon, like she too was wanting to bear witness. Trees went from black marks against the world, to suddenly being an explosion of greens and browns and almost blues, grass sometimes frost-tipped or dew-soaked. If she was late for breakfast, her mother knew where to find her. Sometimes, she’d even join Dana out there, dressing gown wrapped tightly around her and a loving smile for her eldest daughter. Dana would carefully make her way down from her perch, feet muddy, and they’d just sit in silence and bask in the simple glory of it all. Her little morning robin. She cherished those moments like she cherished the sunrise, chips of attention solely for her, not to be shared with her sisters or her father. They’d go inside and share a look, like they were part of a secret, something just for the two of them.
And then she died. Life changed in the space between first and second period with the sun shining down, Dana looking out a window instead of listening to her English teacher wax poetic about Dante’s Inferno, pulled out of class by the principal. Freak car accident on the way home from the grocery store, cleared away by a truck with faulty breaks. It wasn’t real, because she couldn’t see it. The family wasn’t rushed to a hospital, they didn’t sit by her bed and cling to her hand and talk in muted tones about special memories. They went home to an empty house. Stood in front of a coffin they were told were her remains. There was no proof. No evidence. Just a hole in her life and memories of a golden sky. With Dana on the cusp of adulthood but still clinging to the remnants of childhood, the morning became the only time she had for herself, a rare treat to indulge in rather than a routine she could rely on. Stolen moments before her two younger sisters needed breakfast, or her father needed reminding of where his keys were. Glimpsed through the kitchen window, or on the back porch, looking at her tree with a wistful nostalgia she shouldn’t yet be so familiar with but ached between her ribs like a bruise. No one there to sit with her any longer, no one but the birds and the rustling leaves. Memories of a time before she became everything to everyone and nothing for herself, because she had to be. Because someone had to step up. In those few hours, she had no one to answer to. It was more than a vague idea of heaven, because the thought of that made her chest hurt. It was no less beautiful, a sight unshared, but it was lonelier. Larger. The sky looked so much further away.
One she was an adult, with a family of her own, she made a point of reclaiming those few hours. Made them her own, because she had to have something. Left her marriage bed, let her pillow grow cold and tucked the comforter back up. Benji liked the night, and he could have it, as long as he gave her this, and if he had any complaints when she went to bed early, while he was still sitting in his recliner with his second or third or fourth beer in hand, she turned a deaf ear to them. She didn’t complain about the TV echoing down the hall into the wee hours of the night, and always gave a sympathetic smile when he whined that it was so hard to wake up in time for his shift. Maybe she could have gently persuaded him to retire with her, but she didn’t. Because, frankly, she didn’t want to. It made them ships passing in the night and she was fine with that, even if somewhere in the back of her mind she knew that shouldn’t be the case. She enjoyed waking up before the rest of her family, relished in the quiet time before sunrise when it was just her, and her coffee, and the morning birds. Rain or snow, she was out in the backyard, watching as the steam curled off her mug and up into the slowly lightening blue. On days she had work, that time was cut short by the necessity of having to get ready. To stand under the too harsh light of her bathroom and shower, when she wanted to live in that soft gold and blue for as long as she could, but comforted by the knowledge that she’d get another chance at it. When she was off, though? She’d sit out there and stare at the sky until there was no denying that a new day had started, and she couldn’t avoid responsibly any longer. Until she had to go inside, and make sure breakfast was on the table, and Benji knew where his boots were, and the girls got on the bus. The same routine day after day, even as her older two moved on to college, and families of their own. By the time all that was done, the sky would be a bright blue, and the sun would hurt her eyes. The birds would be drowned out by traffic, and neighbours, and airplanes. Beautiful, sure. She could appreciate the beauty in it. But it wasn’t hers, the way the morning was. For a while, it started to weigh on her, only having those few hours. Life seemed to get smaller, the walls closing in around her any time she wasn’t sitting there looking at the sky. Or maybe Dana just hadn’t noticed them quite as clearly. Had grown used to only showing different facets of herself in the different roles in her life. Charge nurse. Caretaker. Wife. Mother. Never going deeper than that. Never allowing herself to. Becoming disheartened when it seemed like even those closest to her couldn’t see past it.
And then they finally called time of death on the marriage, and she would never tell a soul but it felt like being reborn. Maybe she should have been sadder about it, shed tears over the end of an era. She’d been married longer than not, had slipped the ring on before she’d even really known who she was, and she’d been grieving for longer than she hadn’t. It had been dead for years, a thing dragged behind her like a weight she could finally shed, one she’d finally decided it was time to put down. It came with it’s own issues, fighting for the house and working out custody of their youngest and having to explain to her entire family that they may have been married for three decades, but that she still couldn’t stomach the idea of another day. It disappointed her parents, who were loud in their opinions and lived far enough away that she could ignore them. Because it also came with a lightness to her step, an ease to her smile that she hadn’t seen in the mirror in years. The dark bags under her eyes, earned by changing herself for him, faded slowly. The scars across her psyche would remain, and she didn’t think they’d heal entirely, but they were no longer open wounds, bleeding at every new strike. The first morning after the divorce was finalised after months of acrimonious fighting, she woke hours before the dawn. It was freezing, she could feel the snow coming in the air and see her breath in front of her, and none of it mattered. Pulled a chair right out onto the grass, held her thermos in one hand, and waited. Waited. Waited. It came slowly, creeped up on her, from pitch black to dusty grey, a sun struggling against the blanket of clouds in the sky until it peeked through the cracks like spun gold. Her coffee went cold, and her nose was bright red, and her fingers were numb. She loved every moment.