To All Our Saviors

She wondered what he was thinking. She had realized since his return home that she could not read him anymore. He was changed; six years away had altered him greatly, and in ways that Alexandria did not understand. What might have been a joyous homecoming had been in contrast a clash of expectation and disappointment.

Of course he looked different; older, certainly. He was a man now, a fact that did not escape the notice of his sisters, for he had always been handsome, but his maturation had impacted more than just his looks. That was what troubled Alexandria as she gazed over at him. His posture was rigid and closed, his expression stoic. He stood away from them, far from the chair that had been designated for him. He was separated from his family, from the mourners that had gathered for the somber ceremony, from the white-collared priest delivering the eulogy, from the wooden coffin waiting to be lowered into the ground. He was apart from it all, and when Alexandria looked at him, she could not truly see.

There were eight chairs in a solemn row, seven of them occupied by grieving women, and his—the only seat to Alexandria’s right—remained vacant. She looked to her left to see her daughters, all of them sharing the same loss, all of them coping in their own way.

Mary Anna was the oldest, thirty years old in a month, and she was Alexandria’s help around the house. She was constantly rushing about, picking up after her siblings, scolding them for one thing or another. Lovingly, of course, everything she did was out of love and concern for her family. Dawson, two years Mary Anna’s junior, cared little for the state of the house and far more for the condition of the people within it. Even now she was comforting poor, shy Philomena, who was of a delicate constitution and had always been heavily dependent on her sisters for care and support.

Elspeth was holding Philomena’s other hand, bouncing it on the knee that she could never manage to keep still. She had been responsible for planning most of the service and Alexandria reminded herself to thank Elspeth for how beautifully everything had turned out. Sylvie was a matter of days away from turning twenty-two, and was by all accounts the boldest of the girls, possibly the most beautiful as well. She was a smart girl, often too much so for her own benefit, and her forehead was often creased with lines of deep thought on one thing or another.

Seventeen-year-old Taren sat beside Sylvie, watching her sister’s face. Sylvie and Taren were sisters by birth as well as by blood, and Taren wanted nothing more than to be like Sylvie. In reality, the two could not have been more different. Youngest of the group was Gwendolyn, only a few months into her fourteenth year. Perhaps because she was the youngest or perhaps because she had always been a bit of a tomboy, Gwendolyn had been very close to Peter. Their relationship had deepened further still in the years since Leighton had left. Leighton, that was the name of the boy—no longer a boy—who stood away from them.

Alexandria had found it a challenge through the years not to make a favorite of any one of her children. If she had, though, she may have been forgiven it, for they all loved Leighton best. Peter, especially, had adored the boy, the one male child with seven sisters, five of them older than him. The girls had doted on him from the day he had come to live with them. He was spoiled on their affections and on the attention they lavished upon him. For all they gave to him, he returned it tenfold. He was lively and fun-loving, the first to laugh or tell a joke, always doing something exciting. He was the light of their house. That was what made it so hard to see him like this.

They never should have let him go. Alexandria knew it now. In truth, they had known it then, too, but they had been too caught up to realize it. She and Peter had wanted nothing but the best for their children, and as Leighton was the only boy, they had always been careful to do right by him. It seemed only proper to afford him the education that Peter and Alexandria were not equipped to provide.

They sent him to the finest school, a boys academy in Versailles, where he was instructed in all the things a childhood in a house full of women had denied him. He had been only fourteen when he left them, and six years passed without even a letter. Visits were not allowed at such an elite institution, and 

personal activities such as letter-writing were dismissed as distracting to the students. So Peter, Alexandria, and the seven sisters had waited over half a decade for his graduation. When the day finally came, the boy they had been anticipating was not who returned.

Such a painful epiphany. He had been home only four months before Peter had fallen ill. The sickness stretched on for weeks and what sorrow had not been spent on the change in Leighton was poured out over the devastating effects of the disease. The house fell into disarray, despite Mary Anna’s best efforts to keep up appearances. Alexandria had done her best to hold things together, even when it became evident that a painful death would be the only reprieve from the illness. The knowledge had given everyone time to prepare, but it had also given them a lasting image what it was to pass from the world. Even so, it was a lovely funeral.

The priest stood before the small crowd, a leather-bound Bible in his hands. He had a typed copy of the eulogy—a generic remembrance with fill-in-the-blanks. Dearly beloved we are gathered today to honor the passing of . Today it was a man named Peter Sullivan. Someone’s husband, someone’s father. The priest was not familiar with the family’s religious beliefs, he only knew that he had not seen them at mass, and that the oldest woman had felt obliged to introduce herself to him before the service had begun.

He did not know the family well—the Sullivans, he was forced to assume. He had seen the girls in town, shopping, running errands, and the like. He had even encountered the oldest woman, Alexandria, outside the church after a service. Theirs was a small town, and few were strangers to him. He knew though, looking around as he recited his assurances, that in the years he had served at the parish, he had never seen that boy.

He was dressed appropriately enough; his black suit was standard far for an occasion such as this, but his hair was something to raise an eyebrow at. It was black with thick streaks of paper white, white like the priest had only seen on very old men. The boy could not have been a day over twenty-five, so the priest was left to wonder who would choose to dye their hair in such a fashion. The cut was almost as dramatic, uneven all over and too long for the priest’s liking.

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