In which Hershel is laid to rest. Maggie and the family deal
with grief. Daryl and Maggie share a moment.
...
Five Days Later
Maggie awoke to a pounding headache. Sleep hadn't come
easily, and what little she'd gotten had been nothing but nightmares. She
looked at the clock and saw it was 5:45am. She'd gone to bed at midnight, and
she would count the number of hours of genuine sleep at around two. The old
clock ticked along while she stared out of her bedroom window at the
impenetrable darkness beyond. She couldn't see the lights in town, with her
room at the back of the house, facing away from it. She had the sense she was
staring into a yawning abyss with nothing but cold and loneliness to be found
in its depths.
By the time she looked at the clock she was surprised only a
minute had passed, though it seemed like so more time had gone by. That had
been the case over the past five days since her father's passing. Time crawled
by. It was as though she'd spent months grieving for him, when it had only been
five days. It was torture, the way time crawled along, as though it enjoyed
inflicting suffering on her, and those she loved.
Josephine tried to be strong and brave, but it was an act
that Maggie could see through with ease. After all, the woman had just lost her
best friend, the love of her life. She went about her day as usual, but without
speaking a word. She held Beth with a distant look in her eyes, as though she
was unable to remain in the present, undoubtedly trapped in the past she'd
shared with her husband. She sometimes would smile while washing dishes, or
frown while pushing food around on her plate that she couldn't bring herself to
eat.
Beth refused to leave her room for the first three days.
Often, the sound of bitter tears could be heard, muffled through her closed
bedroom door. When she would come out to shower or eat, she would stare at the
ground, her eyes hollow with grief. It wasn't until Maggie threatened to force
feed her after two days of not eating, that Beth finally managed half a
sandwich before rushing to her room to cry again.
There was something different, that morning, that Maggie
noticed with mixed emotions: The pain wasn't quite as intense. Five days and
she realized that she had a desire to shower, put on something clean, and fix
her hair. The first five days, such normal activity had been a terrible burden,
done with a sense of pointlessness that had been nearly impossible to overcome.
Breakfast was oats with the last bit of sugar and butter
until they could get into town to trade, but Maggie had no doubts they'd be
drowning in food before the night was over. Funeral food. It was so depressing.
Maggie forced down her breakfast but relished the tea from Patricia's little
indoor garden, but she secretly wished it was coffee. With that done, she tried
to ignore her headache and prepare to help her sister and mother get dressed
for the funeral. It was time to lay her father to rest.
…
The piercing ceremony would be held at Douglas Funeral home.
Normally that duty was fulfilled by the eldest son, when a father passed, or
the eldest daughter, when the mother passed, but Josephine decided she'd do it.
She didn't have the heart to ask it of Maggie. They prepared to leave early, to
hitch up the wagon to their only horse and ride the three miles out to the edge
of town to the funeral home, when a black limousine pulled up, bearing the red,
white, blue, and black Genesis flags. Beth took in a deep breath when Noah
climbed out of the driver's seat, in full dress uniform, and ran to him. He
hugged her close and whispered something that made her nod in agreement. He
grabbed something from the limo.
"Mrs. Greene," Noah said, coming to stand before
her, holding the old American flag, perfectly folded into a triangle.
"Shall I hold this for you until after the funeral? Or do you want it now?
It's your choice, Ma'am."
"Hold it," Josephine said. "Was this car your
idea?"
"I couldn't afford it," he answered. "This is
from Col. Dixon. He left this note for you."
He passed a folded sheet of expensive parchment to
Josephine, who quickly read it before tucking it into her purse with a nod.
"Tell him I'd be grateful if he did."
Noah nodded before opening the door so they could climb into
the limo. Otis went in last, and Maggie looked at the house, feeling the
heaviness of grief and sadness weigh on her chest as she remembered her father
standing on the porch, toking on his corn pipe and looking over the family
land. He would never be there again.
Noah had to slowly navigate through the street, which was
now packed with cars and people trying to cross to get to the funeral home,
before he turned to the lot that led around to the rear of the building. Daryl
waited by the rear entrance and held the door open for them, allowing them to
file inside. The smell of spices tinted the air, as did flowers. Maggie
followed one of the employees, who led them to a room filled with red velvet,
cushy pews, crimson carpeting that was soft underfoot, and accented with white
walls. For some reason, she kept thinking of blood on bone and had to close her
eyes against the imagery.
Her father lay on a silver table that had been covered in a
white sheet, dressed in his old military uniform, which her mother had cleaned
and pressed the day before. Theodore Douglas himself was working to wheel him
over to a contraption, bolted to the floor, that had a thin silver lance that
retracted when Theodore pushed a lever forward. Maggie's stomach rolled at the
sight of it and she feared her oatmeal was going to come back up.
"They're gonna stab Daddy in the head," Beth
whispered.
"That's not your Daddy," Josephine said.
"Baby, your Daddy's gone."
The piercing parlor was empty, reserved only for family and
close friends. In this case, it was Josephine, her daughters, Patricia, Otis,
Daryl, and Noah. Maggie sat between her mother and Patricia. She took comfort
in the feel of Patricia's hand gripping hers tight while she watched her father
lie on the table, squirming, struggling to free himself while his mouth, which
had been made up for the funeral, snap and snarl with ravenous, unending
hunger.
It'll be over soon, Daddy, Maggie thought. If you're in
there, it's going to be over soon, and you'll truly be at peace.
Theodore Douglas, the funeral director, and a pastor at
their church, stood by at a respectful distance. He was a large man with a
young, kind face, somber now, in empathy for the family who sat before the
table, waiting for the ceremony to end.
"Is there anyone who would care to speak before the
piercing?" Theodore asked.
Daryl cleared his throat and took his place behind the
ceremonial piercer. He was handsome, his beard neatly trimmed, his hair cut in
the short style of the Security League. His dress uniform was immaculate.
"Miss Josephine, Miss Patricia, and Otis will remember
when I first met Hershel Greene," Daryl said, a ghost of a smile at his
lips. "I was 20 years old, and as wild as a feral boar, about as
dangerous, too. Hershel caught me trying to steal some trout from the icebox he
kept out in the barn to store extra meat. I was starving, dirty, a black eye
and bloody mouth from a recent beating from my father, and I was plenty angry…but
he saw something in me. He saw the potential to change. He hired me as a farm
hand, held the money I earned for over a year so I could get my own place.
Then, when he knew I was ready, he helped me get into the Security League. He
helped me overcome my upbringing to be a better man. He made sure I was
educated, with both book learning and life learning. He wasn't the only one who
helped me. Miss Josephine taught me table manners, how to sew, and how to treat
a lady. Miss Patricia let me practice what I learned on charming her, and Otis
taught me everything he knows hunting and cleaning a kill. The Greene family,
Otis and Patricia included, gave me a good life. I'm who I am now because
Hershel, and you all, took a chance on me. I owe you everything. I'll always be
here for you. I'll never let you down."
Daryl stood behind the piercer and took the lever in hand.
"I Release you, Hershel Greene. Rest in Peace,
Sir."
Daryl pulled the lever, and there was a hard thunking sound
as it hit home, embedded into Hershel's brain. Maggie couldn't stop herself
from reacting, every muscle in her body tensing at the sound. She kept her eyes
squeezed tightly shut, squeezing Patricia's hand too tightly, though the older
woman didn't complain. She simply held on, and used her other hand to pat
Maggie on the leg, while Beth wept into Josephine's shoulder. When Maggie dared
open her eyes, the piercing machine had been removed. The lance had been left
inside Hershel's head. He'd be buried with it.
With his duties complete, Daryl moved aside while Hershel
was wheeled out. Theodore would finish dressing Hershel, make sure the wound
didn't leak, place him in his coffin, and the funeral would begin.
…
The service seemed to drag on forever. Maggie listened to
the stories about her father's acts of kindness. He'd done so much for their
community, as both a veterinarian, and growing extra crops to feed the poor
strictly at cost of the seed. While she was proud of all the genuinely good
things people had to say, she just wanted to go home and lie down. Her head was
splitting open even worse than it had been that morning, and her stomach was
upset. The stress and the grief left her drained. Still, she soldiered on. She
sat through the hour-long service before she walked to the limousine waiting in
outside for the family. They piled back into the car, rode out to the cemetery,
listened to a few words by Theodore Douglas, and then they went home.
As Maggie suspected, they were drowned in food. Casseroles,
cakes, pies, salads, and other foods had been given by their neighbors and
friends. Meat was scarce, which was to be expected, but Maggie saw a beautiful
platter of fried chicken she normally would've dipped into. The smell of it was
making Maggie sick. She hurried outside, onto the front porch, and seconds
later was vomiting over the banister. Nothing really came up. She hadn't had an
appetite since her father passed.
She was surprised when a hand gripped her shoulder and
another pulled her hair back as she heaved.
"Maggie."
Daryl stood next to her, holding her hair from her face, and
then helped her into a chair.
"I'll go get Miss Jo," he offered.
"No, don't," Maggie said, panting. "She's
going through enough, especially with Beth."
"You need to lie down," Daryl said. "Come on.
I'll see you upstairs. You were pale and sick all through the service, you need
some rest now."
"I'm too old to be tucked in, Daryl," she said,
her voice weak and shaky.
"That's an order," Daryl said, pulling her to her
feet and leading her inside.
"I'm not one of your soldiers," Maggie tried to
grouse, but she was too tired to really argue with him. She saw all the faces
of the guests, some she knew well, some she didn't. Some of them she was fond
of, like Carol and Rosita, but others she didn't particularly care for. None of
it mattered. She was simply too wiped out to deal with anything else.
"You know which room is mine?" Maggie said, when
Daryl led her right to her room.
He snorted.
"I know this house like the back of my hand," he
reminded her. "I used to stay in that guest room. You used to make me tuck
you in, till you got too old for it. That crush you had on me was cute,
though."
"I never," Maggie denied, letting Daryl pull down
the covers and pull her shoes off. Once she was under the covers, he promised
he'd return. He did, ten minutes later, with a cup of cooled ginger tea and
some chicken noodle soup.
"I can't eat that, Daryl."
"You'd be amazed how just two or three bites will make
you feel, trust me," he insisted. He sat on the bed and watched her eat a
few bites.
"Take this," he said, once she set the soup aside.
Two of the pills she recognized as aspirin. The tiny blue pill, she didn't.
"What's the blue one?"
"A sedative," he said. "Doc Stookey gave it
to me to give to you. There's one for Beth, too. Miss Jo already gave it to
her. She's probably sleeping already."
"Thanks, Daryl. Thanks for the limo, for the
piercing…for everything," Maggie said, squeezing his hand.
"Not a problem. If you need anything, let me know,
okay?" he said. "I'll do whatever I can."
"I know. Thanks," she said.
"There you are," Josephine said, poking her head
in. "I wondered where you'd got to."
"Daryl drugged me," Maggie said, with a small
smile.
"I'm gonna go," he said, standing and nodding at
Josephine as he strode from the room. He looked back once, nodded, and then
left.
"Mama?" Maggie asked, as soon as Daryl was gone.
"What was the letter Daddy wanted Dr. Stookey to give to you to hand off
to Daryl? I've been meaning to ask but kept forgetting."
"You heard that, huh?"
Maggie waited while her mother stared out of the window. The
day had been a nice, bright, sunny one, as though Heaven was happy to have
gained one of the earth's better angels. The stars were starting to show as the
last of the daylight faded.
"We've got 25 days to save the property," she
said. "The law…"
"We don't have a male heir," Maggie said.
"Otis don't count, he ain't married into the family."
"That's right. There's only you, me, and Beth. One of
us must marry, or give the land over to one of Hershel's family. He's got a
cousin in Collins Settlement who'd just sell the property to the government,
turn a profit, and not give us a single penny from it. We still won't see a
penny if the government takes the land."
Maggie's head was still thumping, but it began to lessen.
She started to sit up, only to have her mother place a hand on her chest and
ease her back down.
"That's where Daryl comes in," Josephine said.
"Your father asked him to marry one of you girls to save the family land.
He said I should choose one of you. I'm a widow. Widows aren't allowed, by law,
to remarry for a year, or I'd find somebody just to save the land and free you
girls from the responsibility."
"Which one of us did you pick?" Maggie said.
"Neither, of course," Josephine said, with a sad
smile. "I'm not gonna force you into a marriage. I'm not selling my girls,
not even for the land."
"This farm has been in Daddy's family for a hundred
fifty years," Maggie pointed out. "We can't just lose it."
"Can you really ask Beth to get married now, at twenty
years of age?" Josephine said. She looked so despondent. "I can't ask
that of you, either."
"I'll do it, though," said Maggie. "I'm
practically a spinster, anyway. If Daryl agrees, I'll marry him."
"I can't…"
"You're not asking, I'm volunteering," Maggie
said.
Josephine forced a smile. "Maggie…you wouldn't be able
to divorce unless you had a male child to name heir. I want you and Beth to
marry for love, not…not convenience…not as some sham to keep the farm."
"I know, Mama, but it's like Daddy always said.
'Sometimes you gotta do what's right and not what's easy.' This is what's
right, saving our farm. It's what Daddy wanted or he wouldn't have asked you to
pick one of us."
"I haven't even given Daryl the letter yet,"
Josephine said. "I can't imagine asking such a thing of him. He loved your
father like his own but to marry one of his daughters just to keep the family
property?"
"Give him the letter," said Maggie. "Give him
some time to make up his mind. Please, Mama. Promise me you'll give this a
chance. For Daddy. For all of us."
Her mother nodded, even though it was clear she hated the
circumstances, and kissed Maggie on the forehead. "Get some rest. We don't
have to solve all of our problems tonight."
Maggie snuggled down in her blankets while her mother kissed
her goodnight. The little blue pill was kicking in because she could feel sleep
pulling hard at her.
God…married, she thought. Maggie Dixon.
The name had a weird ring to it. She'd been Maggie Greene
her whole life. To go from being a Greene to any other name was odd but she'd
do it. She'd do whatever she had to do to save the family land. She just wished
she knew for sure that Daryl would agree. It was an awful lot to ask a man.
Marry some woman he didn't love, someone he'd watched grow up, the daughter of
his father figure, just to save some land he didn't need or even want? Asking
him to marry a woman he didn't love was too much. She was sure he'd say no.
She lay on her side, in the gathering darkness. There was
only the moon to filter through the window to give her light to see by. She'd
grown up in this room. She'd resigned herself to never moving away from the
house and having a family of her own, and she was okay with it. It was no
longer expected that children would have to leave home once they reached
adulthood. It wasn't like houses were a dime a dozen in any given settlement.
She'd hoped Beth would have the life she doubted she'd ever have. Fall in love,
move out, marry, have her children, have her life. She could still do all of
that, but only if Daryl agreed to marry Maggie to save the family property.
If he did agree, though, she'd have Daryl as her husband.
He'd sleep in this bed, the bed she'd grown up in. They'd make their babies here,
in this house; grow old here. They'd die here, just as her father had, and his
father before him, and so on, going back generations.
Her family had weathered the turn quite well in comparison
to other families. She supposed she should be grateful for that. Many people
lost everything and never recovered. The Greene's had soldiered on, so had the
Dixon's. Theirs were old family names in the Settlement. One was highly
respected. The other still bore the stains of disgrace from generations past.
It didn't matter now. Will Dixon was dead from an overdose. Merle Dixon had
been executed for the crime of murder. Daryl's mother had committed suicide
when he was ten. There was only Daryl now. He had done what no Dixon had ever
managed-he brought honor to the Dixon name.
He was a good man, Maggie had to admit. She didn't think of
him in that way but she had to admit he was nothing like he'd been when she was
a child. She could remember the wildling her father worked to tame. He'd had no
table manners, no sense of decorum, a potty mouth. He'd been angry about
everything, constantly lashing out. Maggie could remember her mother asking her
father one night why he was trying so hard with some white trash like Daryl
Dixon. She'd never forget her father's response: He ain't trash, my love, he's
a kid. He's not beyond hope. He can change and I can see it happening already.
There was nothing left of the wild child who'd come to work
on the Greene farm so many years ago. Daryl liked to keep to himself. He gave
Maggie the impression he didn't think much of himself, still saw himself as the
trash his mother had thought him to be at one point, even though he wasn't. He
was quiet but well-spoken. He was respectful, disciplined, cultured, even,
compared to the Dixons that had come before him. He was certainly kind and
gentle. He was a good man and he'd make a good husband, and a solid provider.
If he said yes.
Maggie's only problem was the idea of being with him in that
way. She'd had her share of lovers. She'd been with men she thought she would
someday marry. She'd even considered pursuing a soldier who'd teamed up with
Genesis Settlement to fight another settlement, named Glenn Rhee, after a wild
fling just before her brother died in that confrontation.
What would it be like to take Daryl to her bed, and into her
body? He wasn't ugly. Far from it. He was quite handsome, especially in
uniform. Still, there was no serious attraction. He was a family friend she'd
grown up around and that was all. He was a man she saw maybe three or four
times a year for trade, never more than ten minutes at a time. None of that
mattered, though, not in the face of losing the family land. She'd cook for
him, keep the house clean, fuck him, and have his children if it meant keeping
their land.
She just hoped to God her mother would show him that letter.
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