Ben can hear the house echoing the silence in his heart as he dusts through the fireplace. It has been a way of life for him ever since he lost his wife, Clara. But he didn't care, he only wished his heart wasn't as fragile as it is. He could have dealt with the cracks in his heart better than how he's dealing with it now.
He dusted the family portrait, which was sitting fine on top of the fireplace, and stared at his wife, then at his kid, who has been with his mum ever since his wife died. He missed them. He picked up the portrait to dust behind it when he saw it.
The small glass figurine resting on the mantelpiece. He felt another crack in his fragile heart.
The delicate, shiny ballerina with tiny arms stretched out in grace, depicting his dancing wife on stage, was a gift from his late ballerina dancer wife, Clara.
Gradually, he picked it up as its edges caught the reflection of the sun bursting into the room through the window, casting beautiful rainbow shadows on the wall.
“Still here,” he mumbled under his breath. His grief gradually set in without permission.
He sat down on the rocking chair beside him as he remembered her exact words Ten years ago when she handed the figurine over to him as a gift.
“I got you this so that on days you don't get to see me dance you'll never forget how I look on stage.” her soft voice echoed in his ear.
He stood angrily, his right hand almost slipping off the chair with the figurine tightly held in his left hand. Again memories flooded in without permission. He clenched his fist as he remembered their last anniversary.
His wife had walked in dressed in a red dress she had worn on her first date. He found it funny at first but when he saw how beautiful and charming she still looked in the dress after years together. He blessed the lord for giving him such beauty as a wife.
He remembered how they had danced to their favourite music in the living room, their laughter filling the space before they set out for dinner. He wished that their laughter lasted a lifetime.
But fate had plans that night. Clara had insisted on driving home that night. He should have stopped her when he clearly knew they were intoxicated. But she claimed to be more sober than he was. He agreed and let her have the key. A few minutes into their drive home, she crashed headfirst into an oncoming vehicle, with the driver's side taking the whole force.
He woke up the next day to the sad news of his wife's death, and ever since he had blamed himself for not insisting that they take an Uber home.
He felt his heart crack the more as tears flowed down his eyes. His eyes were glued to the figurine as his hands shook. He pressed against the cold surface. Every inch of it reminds him of Clara on stage, doing what she knows how to do best.
With force and all the rage in him, he smashed the figurine into the floor,
“No!,” he growled.
Then he slumped to the floor beside the shard glass. It was a perfect depiction of the broken pieces of his shattered heart, and then he cried.
Hours passed and his eyes caught on a piece of paper in the shard remains of the figurine. It had something scribbled on it. He picked it up, it was Clara's writing.
"As you give me peace and everything nice. Let this be a representation of my peace to you even when I'm not close," it read.
He wondered how he hadn't seen that piece of paper in the figurine for years now. Somehow, reading that gave him the peace he had been seeking. Knowing that Clara wanted him to be at peace with himself even in her absence was all the motivation he needed to man up.
He sniffed hard and wiped his tears. Then, gradually, he packed the tiny pieces of the broken figurine, leaving the ones he thought were useless and walked out of the house to a nearby craft shop.
"Do whatever you can to get it back to one piece?" he asked the craftsman.
"That will cost you a lot," the craftsman replied. "Besides, just like our fragile hearts. This figurine, once broken, can never be mended back to the way it was before. There is still going to be a piece missing" he added.
"I'm willing to pay any amount just to have my peace back" he pleaded.
And for hours the craftsman worked on the figurine, piecing the ballerina back together. It wasn't perfect like before but it was what Ben wanted.
Ben paid the craftsman and took it home. Then, carefully, he placed it back on top of the fireplace as the sun hit it, reflecting the rainbows. But this time around, there were just broken colours on the wall.
Ben sat on the rocking chair and stared at the repaired figurine. Then for the first time in years, he smiled.
"Even in the cracks, it still gives me the peace you wanted, my love", he muttered.
