Chapter 57: NOT YOUR FAULT
The both of them left the restaurant and entered the car to head to the cemetery. It was late in the afternoon and the sun had started to set already.
The drive to the cemetery was mostly quiet. Ethan tried to cheer Erika up but nothing worked. Now he wished he hadn’t let her contact uncle David.
"We are here", Ethan announced. Erika woke up from her trance and got out of the car. The cemetery has so many graves and it would take forever to find Elizabeth Hart.
The evening wind had started to blow and it helped in clearing the leaves that were resting on the grave stones.
"Excuse me, do you need any help?" A middle aged man who seemed to be the cleaner of the cemetery asked. He was holding cleaning materials.
"Yes please. Am looking for Elizabeth Hart’s grave, do you know where it is?"!Erika asked the man.
"Oh yes, I know where her grave is. Follow me", he said and started walking away. Ethan and Erika trailed behind him.
Ethan took off his jacket and put it around Erika when he noticed that she was already hugging her shoulders. "Here".
Erika looked at him and smiled, "Thank you".
They walked around for a bit since it was a huge cemetery until the man stopped.
"This is it, Elizabeth Hart", the man announced.
Erika kneeled down near the grave as she stared at the name written on the grave stone. Non of it still felt real to her. Grandma Elizabeth might not be related to her by blood but the kindness and love the woman had showered towards her ever since they met bonded them together.
She used her hand to move the leaves they were on her grave stone away.
"It’s been a while since someone came to visit her", the middle aged man said.
Ethan glances towards the man and asked."What do you mean?"
"Well, the day that she was buried. A lot of people came but since after she was buried, I never saw those people again. I do see this middle aged man with white hair and gentle look. He was the only one who visited her often", the man explained. The middle aged man he was referring to was Uncle David.
Erika was surprised to hear what the man said. No one had come to visit grandma Elizabeth since after her burial? Not even Adrain or Adam?
"Thank you so much for showing us her grave", Ethan thanked the man.
"I am glad that I was able to help", the man replied before carried his cleaning materials and left to go continue his duty.
Once the man was out of sight, Ethan crouched down beside Erika and asked,
"Are you alright?"
Erika shook her head, "Am not sure. I still can’t believe that she is gone. She is no more". She replied as reached her hand down to caress the woman’s imprinted name on the grave stone. "I kind of feel like it’s my fault because if I hadn’t left the mansion, she wouldn’t be all alone and contacted the illness".
"Shh... don’t say that. It wasn’t your fault at all. We still don’t know what caused her death yet so it definitely wasn’t your fault", Ethan said before cupping her face in his hands to wipe away her tears that were already rolling down her cheeks.
"Look at the bright side, she had gone to a much better place where she won’t have to stay in the hospital, receiving treatments with many machines attached to her body or coughing out blood, right?" He asked and Erika nodded her head slowly, agreeing.
Erika felt guilty for not calling grandma Elizabeth to check up on her. She felt that if she had gone to visit her even once then things wouldn’t have turned out the way it was now.
Ethan hugged Erika dearly to try to comfort her. The both of them stayed there for extra more minutes before it was time to go. The evening breeze was starting to become much more chilly as well.
"Grandma, am sorry that I wasn’t able to bring you flowers this time but I promise that the next time I come, I will buy you your favorite flowers", Erika said and caressed the grave stone one more time.
She looked at Ethan who smiled at her and the both of them entered the car to head back home.
By the time they got home, it had already turned more dark outside. They didn’t need to cook that night but only needed to reheat the food they bought from the restaurant.
"Come let’s eat", Ethan urged Erika who took a chair to sit down absentmindedly and Ethan noticed it. "Hey, what are you thinking of? Don’t tell me you are still blaming yourself for what happened to Old lady Elizabeth?"
Erika took a plate and started dishing her potion out. "No, it’s not that", she shook her head.
"Then what is it?" Ethan asked and took a plate for himself also.
"I was just thinking of what Uncle David mentioned earlier. He said that the caused of grandma Elizabeth’s health to deteriorate was never spotted until now. Is that possible?" She asked him. She had never heard of a sickness that was never spotted before.
"I really don’t know. But if the sickness was not spotted on the screen then it only mean that something very dangerous was given to her to take in", Ethan replied. He didn’t have any medical knowledge so he just came up with a possibility.
"Are you saying that she could have been poisoned?" Erika asked.
"She could be. I mean for the real cause of her death to not be known, it could only mean that she was given poison", Ethan said.
As soon as those words left Ethan’s mouth, someone’s image came into Erika’s mind. She shook her head to get rid of that thought.
"But I think it’s better we ask Michael this kinds of questions since either the both of us have any medical knowledge", Ethan reminded when he noticed Erika going into another deep thought. "I could be wrong". He added.
"Alright, I will ask him later", she replied and the both of them dived into their meal. It was a gentle night.
Ethan cracked some jokes to make Erika laugh and forget about the death of grandma Elizabeth for a while and it worked. Erika laughed her heart out until tears of laughter polled in her eyes.
The both of them did the dishes together and Erika went to bed. Ethan didn’t follow her because he had some files to look at.
