There was nothing really noteworthy about the rock.
Nevertheless, the objet d’art took pride of place on the hall table. It was the first thing seen as anyone entered the house. She placed it on a small, lace doily, to set it off. People often asked about it. She would come up with all manner of stories regarding its history, none of them true. It was just some game she enjoyed playing. Her ex-husband would not have appreciated it. He would certainly have said that her secret, fanciful ideas about it were a complete nonsense. That was the way he was.
Even with their children, now all grown up and moved on, when they were small and adventurous they would often bring things into the house that they declared where precious, only to have him insist on whatever it was being thrown out. It was as though he had no fantasy factor. No willingness to let imagination take over from logic. Something she had always been adept at.
The accident had happened while on holiday; just the two of them. She had wanted to visit the waterfall ever since finding pictures of it on the Internet. It was such a beautiful spot, although a long walk was required to get to it. There were signs erected for tourists, giving directions from the broader tracks that ran through the forest. A warning was posted regarding occasional rock falls and the need to take care. Naturally, he didn’t want to make the effort, despite knowing how much it meant to her. After the usual process of making her feel guilty, he relented.
They made their way slowly along the narrow trail, occasionally finding evidence of a recent subsidence, in the form of scatterings of material across the path. However, it was worth it. The place was even more magnificent than she could possibly have pictured. The fall itself was dramatic enough, but the surrounding greenery produced a scene that would rival any depiction of such a place created by an artist. She felt rapturous at the sight of it and was in the process of providing her own fanciful ideas about it being a place where wood nymphs may well come and go when he had added his own uncalled-for observation. The brunt of it being that she had always been a looney.
The piece of granite had been wrapped in an old tea towel, placed in a biscuit tin and tucked away on a top shelf in the laundry. Finally came the placement of it. It was a painful wait for her. She felt she should hold off for at least three weeks after the funeral before placing the rock in the chosen position of prominence, just inside the front door. When the time came, she didn’t want to clean it up, but she did.
At the very least, she would wash the blood off it.