Lag (The boys of RDA #2)(33)

It’s dark in the small room I’ve chosen to hide out in. It isn’t fair to my sister or my father, but it’s a better option than lying on the floor in the fetal position and asking guests to walk over my body. At the end of the small two-person sofa sits a wooden end table, the lone item a box of tissue perched delicately on the edge. Proof I’m not the first person to use this as a personal hideaway.

A gentle knock filters past my now silent sobs. “Simone, it’s time, sweetheart,” my father’s voice is strong. I wish he could loan me the ability to walk out there and not crumble at what we have to do now.

“No.”

A small line of light inches across the floor and up the wall as he opens the door enough to slide his body into the space. His black suit makes most of him invisible in the room as the door is closed again, but the couch dips as he sits beside me.

I turn to face him. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t, Dad.”

His arm wraps around my shoulders and he pulls me into him. The musky fatherly smell of the cologne Elena and I purchase for him every Christmas is a harsh reminder I’ll never smell my mother’s signature lavender scent again. It's enough to start the tears I worked so hard to stop moments earlier and I grab on to him for support.

“Yes, you can. We’re going to go out there and do this together, okay?”

I nod my head yes, but don’t make a move to stand. He doesn’t push me and I hate I’m forcing my father to be so strong for me. The man lost the love of his life. I should be his pillar during this time. For him and my sister. It’s enough to bully myself to a standing position with two deep breaths.

My father takes my hand and I follow him out to the main room where people gather for Mom’s funeral. She didn’t want visitation hours, saying the idea of people looking at her dead body and talking over it was creepy, so the room is full.

We walk to the front of the room and take seats in the first aisle of chairs closest to the mahogany casket she picked out a week before her death. It happened on a happy day, if you’ll believe it. Well as happy as a day can get when you’re using a magazine to pick out caskets with your mother.

The room doesn’t have many flowers besides the plants worked in so naturally they must be part of the normal décor. Another choice she made before she became too weak to talk much. No flowers, preferring donations made to the local animal shelter — her favorite charity. I guess people listened. Most did when Sheila Stevens spoke. Thirty some years as a high school principal gave her authority no one questioned.

The thought makes me smile until I look up and spot the mahogany casket that had me retreating to my small room in the first place. Her rail thin body is laid out in her favorite light blue ankle length dress. The small paisley decorated fabric another of her final choices. The day has more of her touch than anyone here will recognize. Her hands lay folded one on top of the other and rest on her stomach.

I can’t take my eyes off her and I stare at her chest waiting to catch it move. A breath. A twitch. Any sign of life. As the pastor starts to speak I worry if I stop, if I turn my head away, I’ll miss her climbing out of her open tomb.



But she doesn’t.

The lid seals Mom from the outside world and six men chosen from our church and extended family lift the casket, carrying it out of the room as the pastor ends his sermon.

Elena and I follow my father, stopping to talk to no one. We move as one fluid body to the hearse as our friend, mother, and protector is loaded behind us. The car jerks as the last man pushes the casket forward and Elena and I break again. On opposite sides of our father we both rest our heads on his shoulders as he allows his own tears to join ours in the drive to the cemetery.

**

It’s only the first week of November, but there’s an extra chill in the air as I’m the last to exit the car back at my parents’ house for the post-funeral luncheon. The cold set into my bones as we stood outside at the grave site and I worry I’ll never be warm again. Of course I’ve been cold for more than the last month, so this might be my new condition. Cold. A little dead to the world.

The three of us are silent as we walk in the house we once shared, but never will again. My sister continues to the kitchen while my father and I stop in the living room to our right. He sits in the old green chair he’s called his for more years than I remember, and I take a place on the matching couch. It doesn’t actually match, but its close enough in color that when my mother found it a few years ago she bought it on sight. Then sent me pictures and text messages for the next week about how amazing it was to find a piece of furniture the exact hideous pea green color of Dad’s favorite chair. She loved to hate this couch.

Dad looks at the wall lost in thought and my eyes stay glued to the black television screen in front of me. There will be people here soon enough and I’ll have to put on a brave face, but for now we all need a minute. The couch sinks in next to me, but I don’t look up, expecting it to be Elena.

“I’m so sorry for your loss, Simone.” Two arms reach out and wrap around me from the side. I look up into the big brown eyes of Aspen and my face twitches into a small smile at her presence before tears cloud my vision.

Marissa perches on the arm of the couch too high up to hug, but she reaches her hand out and squeezes my shoulder. “Are you okay?”

A tiny part of me wants to lash out at her even though I’m sure the question was heartfelt. But really, am I doing okay? No.