Five (Patreon)

At my father's funeral they buried deep brown wood. Red silk. The gently curved ridges. The woodgrain. The cushioning. The handles. 

Screw up your courage. They buried one more thing. Say it.

They buried a husk with drywall dust on its face.

Maybe the cancer did win.

I miss him. I want him looking at me and seeing me and touching my hand. I want him making fun of me for thinking I'm so smart. I want him to laugh for a reason. I want him to laugh because something surprised him, not because I pressed play on a recording.

I don't want you to die. I don't want you to die.

Deep breath. I don't want you to die.

Out in the graveyard, everything was mud. Except the squares of grass around the hole. The wet fake astroturf and the mud. 

"I bet you that stuff costs more than real grass," my mother whispered to me. To Simon. "It's brighter green, and you can reuse it when the next person dies." 

"Shhh." Someone hissed behind us.

"You can't shush me! I'm the bride!" my mother said, full volume.

This is what funerals are like.

"The widow," Simon said quietly.

"Oh, yeah," she smiled. "Thank you Simon." She turned back to whoever it was. "I'm the widow!" My mother corrected herself. "You can't shush the widowed bride! I'll come back there and shush you deep inside." Then very quietly to herself she kind of sang, "The day the music died. And they were singing bye bye miss…"

At home, the screen door creaked. The door stuck. Simon and I left our wet clothes on the floor of our bedroom and we both climbed into the same bunk. 

I crawled under the blanket with him. We were still clammy from the rain. Enduring the funeral. It was over now, though. Whatever he went through, and whatever I went through. We were together again.

We just stayed there. Breathing. Listening to the donk donk donk of fat flies in the window. We were waiting. Life was going to be a lot of waiting now.

Down the hall I could hear my mother singing, "I don't remember if I cried." and then, "How do you not remember if you cried? Are you crying every five minutes? Stupid. Ugh, NEXT. A broken heart for every drop of rain, a shattered dream for every shooting star… two, three, four, You can't live with 'em you can't live without 'em! There's something irresistible-ish about 'em…"

And she kept on singing til I was asleep.

It was dark outside when Simon climbed over me, waking me up. I could hear loud voices downstairs. I climbed out of bed too, and over our wet clothes, to the door. It was our uncle Frank. Simon turned the doorknob the slow quiet way, and slipped into the hall. 

You have to walk on the right side of the hallway or the floorboards will creak. Little tricks that become second nature. There are two places to listen to the kitchen. At the bottom of the stairs is good, but the better place is through the floor grate in our grandmother's bedroom. It opened right above the wood stove, so the heat could rise. And the sound.

We let ourselves into her room. Their voices were clear.

"And what if they came downstairs and saw you? Saw your face? Saw the bathroom covered in blood?"

"I didn't do it on purpose." Our mother sounded scared.

"Oh, you accidentally set out gauze and medical tape and antibiotics and then picked up a paring knife? You slipped and accidentally cut into your face over and over again until you passed out?"

"I don't know. Stop. I need a minute."

"I got most of it," Jonah said, coming into the kitchen. "I have to find a cleaner for some of-"

"It wasn't me," my mother said again. "It was me. But I was just watching. I watched myself set out the supplies. I watched myself get the knife. I watched myself do this."

"No, don't touch it," Jonah said. 

Nobody spoke for a long time.

"I'm scared," my mother said. "I'm scared and I'm tired. And I'm scared. I don't feel like I'm me. That wasn't me."

"Here," Jonah said. "Give me your hand." 

Even from upstairs, his voice made me want to give him my hand. 

"Lift up your arm for me. Your left arm. And then, "Good. Now what is your daughter's name?"

"Sunday."

"And your son?"

"Simon."

"You're you. You're still you. Sometimes our brains try to protect us, but they are too rough. They take over. It makes no sense. But you are still you. You're still here."

"I'm still here."

The door behind us opened and Simon and I startled. Our grandmother watched us for a moment. We were on our stomachs at the floor grate. "Go and put clothes on," she said.  "We're going for a drive."

We left the house through the veranda. We never leave the house through the veranda. To get out, we had to help our grandmother move a stack of lawn chairs from blocking the screen door. 

We were avoiding the kitchen. There were dead flies in every window.

In the car, my grandmother and Simon were in the front. I watched the field pass. Mowed on the left, wild on the right. A small weather station thing that my grandmother built. At the end of the driveway we had to stop, because an ambulance had turned into the driveway, and it was only wide enough for one car. We watched as it slowly backed up and gave us room to leave. 

No flashing lights. No sirens.

"I thought maybe we could get ice cream," my grandmother said.

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