In Your Clutches

Part 8: Didn't Feel Right

ASHER

14 years ago...

"Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust..." Father De Piero muttered before he paused for a moment.

I gazed at him standing at the head of my father's grave. The solemn expression on his face deepened and the pinch in his brows, told me he felt our loss too.

I remembered him telling me stories about my parents together. He was the priest who had married my parents. I doubt he thought this day would come.

Father De Piero pulled in a breath, looked around the gathering of mourners and continued:

"In sure and certain hope of resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, who is able to subdue all things. God has received one of his child today... I commit Giovanni Paolo Salvatore's body back to the earth from whence he came and I wish for a blessing in his beautiful, kind soul."

I stared and noted how my mother looked at him on those final words. I wondered if Father De Piero found it strange too.

That my father was murdered.
And that too by his own people.

My mother was standing paces away from him. A tear ran down her cheek as a light sparked in her eyes, probably from the kindness in the blessing. The light faded a moment later and she returned to being a broken woman. I was ten years old but I knew what broken felt like.

Up until now, I had never seen Ma cry. Never.

My Aunt gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze. When I glanced up at her, she gave me a reassuring look. The type that everybody else had given since this all happened.

Right now I felt like the collision of numbness and anger inside me would rip me apart. Maybe I felt like that because I was the first person to see him dead. I was the first one to confirm our worst fears after he died.

I saw him in the room, right next to the bed. Clutching his stomach. Blood pouring from his body. He seemed lifeless.

Murdered...

It didn't feel real.

It didn't feel right.

I remembered Pa pleading with him and Ma crying as she refused to believe that she'd lost her husband.

It was my Uncle and Aunt, whom I called Zio and Zia, who had taken me and calmed me down when I tried to help. The other men just laughed at me.

The only other funeral I'd been to was my Nonna's. But at six years old, I was too young to understand death. Back then, I didn't feel the way I did now. Like the collision of numbness and anger inside me would rip me apart.

I was pulled from my thoughts when Father De Piero nodded his head and Ma took a handful of the dirt to throw down into the grave. When she finished scattering the dust, she got down on one knee and held out the single red rose she had been carrying since we got here.
We all had one.

"Ti amo, amore mio. I will love you forever and ever," she whispered, her voice cracking.

My parents always declared their love for each other. Always. I know she felt the same guilt that surrounded us. We all blamed ourselves for not being able to save him. As Ma cast the flower into the grave, Father De Piero said a prayer and Zio and Zia went forward to give Pa their flowers.