Promised Land

[8] The FUN in FUNERAL Really Doesn't Have A Right To Exist Like That

Funerals shouldn't start with the word "fun", Ranboo thinks, to distract himself from the reception.

Sister Anne-- Anne -- she didn't have much of a family, he learns. There was a brother, and a small family, but none of them were strictly religious anymore. But her brother still came, and with him came his wife, and with his wife came no children, no grand children, because the children never really got to know their aunt.

Which is sad.

But very relatable.

Which is also very sad, but he doesn't think about that.

His suit and tie are a bit messed up. It's just his Sunday clothes and his usual tie, but he's holding his jacket because the day was particularly humid and sunny out, summer's last attack before hibernating for the next year. His tie is crooked, misshapen, awful, but Sister Anne would always be the one to help fix his ties.

Which. She couldn't fix his tie anymore.

He's away from everyone else. The younger kids were grouped together awkwardly, at the small table of snacks that Father Patrick and the rest of the church workers were able to provide for them afterwards, small little crackers and cheese and meats and a bowl of fruit punch. No one has yet to spill any fruit punch on their best clothes, which he's counting as Sister Anne watching them from up in heaven and as a miracle . The other nuns are talking to Sister Anne's brother, more about... Well, what they would do with her.

When he overheard that conversation, Ranboo decided to nope out of there immediately, and he's leaning against the wall outside as the sun burns rather brightly on a Thursday early afternoon.

He's left alone to his thoughts.

He realizes that he'd rather not forget the funeral itself. It was the most peaceful thing he's ever been to, from seeing Sister Anne lying peacefully in the coffin to the eulogy that her brother had given in tears full of regret.

He doesn't remember the words very well. I only wish that I hadn't pulled away from her, and that my children and grandchildren had gotten to know how beautiful of a souls he was.

No one else was there. No former children who had been adopted out had come-- or, maybe, they hadn't been notified in the first place. He had expected a few of them to show, but with the sudden flip of attitude on the side of all the Sisters, Ranboo...

... He didn't know what to expect anymore.

He glances down at his small glass. It's plastic, more or less, but it's clear, and he took some fruit punch from the bowl before anyone could make a mess, yet he hasn't taken a sip of it at all.

Even in the heat of the sun, he still feels cold and numb.

It had happened suddenly-- he had to help out as much as he could the day before, as Sister Agnes and Sister Marie had to work out funeral arrangements with the church and how Sister Anne's life would be honored, and remembered, which left just one nun to take care of eleven children (including him), so he got put on babysitting duty.

It was like the summer, where he would be told to watch the kids when they played in the plastic kiddie pool in the backyard, but it was much colder. No one did anything, they only took the kids to the basement and put on the same, old, animated VHS church films that he's seen plenty of times over and could probably recite from heart, along with a few toys and a few books.

Locking the children up while the adults dealt with adult things-- not the best strategy, but Ranboo supposes, no one can think straight enough to think through these things. Least of all the adults.