we keep this love in a photograph

Chapter 63

The few days in Portland before the funeral were a blur to Jennie. She had no input in the planning and spent every day holed up in Rosie's bedroom like a ghost haunting the attic as she curled up in the old bed, staring at the knick-knacks left behind in her childhood bedroom, or paced back and forth, the old floorboards groaning beneath her zombie-like pacing. Strangers to her knocked on the door at regular intervals and someone would inevitably come upstairs with a small scoop of casserole or slice of pie that a kindly neighbour had brought over upon hearing the news. She didn't even touch it, closing herself off from the world. Everything felt like a dream and she paced in a daze or slept through the fog of it all.

Sometimes she'd wake in that bed, the wind howling in from the coast as the dampness of March left a rain pattering on the roof and windows, and she'd lay still in bed, pretending that Rosie was downstairs in the kitchen, making coffee or sandwiches while she hummed along to the radio. If there was one place that she strongly associated with Rosie, it was Clare's, even though she'd spent more time there without Rosie than she had with her. Her memory was etched into the very walls of the place - in the framed family photos, in the growth measurements marked on the kitchen door frame, in the old CD's and the plastic trophies and the beach where they walked and had a bonfire, the sofa she'd sprawl out on in her holey sweats - and it was unbearable for Jennie. She couldn't imagine what it was like for Clare and Alice to be in that house where she grew up, knowing she would never come back to it.

The numbness helped her cope to some extent, but beneath it was the cold anger cultivated by her heartbreak and grief. It wasn't fair, perhaps, but Jennie took that anger out on her mom, letting that anger that she still harboured deep down in the scarred parts of her yet to heal along with the rift rise to the surface and consume her. She wasn't pleasant to be around, and she was aware of that in some regard but couldn't bring herself to care or try and not let the twisted bitterness and churlish agony cloud her actions. And so much of it was because she felt like she couldn't breathe. Maybe it was because her mom hadn't spent so much time around her, even as a child, but it was almost suffocating, like Taeyeon was smothering her with too much attention when all she wanted was to be alone.

It was born from good intentions and concern for her daughter, but Jennie couldn't stop herself from snapping with cruel remarks, regretting it instantly but too tired to bring herself to feel remorse. So much of it felt like she was a teenager again, thrust right back into that past version of herself drowning in so much lonelines and anger and sadness. It wasn't fair on either of them, but Jennie was falling to pieces and she didn't know how to make it stop, and in the midst of it all, she felt relief and some small gratitude for her mother's efforts to be kinder and patient, never holding it against her, even though Jennie knew some of her barbs struck home.

She didn't truly move or function like a person until Saturday, the day of Rosie's funeral. The past few days she'd gone without her sleeping pills, which contributed to her bad mood without the haze of sluggishness to take the edge off it all, and she hadn't slept all night, dreading the sunrise and the day it would bring with it. The dread of the funeral had haunted her, playing on her mind over and over again with thoughts of the empty casket and the gave that would mark the spot where nothing but her memory would lay.

Hoping to postpone it for as long as possible, Jennie stayed in bed until six o'clock, waiting for her mom to get up while she pretended to sleep, before sitting up, swinging her legs out of bed and sitting on the edge of the mattress for a while longer as she fiddled with the chain in her hand. It was Rosie's ID tags, returned to Clare a few days ago with the rest of her belongings shipped back from the base. The tags were the only thing left of Rosie that they'd found in the wreckage of the explosion, and Jennie clutched the little metal rectangles so tightly that they etched deep lines into her palms where they cut in. For almost two hours, she sat there gripping the tags and staring at the window, watching as the outline of light creeping in steadily grew lighter. She watched the time pass by with a glazed look in her eyes, not really seeing anything as her mind replayed moments with Rosie over and over again.