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¹⁴ MATRILINEAL
❝ I wanted to give you everything, but I still stand in awe of superficial things. ❞
―Wye Oak, Civilian
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HARLENE SAT into the ceremony. Harlene sat for the first minutes when, after prayer, people stared at the cold, dark earth in silence. Harlene sat after they left to deal with living problems. But even then, Harlene sat before the graves and looked upon the day's end.
Dale kissed the top of her head over and over again, trying to raise a reaction. He pleaded with her to cry it out. To return to the naval of their mourning community and help around. To do something, anything at all. Landon was at the house tending to Beth after she had fallen into a catatonic shock, attaching an IV to the teen's veins. Hershel had disappeared, causing Rick and Glenn to leave for the town searching. People fought and cried and moved. Harlene sat.
She grew beyond her body's borders. Her teeth pressed hard to the innards of her lips, her bones stretching her tense muscles like a limb within a tight cloth. She desired to occupy no space. Nothing to her right or left. Nothing to her front or back. She had too much to think about.
No one had time to worry for her. Dale gave up after five o'clock, hoping that if she had the time she sought to sit it out, she would eventually return to them with her ambitious, good-hearted, toiling resolve.
He couldn't see how this was a penitence, and it couldn't be washed off like a layer of dirt under warm water. Such a taint would need many days to rue. People kept on fighting, crying, and moving. Harlene paid little attention to the details of the commotions, staying by Sophia's grave. Her knees dug into the soil, aching from hours in the same position, and the sun dulled as she had resisted all attempts to restore her senses. She mumbled prays upon prayers. She recited the entire Bible to rid her tongue of its deceiving curse of hope.
Landon said he wouldn't sleep if she didn't accompany him to the RV, vowing to stay with her until dawn if he had to. She didn't respond.
A brother could crush his pride if it meant his sister would be alright. Landon rose from her side and set his course to a place he would never believe he would go asking for help from. Carol passed by him crying, returning from the same alienated place. There, she had been met by a damaged man, denying all sorts of comfort to keep himself safe, hurting others in a childish, traumatized manner.
