London seemed to understand what was going on better than the three children attending the rain doused funeral surrounded by sobbing kin and having their backs rubbed as they were each told that 'it would all be okay'. The clouds coalesced together, making it seem like there was dark storm, but it was honestly just pattering gently. Harry stared at the dark wood of the casket he had picked out—it was like the last involuntary shopping trip that had occurred with his wife.
Gemma looked around, the oldest of the Harry's kids. Her green eyes following the movements of everyone around her. Harry watched as she struggled to recognize everyone that walked around her as she held on tightly to Harry's index finger. Her own thumb was inside of her mouth.
Harry's mum was holding one of the twins, a sad smile on her lips. The other was held against the shaking chest of his eldest sister. Her tears were running down her cheeks and it only hit her more now that she was realizing the solidarity Harry would have to dominate in order to raise three children.
If you smile, they'll think you're happy about your wife's death, Harry thought. It was morbid, but he agreed wholly with the notion. If I don't smile they'll think I'm miserable and start babying me all over again. Catch twenty-two at its finest.
He sighed, struggling to keep himself composed. The twins were wide awake, their blue eyes looking for their mum. Blue. He felt like a horrible person for disliking the color of his children's eyes. They were blue, as if the sky were continuously reflecting upon them and giving him a consistent sight of the ocean—just like Opal's.
The miniscule thought of his wife brought him near to tears. He didn't understand how he was managing to keep the flux of tears behind the curtain of his eyes. He just needed this day to be over with.
He wanted to tell his kids everything, but death was such a confusing subject--at least to them it was. It was better to wait until they could pronounce their own names correctly. He swallowed and dared himself to tear his gaze from the chunky twins that now sat on his mother's lap.
She's not here, guys. She's up there. Happy, I suppose. Everything that day seemed to be subliminal. Mostly because he knew that if he spoke he'd manage to cough up his guts and lay them across the table with all traces of stability crushed at the very bottom.
Opal had been one of the few reasons he had moved here. He found himself wanting to trail the dark stranded beauty that had stolen his heart at the peak of his college career. Harry loved checklists, and he had made one for college—Opal wasn't anywhere on the checklist, but she somehow managed to squeeze herself (and a year later, Gemma) between Remain in Honors and Graduate on his checklist.
The mob of people had moved to his house. People were touching pictures of her, and remembering, saying: "Look how happy she looks here. You can't even tell she was sick."
It's true, Harry thought, even in the middle of all the sickness she still managed to look as beautiful as when he had met her for the first time. His fingers glided over the last picture they took together as a family.
Winter had settled in, the snow covered the grass on their front yard--and she had been insisting that they take a picture of the snow, but Gemma was sick and she also had the most swollen belly in the entire world... At least that's what Harry thought. She tugged on his sleeve, blue eyes staring into his green ones in helpless pleading, ("My ankles are so swollen and I feel like I could eat the entire back of a food delivery truck. Please, Harry, I want to take this picture--it'll make me feel like I'll some control over my body"). She was in his Green Bay Packers shit, a black cardigan on top of it, a pair of skinny jeans, (with the adjusted maternity waistband and a pair of black on white converse Harry had given to her for her birthday). Gemma was in something similar, (the jerseys had been a family present from Harry for football Sundays).
