Infinity and Beyond

33 - Promise

This chapter's the funeral but it's not all sad!

Emily

The funeral plans didn't take long. There was only one church near where they lived, and it was available for whichever day we liked, and their friendship group had gradually narrowed over the years so that there weren't that many people who needed telling. All of our family of course knew - mum phoned them all when we got home from the hospital that morning. I, meanwhile, went straight to bed and slept.

I hadn't lived in that house for over five years but it still seemed far too quiet without Dad. I wasn't used to it, despite not living under the same roof as him for half a decade, and I couldn't get used to the fact that when I woke up I wouldn't see him. When I walked downstairs, after crawling over a sleeping Ashton to get out of bed, it was just my mum in the kitchen and nobody else.

"Mum?" I called out so she knew I was coming before I walked in. She turned around just as I opened the door and I went straight over to hug her.

"Morning, lovely," she said. "Did you sleep well?"

"I guess," I shrugged. I wasn't sure 'well' was the right word, but I slept. And if it weren't for mum, I would have wished I was still asleep. "Are you alright?"

"I suppose you could say that," she answered and I wanted to ask more but she quickly moved on. "Do you want any breakfast?"

"I'll pass," I said. I had no idea what time I should take, or should already have taken, my tablets but if I got it wrong I didn't want to risk feeling too ill, so I opted for just a glass of water. We sat down at the table together in the kind of silence where it was just comforting to have someone else's presence but not need any words.

"Is there anything you want to do today?" I asked her. "It might be nice to get out of the house for a bit."

"It's up to you sweetie. We can if you're feeling up to it," she replied after a few seconds' pause. She then smiled and placed her hand over mine, saying, "But for now, I think you have some stuff to tell me!"

I smiled back and started telling her about everything - about how I was 6 weeks, but I only told Ashton when he got back, which was when he proposed. There wasn't a detail about the proposal that I missed. If I didn't think about the fact that Dad should have been there to hear it all too, then I could forget about what had happened. For that short while, I was just me, telling my mum all about two of the most exciting things of my life so far. We talked about wedding arrangements, as any other mother and daughter would, and about the baby, and nothing else mattered. But then Ashton came downstairs, typing away quickly on his phone, and the moment was over.

"Is everything alright?" I asked as he kissed my cheek and sat down next to me, barely glancing up from his phone.

"Steve keeps asking what's going on," he sighed, and I explained to Mum that Steve was their manager. "I don't know how much the others have said. Do you want me to tell him?"

It occurred to me that I hadn't looked at my phone once since we got to England, and I wondered then whether Ashton had told any of the others what had happened. I knew they knew we were over here because of my Dad, but how much did they know? A lump formed in my throat and my eyes burned with tears threatening to spill, and I excused myself from the table to disappear upstairs.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..." I heard Ashton say to my mum as I left.

"It's okay, you didn't do anything. She just needs a little time, I think," she replied. "But you should let your friends know."