Homewrecker

16 - 𝔀𝓲𝓷𝓰𝓮𝓭

If I looked over my shoulder, tilted my head far enough to the right, searched through the solemn faces seated behind the first pew I had been assigned with the Solidays, I caught a glimpse of Kingston Castaneda near the back of the sanctuary.

He was in between one of the part-time managers from Good Greens and a heavyset man that vaguely resembled one of the faces in one of Mom's old high school yearbooks, and wearing a camouflage jacket zipped up to his neck, probably because, like me, he hadn't owned anything formal enough for a funeral. The cuts on the bridge of his nose below the nosepiece of his glasses and across his cheekbones were starting to heal, even though they looked as if they hadn't been stitched like mine were.

He caught my eye for a moment, looking as if he might wave or mouth something to me, but I turned away and stared down at Indie's hand clutched in mine. I hadn't realized it, but I hadn't let go of it as I slowly walked up the aisle and approached the front pews, near the closed casket.

The Solidays, who hadn't even known my mother—except for the one who knew her long enough to create me, anyway—were sitting up front too, crammed hip to hip when Indie plopped down in the pew beside. Jude came a few minutes later, the only other family my mom had except for me, and now he was wedged tightly between Kimberly and Danny.

He offered to sit somewhere else, but I adamantly refused this. He deserved the front pew more than any of them did, if anyone was going to sit somewhere else, in the back between sort of strangers, it shouldn't be her long-time boyfriend.

I looked over my shoulder, titled my head far enough to the left, searched through the faces. He was still there, still looking this way, and I felt tired. I felt like I was starting to flip deep into something, like everything I was feeling was submerging into thickened quicksand, and it would all just hurt if I let that happen.

If I looked at the closed casket in front of me, white and expensive and with my mom just inside. She was right there, if I wanted, I could get up and walk over to her, lift the lid and see her. But I didn't want to because she was thrown by a tornado, left in a creak for days, dead. She wouldn't look like my mom, because she wouldn't look like anyone. I tried not to think of what her skin looked like now, what happened to her hair she dyed blonde every few months, her face. Because then I thought of how much I wanted to see her again, of how badly I wanted to reach out and feel her touch one more time, but it wouldn't be warm and soft anymore.

I wanted to look at her, I wanted to touch her, I wanted her to touch me. I couldn't even remember the last time I hugged her, like me actually initiating it instead of just sometimes tolerating it when she hugged me. I wanted to breathe in her, the cigarettes and the 3-in-1 shampoo, conditioner, and body wash, the cheap fruity perfume.

She was right there, still and left in a casket alone, and I was right here. But she didn't move, she didn't reach out and bring me into her arms and away from all of this. From all of them. She was dead, and there was nothing I could do, plead, scream to make her snap out of it like it was just a dead sleep.

Indie squeezed my hand, nudged her shoulder closer to me, and she mouthed something to me that I didn't really understand but I knew it was because of how fast I was breathing now, how flushed my skin looked, and the room felt so hot. Like, so hot. My head felt hollow. My mom was dead. Really dead. Staying dead. Always will be, dead.

The reverend approached the pulpit, a somber expression on his sweating face as he greeted the crowd with wide sweeping arm movements, like he was air-hugging everyone in the room.

"Afternoon, everyone," he said, and I wondered if he purposefully left out the good, because how could spending a Thursday afternoon at a funeral be a good anything. "Thank you for joining us in the celebration in the life of Donna Annabeth Larson. A life, ended so young and tragically, will always be a sorrowful occasion for us here on earth but we remember the promises God has given us. Of eternal life in paradise."