Mr. King and I

Chapter One: The Funeral

Copyright © 2013

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The day was bleak with monstrous grey clouds blotting out the sun. It was your text book New York November day, the wind was chilly and at full force, the barren trees dancing back and forth like puppets.

My eyes gazed around the cemetery. I recognized a handful of the people around, all dressed in black, their expressions somber. We were like some kind of tragic, Gothic scene from a painting. I imagined it titled Tragic Times, or maybe The Lonely One.

"Ellery?"

I turn to see my mother's best friend, my Aunt Bet. We weren't blood related, but after seventeen years of birthday parties, Easter egg hunts, Halloweens, Thanksgivings and Christmases, she was as much family as family can be. Her black hair was twisted up in a french twist, pearls drapped around her throat with matching earrings. She wore a black pants suit, looking very much like the lawyer she was.

Her face looked drastically aged. Her eyes filled with a pain that I imagined mirrored mine.

"It's time honey," she said as she slide her arm across my shoulders.

I nodded numbly, shoving my hands into the pocket of my red pea coat. I'd gotten stares and whispers for wearing something so inappropriate. But while dressing that morning I'd remembered how my parents had ripped on how people wore black to funerals.

"In ancient cultures death was celebrated! Death means new life," Mom would say animatedly. "When I die, I want everyone dressed in bright pastels and laughing."

Pain filled me, stabbing at my reluctantly beating heart. I fought back the tears as I made my way to the service.

One moment your life can be perfect, and the next be turned into a pile of steaming crap. That's all it takes. A single action, one decision.

My parents died during hurricane Sandy. They knew that storm was supposed to hit New York, and the rest of the upper east coast, but they still insisted on coming to pick me up from my best friend Lyssa's birthday/slumber party. If I hadn't gone to that stupid party, or if they'd just left me there, they wouldn't be dead.

This story starts with their deaths. It's what started the chain reaction that changed my life for forever. My family wasn't the richest one on the block, sure we could afford to go to Cali and Florida during the summer, and hitch a plane to Hawaii during the winter. My father, Thomas Van Aller, worked as head of security for King's Constructions.

If you've never heard of King's Constructions, you must be living under a rock or something. It is one of the largest architecture firms in the U.S. today. They have manufactured buildings all across America as well as the world. The building are sort of deco Grecian with a flare of new age hipness. Everyone wants their houses, their apartment complexes, everything.

My dad loved his job-he loved the city, he didn't mind the long drives from our suburban home to the city, and his hours were flexible. Every morning he would eagerly jump out of bed to the bathroom. I remember how streaks of grey came out in his beard, the scent of his Old Spice waifing from the bathroom.

My mom had been a homemaker, putting her all into my school, and making the house look nice. I don't think for a minute she ever wanted to be anything else. She always smelled like sugar and vanilla, she was all smiles, ribbons and pearls.

But now they were gone. I would never get to hear dad sing off key Journey songs while he worked on his old Camaro. Never again will I wake up to the smell of my mom murdering a batch of blueberry pancakes. I would never hear their laughter, listen to them argue about stupid shit, or hug them good bye.