I Know What You Did That Night

o n e

 The whole house has been decorated for tonight’s party. My mother’s caterer and her waiters are fixing up in the kitchen. Her stylist is adding more and more decorations to the tables.

Upstairs, my mother, her sister, Sera, and my cousin, Gabrielle are getting ready for the foundation’s charity dinner. When I entered the master bedroom earlier, it was a whole commotion of hair products, blow dryers, and makeup.

Downstairs, my father is making arrangements for tonight. As the president of the Beauchamp Family Foundation, he handles everything alongside my mother. Tonight has to be perfect. Tonight has to be in sync. Tonight has to be in honor of Jen.

It is a whole production. A masterpiece. An extravaganza. And I’d like to get away from it.

I walk to the tall oak tree near the main house and lean against it’s trunk as I sit down. I have my sketchbook with me and a pencil with obvious chew marks and an eraser.

The air is warm and humid as I watch the people go in and out of the main house. People are too busy with preparing everything that my mother, Sera, and Gabrielle have forgotten that I slowly crept away from the room.

Opening my sketchbook, I realize that I only have two more pages left and I groan. All the other pages have been filled with memories and fragments of that night. That specific night.

I had gotten the sketchbook the day after my sister’s death and for the past twelve months, the drawings have been about that night. The fire. The accident. Her death.

I still remember the ringing in my ears and the way they threw the gasoline and lit the cabin on fire. That was the worst night of my life.

I go back to one of the blank pages and chew on my bottom lip. I sketch when I am nervous. I sketch when I am scared. I sketch whenever I mourn and grieve for Jen.

A tiny bird walks with its tiny little feet towards the trunk of the oak tree. The bird’s feathers are a mixture of brown, black and white. The beak is small, and pointed. It chirps a beautiful sound, and looks at me with its eyes.

I look at it and I sketch.

The bird comes to life on paper through my pencil. My muse is staring at the tree, nibbling at it. I try to capture the ruffle in its feathers, and the way the bird’s eyes seem like a thousand colors but are a dull brown.

I’m already shading the different hues when it flies away. At first, it tries to fly upwards, its wings fluttering but then wind takes over and the bird almost falls but another flutter of its wings, it manages to rise up and rise up and suddenly becomes a small dot in the afternoon sky.

I finish the drawing of the bird nibbling on the oak tree and I close my sketchbook and proceed to chew on my pencil. Tonight is the first time that the whole community will come together since the memorial service.

A knot forms in my stomach. I haven’t seen any of them since the memorial service. They’d all been abroad or in the city for the past year. I’d taken the rest of the year off and homeschooled. When I’d asked Gabrielle if they were coming, she said only one of them.