Hers

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-One

            I couldn’t bring myself to cry.  I felt horrible about it, but I couldn’t muster up a single tear.  I was too pissed to cry.  The anger that scalded my heart overpowered the sorrow that weighed me down.  Every time I blinked I saw the bloody message scrawled across my wall.  I saw Garfield.  I saw Ace.

            Sam plunged the cool, dirtied metal of the shovel head into the dank earth again and brought up yet another small pile of dirt.  I watched as it fell to the dirt like powdery snow.  A lump rose in my throat, but I swallowed it back down.

            In, out, in, out.  I instructed my lungs to breathe properly.

            Those shadows, whatever they were, they would have to pay.

            I have been tormented by them for far too long.  I thought.  Now this.

            “Okay,” Sam announced.  “It’s time.”

            I nodded wordlessly and stared into the hole.  Now that it was really time to say goodbye, I felt the tears pressing against my eyes, rising up and threatening to spill over.

            “Do you have anything you want to say?”  Sam asked, rubbing his hand on my back and pulling me closer to him.

            “There’s nothing to say.”  My tone was clipped.  I pursed my lips to keep the sobs at bay.

            “I know how much he meant to you,” Sam mumbled into my hair.

            “He was just a cat for Christ sake!”  Ace yelled from the porch.  “Can we get a move on?”

            I let out a shaky sigh and rolled my eyes.  “I almost wish this was his hole,” I muttered.

            Sam laughed lightly and plunged the shovel into the earth for a final time.  “Here lies Garfield,” Sam began.  “A wonderful companion, a loving friend, a guardian.”

            “We had our ups and our downs,” I recalled, my lip trembling, “but you didn’t deserve to die.  I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”

            We stood there for a moment, staring into the hole that held my little orange tabby.

            “Okay,” I sighed.  “Time to put him to rest.”

            Sam nodded and filled in the hole.  I watched as the dirt covered the blanket that wrapped Garfield in a tight hold.  When the hole was filled, Sam and I made our way back up to the porch.

            Ace stood from the step he rested on and nodded to Sam as if to say “yeah, I cleaned up all the blood”.  I pretended not to see the exchange.