She returns to her seat with tears running down her cheeks, but no sobs leave her. At least no audible ones and I wonder how she does it.
How does she keep that much pain inside?
When it’s my turn to say something, I freeze.
I can’t do it.
I won’t do it.
I don’t do it.
I know it’s letting everyone down. I know it’s letting my parents down, but there is absolutely nothing I can think to say that will help anyone.
My name is called again and murmurs start echoing around the place. “It’s okay, Lil. If you can’t go up there, you don’t have to, no one is going to force you.” Cal whispers and on the other side of me Lexi nods her agreement.
To the surprise of everyone, if the complete silence that falls over the church is any indication, Jason steps up to fill my place.
He clears his throat and seems to be making an effort to look everywhere to avoid looking at me. “Hi, most of you know from what my mother has just said, that we were close to the Parkers, but it’s a little different for me. See, my own father left us when I was three, he never came back and a year later we moved here. You’d think that finding out we were moving next door to a perfect family; a perfect little girl with two perfect parents would have been hard for me, especially since I still thought I was the reason my father left us. But, it wasn’t hard, the Parkers accepted me. I tried staying away from them at first, but they wouldn’t let me get away with hiding from them.” He smiles at whatever memory it is that he has in his mind at the moment. “Michael was the worst. He would see me watching them and invite me over to join in. Soon, I was as much a part of that family as Lilith was. As we got older, that never changed, and in many ways, Michael was a father to me. I know I’ve done some things he wouldn’t have been proud of, but a part of me thinks he knows about them and no matter how bad they are, I know that he would understand why I did them. I know that if I had given him the chance, he would have helped because that’s what he did. He was able to look past the bad and help you see if not the good, then the reason. Losing June was hard on everyone, but losing Michael, that’s a bigger loss than most of you can imagine.
“We’ve lost not only a man who loved his wife and daughter, but we’ve lost a man who would take a little boy who didn’t have a father, under his wing. We’ve lost a man that was so capable of love, he’d overlook even the most horrible of sins just so that he could you find your way back to the good.
He’ll be greatly missed, he’ll be grieved, but most of all, he’ll be forever loved.”
And with that, Jason returns to his mother’s side.
The ceremony continues in the normal fashion; more signing, more praying and a silence to remember the dead. But while all this is going on, I can’t help but think about what Jason said. My dad did take him in and they were close, so now the questions remains’ did my dad know what happened with us?
Did he understand that?
Did he keep seeing Jason even when I stopped?
How much did he know and how big of a part did he play in it all?
Twenty One
After the funeral I came home. There was a wake after it, but I didn’t go. My friends seemed to understand that I’d want to be alone after it.
That was a week ago.
I haven’t really done much since. I mostly just stay in bed, sometimes I wander up to my father’s floor and sit in his favourite chair. It’s always the same though, I sit there and I guess a part of me is waiting for him to walk through the door and ask why I’m wearing his shirt or why I’m not in work. He never comes through the door though.
I thought that with my father dying and being left all alone that I’d spend my time drinking or something to try and black it out, but I found that I don’t need to. If I take my pills, I just sort of go numb, and then it’s like it’s not really happening, kind of like it happened to someone else and I’m just watching from a distance.
I’m separated from it.
I still have the flashbacks though.
My favourite ones are of the holidays we spent together after my mum died. The failed Christmas dinners, the Easter eggs that we crushed by dropping a box on them. That time we fell asleep before we could finish the count down for the New Year.
The memories are something that I can’t control. When they come, I have no choice but to let them play through. No matter what it costs me.
It turns out though, it doesn’t really cost me much. While I’m floating on a cloud of numbness, reliving those memories is kind like watching a TV show. They don’t make me feel anything, they don’t make me sad or happy. They’re just there.
A slideshow of my life, I suppose.
With a light heart and a light mind, I lay back in my father’s chair and watch as new show appears in front of my eyes.
“Honey, did we forget the rolls for the hotdogs?”
My mum looks at me and rolls her eyes, with a giggle I follow her out to the back garden.
“They’re right by you dad!” I point at the table next to the barbecue.
Jason grabs them and pokes his tongue out at me. “Got them!”
“Great, and the sausages?” My father calls out to no one in particular.
“You’re cooking them.” My mum points out.
My dad looks down at the fork in his hand and the sausage that’s on the end of it. “So I am.” He smiles and shakes his head.
We all laugh at his silliness.
***
I look around at everyone who is laughing and frown at them. “It’s not funny.”
“Aww, come on, Lil.” My dad picks me up and throws me over his shoulder.
“Daaaaaaad! Stop it! Put me down!”
“Nope.”
“Michael, over here!” My mum shouts and then my dad picks up his speed, running to where to she is.
When he stops I tighten my hold on him. “Don’t do it dad. Please!”
“It won’t hurt, Lil.” Jason’s mum laughs.
I start to shout and tell her that it when they threw Jason in the water it looked like it hurt but before I can, my dad throws me and I don’t even have enough time to squeeze my fingers over my nose to stop water from going in there when I hit the water.
Jason swims over to help me when I come up for air, he’s a better swimmer than I am.
“That wasn’t funny.” I tell him.
“No, it wasn’t.” I agrees as our parents laugh at us.
“What if one of us couldn’t swim?” He shouts up at them, angrier than I am.
“Uh, honey, we’re the ones that taught you how to swim.” His mum points out, making them all laugh harder.
“Yeah, but you know Lily isn’t as good as I am.”
“We are right here, Jason,” My mum tells him. “If anything had gone wrong, one us would have jumped in.”
“I wouldn’t let anything happen to either of you.” My dad tells him.
But, despite their reassurances or as just a way to show them how unimpressed he is with their excuses, he guides me to the opposite side of the pool to them and helps me out.
I grab two towels of one of the sun loungers and pass him one.
“Next time, run.” He tells me as he dries his air.
“I will.”
***
“Dad,”
He doesn’t even turn at my voice. It’s been three days since my mum died and he hasn’t said a word to me. He just sits there, looking out of the window. I think he’s hoping he’ll see her walking down the path to the house, but I don’t have the heart to tell him that she won’t be coming home ever again.
I don’t have the energy to do anything, really.
I’ve tried getting him to talk, I’ve tried getting him to eat, I’ve tried getting him to move from that chair but he won’t. He won’t do anything.
“Dad. We need to start doing stuff. People keep coming to the house and I can’t just keep sending them away.”
St
ill, he says nothing.
“Fine. You just sit there and do nothing. Just sit there in your silence and looking for something that isn’t there. You’re not the only one who lost her. Don’t forget that I lost Gavin too.”
I walk to stand in front of him. Something has to work to get him moving. I only need him to acknowledge that I’m here.
“Did you hear me dad? I’ve lost two people in less than two weeks. Do you understand how that makes me feel? You’re supposed to be the one that’s helping me, not the other way around.”
Nothing.
“Dad, please!” I beg, but that still doesn’t work so I start picking up things off the floor. I don’t know how they got there, the only mess he’s making is that he must have a thin layer of dust on him by now.
“I’m going to make dinner, what do you want? Do you think I should order food? I don’t think there’s much of anything here, or I could ask Lexi to go and pick up some stuff so that I can cook for us?”
“Dad?” I try again.
When he still stares out the window instead of looking at me, I turn and leave the room.
He’ll come out of it on his own. He has to. He just needs to grieve in his own way. Hopefully it won’t take much longer because I’m not sure how long I can stand this. He’s not my dad when he’s like this, not really.
Twenty Two
Another three days pass in the same manor before I’m no longer alone.
I haven’t made up imaginary friends or anything; but my friends have shown up.
It started with just Lexi, she came over. She didn’t knock or anything, she just came in and as if she knew exactly where I’d be, she walked straight to my dad’s bedroom and that’s where she found me.
With a muttered ‘Jesus,’ she left the room.
That was about ten minutes ago.
More out of curiosity than anything else, I move out of the room and down the stairs where I find her in my kitchen with Nate.
“What are you doing?” I ask. They’re huddled together at the small table in the corner.
They both turn to look at me, Lexi with a look of surprise, Nate looks… confused. “What are you wearing?” He asks.
I look down at myself. I’m wearing one of my dad’s old shirts, it’s a red and green plaid button up, hits me at the knees and a pair of my mum’s pyjama bottoms which are pink with kittens on them. Slightly embarrassed at being caught like this, I decide to turn it back on him. “My house, my rules. I ask the questions. What are you doing?”
“We were thinking about cooking, weren’t we?” Lexi says, looking at Nate and I don’t miss the kick she gives him under the table.
I roll my eyes at her. “There’s no food here. None that’s edible, anyway.”
“Cal’s picking up some Chinese and bringing it over,” Nate tells me.
“So you’re going to cook already made Chinese?”
“I-we-” He throws his hands up. “No.”
“Then what are you really doing?” I repeat. He’s always the first to break. We used to keep him away from our parents when we were younger because of it.
“We came over here because you’re being stupid. You haven’t left the house in I don’t know how long. You just said yourself there’s no food here and we’re worried about you.” He frowns at me. “What have you been eating?”
“There’s food in my dad’s kitchen upstairs. There’s none in mine though.”
“So you’ve been out?” Lexi asks looking hopeful.
“No. He just keeps his freezer better stocked than I do.”
“Keeps.” Lexi repeats, “He keeps?” She turns to Nate. “I told you. She hasn’t processed it yet.”
“She’s standing right here,” I point out.
“We know,” They say at the same time.
“Hey,” Cal’s voice comes from the other room.
“Doesn’t anybody knock?” I ask no one in particular.
“I brought food,” He grins at me when he joins us in the kitchen.
Without another choice, besides making an idiot of myself by trying to run away, I pull out a chair and sit at the table.
Lexi and Cal start messing around with the food until there are plates over flowing with all my favourites covering the surface of the table.
Then Jason joins us.
He didn’t knock either.
“Oh great. It’s a party.” I mutter.
“Shut up. We’re here for you.” Lexi says and scoops up more noodles, twirling them around her fork.
“So you haven’t left the house in over a week, huh?” Jason asks around a mouthful of spring roll.
I don’t answer him, I just screw my lip up at him.
“What have you been doing?” Nate asks, “Besides wearing your dad’s clothes, of course,”
I roll my eyes at him. “I’ve been grieving,”
“No you haven’t.”
“Uhh, yes I have.”
“Then why are you still referring to him in the present tense?”
“Because it takes longer than two weeks to process that my only remaining family member is now dead?” I snap.
“Lilith,” Cal calls, probably to stop an argument that none of us know is coming. “I know this must be hard for you, I can’t imagine how hard and I hope I never have to, but you’re not grieving. You’re not trying to get through this, I don’t know what you’re doing, but it’s not grieving.”
“Then what am I doing?”
“Pretending it isn’t happening? I don’t know, but whatever it is, it isn’t healthy. This? Sitting at home and wearing his clothes, not eating properly and not talking to anyone, that’s not good.”
“Cal,” I soften my voice. “What I’m doing is working.”
“How?”
“It just is. I’m fine.”
“Lil,” Lexi calls and I have to look away from the pity I see on her face. “No one asked if you’re okay. Haven’t you noticed that none of us have asked you that? It’s because we can see that you’re not and if we asked, you’d lie and say that you’re fine. Which is what you just did, by the way.”
“Okay, fine.” I push my plate away from me; I’m not hungry anyway. “So I’m not okay. You think that you can fix that? You think you can just all come over and sitting down eating some food is going to make everything better? I’m not broken. This isn’t something you can just glue back together. This is my life. My family.”
“We don’t want to fix you,” Nate says with a frown. “We just want to help, maybe make it a little easier for you.”
“And how do you plan on doing that exactly?”
“You’ll let us? You won’t argue or question us?” He asks a little too hopefully.
“Will it get rid of you all quicker so I can carry on doing what I was doing?”
“Sure,”
“Then do whatever you want. Do whatever it is you think needs to be done, but I want to know what it is that you’re doing.”
“Okay,” Lexi takes over with the talking once more. “We’re going to start going through your fathers things. We won’t throw anything out, I promise. We’re just going to start boxing some things up and maybe move them to the attic. We’ll run everything by you and who knows, maybe when the space is empty it’ll give you something to do.”
“I don’t need something to do.”
“You do, Lil. Maybe redecorating his place, hell, the whole place will help you move on somehow. I don’t know if it’ll work, but it’s a start and it’s better than doing nothing.”
“Okay,” I agree mostly just to hurry the whole thing along. “You can do that, as long you don’t throw anything away without checking with me first. Oh, and don’t throw my mother’s things away either.”
“Wait,” Jason holds up a hand. “You still have your mother’s things here?”
I wait a few seconds before I answer him, not just because I don’t want to talk to him but because everyone is now staring at me. “All her stuff is still here. We n
ever… when she died, we just left her things alone. We haven’t touched them.”
“We’ll sort it out.” Cal promises and one by one they all stand from the table and exit the room to start packing up my parent’s lives.
Once I’m sure I’m alone, I take a few more pills. None of them will be back down for a while and when the time comes, I’d rather be numb when I’m going through their possessions.
Twenty Three
“Lilly.”
I try to groan but the pain is too intense, instead a low growl comes out of me.
“What’s wrong?”
I manage to turn my head enough to look at Jason. How the hell did he get in here?
“How’d you get in here?” I mumble and push myself up into a sitting position. I’ve been sweating so much that my face peels away from table in a slow, sticky move that makes me wince.
“What do you mean? I’ve been upstairs with Cal and Nate moving your dad’s things.” He frowns and runs his eyes over my face.
“You have?” I frown back at him. “Right. You have.” I try pushing myself up to standing but everything starts going black and I fall back down into the chair. “Ouch.”
“Lilly.” He calls but he’s right next to me looking into my eyes again. Why is shouting?
“What?”
“What have you done?”
I swallow loudly when I see his expression and I know he knows. “Nothing.”
“Bullshit. What have you done?”
“Nothing.” I repeat and wince when my stomach cramps again.
“What’s wrong? Something’s is wrong. I need to know what you’ve taken so that I can help you.”
“No.” I try once again to stand and this time make it without falling down. “I don’t need help, I’m fine.”
“No you’re not, you’re-”
My retching cuts him off and making my head spin even more than it already is, he lifts me, cradling me in his arms and then we’re moving. I stay silent and focus on not throwing up on him as he takes me to the bathroom adjoined to my bedroom upstairs with ease.
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