Arcadia's Gift(15)

I had expected to see Lony there, but I realized with some surprise that body lying there was not her. My sister was long gone. The mortician had made her up to appear younger and more conservative than she’d been in life. Her hair was brushed and positioned so that it framed her face. She wore the plum colored dress that we had taken our family pictures in the year before, a dress that I remembered her complaining made her neck itch. The smoky eye make-up that I’d been so accustomed to seeing on her over the past year was gone, leaving a fresh face with only a hint of mascara and lip gloss. It looked more like my body in the coffin than hers. I shuddered.
I’d been so absorbed with drinking in her appearance, I didn’t notice the long moments that passed. When Dad touched my shoulder and indicated that my turn was up, my heart jumped into my throat. No! I screamed inside. I’m not ready for her to be gone!
Pastor Tom gathered the remaining family members and Cane in front of the coffin to say some last words. The tenor of his voice sounded far away, and I concentrated on saying my own silent good-byes, which I’d neglected to do before.
One by one, people began heading for their cars to get ready for the procession to the cemetery.
As I left the chapel, I turned back to see Cane, all alone now, watching the two somber men from the funeral home close the lid and set an arrangement of roses on top. He’d been the last person to see her in life. It seemed fitting that he be the last to see her in death.
It wasn’t until we were in the car on the way home that I felt the butterfly hair clip still in my pocket.






 
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Chapter 8


The next week and a half faded past me in blur. The pain in our house was almost unbearable. When Lony died, she left behind a hole that stifled us with its emptiness. My mother, Aaron and I spent most of our time in our bedrooms, Mom in a Valium-induced haze. She crumbled after the funeral and hadn’t gotten out of her pajamas since. Aaron drowned his thoughts in death metal in the basement until Dad stopped by and told him to keep it down so as not to disturb Mom. Me? I spent long afternoons sitting on the cushy window seat in my bedroom watching a flock of cardinals nest in our backyard pine tree.
Just over two weeks after the accident, I awoke early to noise coming from the kitchen beneath me. I slid my arms into a Hawkeyes sweatshirt and wandered down to investigate. Aaron stood in front of the open refrigerator drinking milk from the carton. Mom would have yelled at him for it, but I never drank milk, so I didn’t care.
“What are you doing?” I asked, leaning against the counter. Aaron’s blond hair was damp from the shower and he was dressed in jeans and a clean t-shirt which read “The ZOMBIE APOCALYPS is coming.” I wasn’t sure if it was advertising a band or making a social statement.
“What’s it look like?” he grunted. “Going to school.”
School. The thought of doing something as ordinary as going to school seemed foreign to me.
“Why?” I wondered.
Aaron flashed me a look like I was the stupidest girl he’d ever met. “It’s Monday.” He replaced the cap on the milk and slid it back into the refrigerator. His eyes drifted over me standing there barefoot and in pajamas. “You’re not going?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I haven’t thought about it.”
Aaron’s face softened and he nodded. “If you’re not ready, you should stay home. But I…I just can’t take this house anymore.” He snatched up his bag from the table. “See ya.”
I stood there for several minutes, my mind completely blank. It felt kind of nice standing alone, like being able to breathe fresh air after a long time in a stuffy room. For the first time since leaving the hospital, I got an urge to get out of the house, to go for a jog, to feel the sun on my skin. I wasn’t ready to go back to class yet, but a run around the neighborhood sounded like it might be okay.
After swapping out my pj’s for sweats, I walked down the hall to my mother’s room to let her know I was going out. I opened her door slowly and peeked in. The shades were drawn tight, blocking out the morning sun. I could just make out a lump curled in a ball in the middle of the king-sized mattress. Aside from the funeral, my mom hadn’t left her bed. The scent of unwashed sheets made my nose twitch.
Suddenly, my hands began to tremble and my stomach clenched. Intense sorrow hit me, seeming to radiate from the direction of the bed, both emotional and physical at the same time. It sunk into my body through my pores. My breath caught in my throat and something in my heart snapped. The void left from Lony’s absence sucked the gravity right out of the room. I lost my grip on the door and dropped to the carpet. I hadn’t realized I was sobbing until my mother’s arms wrapped around me, rocking me side to side.