Despite my prior convictions, I feel like I’m going to drown.
Standing here, in J’vonte and her mother’s apartment, looking into the mirror before me at the dark clothes and the sad expression I wear, I find myself dreading today and what it will bring.
“Hey,” J’vonte says as she appears in the threshold leading out into the hallway.
“Hey,” I reply.
“Are you okay?”
There’s really no way to answer that question. On one hand, I want to tell her everything is all right—because the lie, brazen as it would be, would at least offer some comfort to her, and maybe even some to me. On another, though, I know that telling false truths will get me nowhere.
And will only pull you down, a part of me says, into the ground.
A sigh escapes me—long and hard, cold and filled with remorse.
Come time I lift my eyes to face J’vonte, all I can say is: “I’m… managing.”
“I guess that’s all we can expect on a day like this,” my friend says.
I force a nod and turn my head to regard my friend as she steps up beside me. I frown as she considers her reflection in the mirror, plain and sad as it happens to be.
“I’m sorry,” J’vonte says.
“For what?” I ask.
“That you’re having to go through this.”
“It isn’t your fault, J’von.”
“Still… I can only imagine how hard this must be for you.”
I don’t say anything. Rather, I turn my head to look at my reflection in the mirror again, and sigh.
“Oaklynn,” she says.
“Yeah?”
“I know they’re looking down at you right now.”
Had she told me this at a previous point in my life, I would’ve considered her words, and even her logic, improbable. But here, though, and now, I know that things are not as they seem, especially when it comes to life and death.
Though I want to reply, I can only offer a nod in response.
A knock comes at the threshold, catching me off-guard.
Missus Fawn stands in the doorway, looking sad as ever on a day when she, too, will put a loved one to rest. “Girls,” she says, in a voice so low that I can barely hear her. “It’s almost time to go.”
“Are you ready?” J’vonte asks.
Though I want to nod, I know I can’t.
Who can truly be ready to put their parents to rest?
Rather than say anything, I simply say, “I think so” and turn my head to face Missus Fawn. “We’re ready to go?”
“I just have to grab my purse. Then we’re ready.”
The whole process takes less than five minutes. Walking out of J’vonte’s room, then out of the apartment, down the flight of stairs, then climbing into Missus Fawn’s car. As she pulls the vehicle out of its assigned space, and begins to drive away from the complex, I feel a tug of emotion that instantly makes me wish that Jackson and his father were here with me.
It’s better this way, I think.
I’d told J’vonte and her mother that the Meadows family had come down with a stomach bug. Whether or not they believe me I’ve still yet to determine.
Driving across town, beneath the cloudy sky and foggy street, I feel a sense of regret for everything I’d never told my parents.
I still can’t remember if I’d told them I’d loved them that night before we’d gone to bed. If I’d hugged them. If I’d held them tight.
The thoughts, triggering to my emotions as they happen to be, do not bring tears. Rather, they bring rage.
Remain calm, the Light Wolf says. Don’t allow yourself to give in to your emotions.
I won’t, I reply, hoping that J’vonte won’t ask why I’m looking out the window—why I’m barely speaking, hardly responding, not really breathing. I promise you that.
I will follow you through the dark, the Light Wolf whispers, and lead you to the brighter side beyond.
I can only nod at her phantom voice.
As we roll up to the church—and as we come to park in the midst of all the other cars and the people who have come to attend my parents’ funeral—I find myself seizing with anxiety.
“Oak?” J’vonte asks. “Are you—“
“Fine,” I manage, but breathlessly at that. I inhale two lungs’ worth of air and steel myself for what is to come before saying, “I’m ready.”
Climbing out of the car is a test of endurance I knew would be nearly impossible to handle. Stepping up to the church, however, and seeing the small crowd of people as they line up to enter, is another thing entirely.
Breathe in, breathe out, my mother used to say. Breathe in, breathe out.
In… out, I think. In… out.
“In, out,” I whisper as we approach the church’s front doors. “In…”
The door is opened for us.
And though a part of me doesn’t want to believe it, I can’t help but lay eyes upon the sight before me.
Standing there, below the altar, and arranged side-by-side, are my mother and father’s sealed coffins.
A startled sob escapes me.
J’vonte takes hold of my hand.
I squeeze it.
“I love you,” she whispers, “and I’m here for you.”
“Thank you,” I say through a sniffle.
Missus Fawn sets a hand on my shoulder.
Then, slowly, we step forward.
The church is cold at this hour of the morning—when, before dawn’s rays can light the world, the stone it is made up of has basked in nothing but the chill of night. Ghostly in that there is little natural light, and haunting in the sense that the people around us cry quietly in their seats, I find myself gripping J’vonte’s hand as tightly as I can as we bridge the distance between us and the front of the pews, whereupon we are meant to sit in the front row.
Come time we finally seat ourselves, I feel as if the weight of the world has fallen upon me.
Please, I think, Mother Wolf, or whoever tends to the spirits beyond: lend me your ear. Let them be safe, and let them be content where they are.
Tears spill from my eyes as I finish the silent prayer.
In moments, the clock is striking eight-fifteen.
The doors to the church are closing.
The pastor is stepping forward. He says, “Welcome” and then turns his eyes on me, “to the funerals of Claire and Benjamin Smith.”
There is little that can be said that I haven’t already heard in the past—little he could offer in terms of comfort. As the pastor speaks, slowly but surely leading us through what the Bible says about life and about what happens after death, I find myself reminiscing on everything that I once knew and loved, and feel the threads of emotion pulling at my heartstrings.
I think of my mother’s laugh. My father’s smile. My parents’ unabashed love for each other. I think of the days when they would say how proud they were of me, and what they would think of me now, if they really, truly knew. I wonder if they would be disappointed, or if they would feel a sense of justice. I wonder if they, with their practical minds, would understand that I had done what I had done for them, and if they would approve. And I wonder, deep down, what they must be thinking as they sit there, at that grand table in the sky, or in that wide field in a place I could never even begin to imagine.
I wonder if they rest with the wolves.
Then, slowly, the service ends.
We stand.
The pallbearers, with their strong arms and sure gazes, lift the caskets and begin to carry them into the cemetery that lies beyond the church.
In the fading, twilight hour of morning, we come to stand beside one massive grave, in which both of my parents will be set and buried.
“Oaklynn,” the pastor says as he comes to stand beside me.
“Yes?” I ask, turning my eyes to face him.
“Your parents would be proud.”
“Thank you,” I say.
I lift my eyes to face him—and though a part of me wonders, as I look into his eyes, if he can see all my hurt, all my pain, and all my convictions, another knows that there is no way he could possibly understand what I have done.
Right? I think.
I offer a short nod, then turn my head to look at the hole in which my parents will be laid to rest.
Though it takes less than ten minutes for the funeral to conclude—and even less for the people to step forward and present their roses, red and white and practically blue—I find myself hesitating as I stand there, waiting for the last rose to fall.
When I finally find the courage to speak, all I can manage, in a whispered voice, is: “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more.”
Then I allow the rose to fall, and my parents’ souls to be laid to rest.