(Author’s note: I’ve been working on this piece for a while now. It was an exploration of grief with a hint of what can come from it. And it’s broken down into several different parts. Here’s part one!)
“They don’t mind the rain.”
They don’t mind the rain.
He sounds just like him. He uses the same phrases, makes the same emotionless comments. He even has the same tone of voice. Just like him, but not him.
“I don’t do it for them,” I answer, glaring up at him. Sleek black shoes that repel the moisture dripping over them, black pleated pants that drive an edge all the way to his waist where they meet a thick belt and a casually tucked black button down, and a finely ironed white suit jacket. It’s as though he’s torn between dressing for a funeral and entering a music hall.
“I know,” he replies, stepping closer. “You do it for him.” His grip trembles around the umbrella in his hand, his fingers tightening white. “I don’t know why you’re still waiting for him. You already planted the flowers.”
“They don’t represent his death.” The words were meant to come out with confidence, but I can hear the strain in my voice. Anymore, I don’t even believe that he’s still alive. But he might be, and even if I have to remind myself of that sometimes, I’ll continue to repeat that statement. He might be alive and sitting alone under this storm with no umbrella.
I return my gaze to the garden at my feet. There are fourteen flowers. Six daisies call out to loved ones lost in another place. Four yellow pansies bid farewells to pets that were lost long ago. Three yellow marguerites wave goodbye to elderly partners that traveled before them. And one red carnation reaches for him.
It’s grown since I planted it. Though, what flower wouldn’t have grown in seven years?
I hold the umbrella over them, ignoring the rain dripping down the back of my collar. We weren’t always close when he was alive. Sometimes we fought over his lack of empathy, but he was getting better. He wanted to get better. And then they took him. They. As though I know anything about what happened to him. Did someone take him? Did someone hurt him? Did he leave on his own?
“They will,” he states the words with finality.
“Why? Do you have something you want to admit to me?” Of course he doesn’t. He just wants to claw at the last semblance of hope I have in me. Because he’s as cruel as his younger brother used to be. I never wondered where he got it from. His older brother was his role model—for some unknown reason—and he was proud to say it. “Please leave me alone, Adam.”
“Thought I’d remind you that flowers need water to live,” he retorts, scoffing. “We’re not so different in that way, but he differs. The dead don’t need—”
“—Stop!” I scream the word. It’s accentuated by the water streaming down my face, splashing over my lips. It sprays as I react. “Stop! I know he’s been missing a long time. I know he’s probably not coming back. But I don’t need you reminding me of that everytime I come here!” His gaze flicks from my face to my feet, then to the wilting flowers beside us.
“Come inside,” he demands.
“And watch them cry on just this one day again?” I argue. “You know how I feel about the way they mourn.”
“You can’t live your life in mourning, Clarice,” he insists. “They mourn that way because it’s the only way they can move beyond it. We remember him once a year, we offer him the food he used to love, and we wish him happiness wherever he ended up.”
“This is how I move forward.” I lower my umbrella over the flowers, tucking it against the stone I’d put in when I was a child. It’s a beautiful marble piece with a rounded edge—once rounded edge. The weather has taken its toll, but the engraved words are still readable.
For those we love and lost who received no burial.
It could have been better. I could have written the words to express more love, but they were the heartfelt words of a ten year old kid. That’s why I haven’t thought about replacing the stone or the engraving on it. I wipe at the rain now flooding down my face and lean back. That’s when he glides closer, holding his umbrella over us both.
“You’re not going anywhere. You’re just standing in place,” he mumbles. “Not because you’re committed to this project, but because you think of him every time you see these flowers. You’re coming here to wrap the wound in your heart. It hasn’t been treated. It hasn’t been sewn. This is self-medicating. It won’t last. Come inside. Grieve with the others. Grieve until your tears run dry.”
“No.” I blink tears and rain from my eyes. “No.”
“Adam! Clarice!” Their mother, Janette. She’s a beautiful woman, full of color and life. She has the mousy brown hair and the deep blue eyes that both brothers have—have and had. What she doesn’t share with them is their cruel tongues. “It’s pouring. Come inside!”
“It’s not just me,” Adam whispers, gesturing me inside with his head. “You’ve given them the umbrella. You’ve saved them from the rain. Him too. You did your duty here, now do your duty to the living.” He lifts his hand to me and waits for me to accept it. They’re truly relentless. They won’t let me mourn in my own way. They won’t let me have a moment to talk to him one on one. They won’t let me remind him of better days when he was around and the only one who dared to speak to me.
Adam never saw me until his brother disappeared.
I ignore his hand and step around him. I’ll do as they ask of me, even though every bone in my body rejects it. Adam follows after me, holding his umbrella over me. Not that it matters, because I’m already drenched. But it’s the action with them. “I love you” could never pass through their lips, but they’ll show it with their tender movements, their guarded glances.
“Come in, dear.” Janette wraps an arm around my shoulders. “Lord! You’re soaked through. We’ll find something dry for you to change into. Adam—” She turns to address him, but he’s already faded from our sides. In a minute or two he’ll return with a towel or a shawl, something to wrap around my shoulders and prove his worth to me. And I’ll have to smile and accept his gesture, because I know Janette will be watching us. She pushes us together more than anyone. Adam’s feelings for me are well known, not one person in this town could claim they haven’t observed them. At least Adam’s polite about it—the only way he’s ever polite. Their mother, however, is not.
“Wait here. I’m sure he’ll be right back,” she orders me, though her tone is gentle. “Once you’re dry, join us in the dining room. You haven’t eaten anything since breakfast. We don’t need a fainting spell today.” No, never! A fainting spell. I want to snort at the comment, but I hold back my contempt. This is her son’s seventh year gone, and she’s practically glowing.
Strong hands drape a towel over my shoulders. “Faint if you want to,” Adam mutters. “Now that we’re inside, I’m reminded why I always end up by the flowers with you.”
“I want to talk to him,” I explain. “Alone.”
“The others are eating.” It’s his way of saying the room should be empty. I nod, stepping away from him and the others. The funeral home is set up into several different rooms. A dining hall, a viewing room, and a remembrance room. It was an idea I came up with when I suggested the garden. I’m the dark and spooky Clarice, the town’s strange daughter of death. Funeral homes don’t usually run in the family, but they do in mine. My father operates the home, and my mother the graveyard outside. They’re a match made in the rain, where a shovel and several headstones were involved.
Swallowing down my discomfort, I walk into the remembrance room. Pictures of him smile at me from the shelf, surrounded by red carnations. They were my idea the first year we mourned him. Janette liked the idea, so she continued to order them every year since.
“Ollie,” I whisper, approaching the center photo. It’s the biggest one, set-up against a block that holds it at an angle. “How’s the rain? It isn’t too hard, right? You’re staying warm, aren’t you?” I lift my fingers to the frame, tracing them down the fine wood. I sniffle, though I try to keep the tears in, and wrap the towel tighter around me. “Am I making it hard on you? I know I haven’t been able to let you go…” Clearing my throat, I drop to a seat in front of him. I almost expect him to answer me.
They won’t drown.
Every time he saw me holding an umbrella over that garden, he would say that to me. It was one of the lines I begged him to stop saying. I tried to explain to him that I didn’t hold the umbrella for the flowers. I’m always surrounded with death, helping the dead even though they’re gone… It’s a part of me. I did it because it’s just who I am. I wanted to help them. I still want to help them.
“You’ve always had a talent for gathering people,” I stammer. Even now, even without him facing me, I have a hard time talking to him. I never knew how he was going to react to me, or how my words would be received. Sometimes he’d smile at my stupidity, then the next day he’d be insulted by a stupid comment I hadn’t meant to say. And did he even have a right to be insulted? He insulted me daily. “And making them cry.”
What are you suggesting?
He was like a Victorian novel. The proper speech, the air of superiority, the slight British accent from choosing to pronounce words “properly.” He’d pronounce every part of that word, not even letting a slight slur come through. He didn’t want to sound mundane, normal, like every other high schooler in the town. He had anti-small town syndrome, like most kids who grow up in one do. The world is big, wide, and spacious! We want to be free! And yet, most of us end up staying in our small towns and watching them grow into cities right before our eyes.
“I kind of hate you for it,” I admit. “I’ve always kind of hated you.” Just two outcasts sticking to one another because they weren’t accepted by anyone else. That’s why I can’t let him go. That’s why I can’t move beyond him. A sob jolts up my throat, and I let it escape. Tears flood down my cheeks, soaking into the already damp towel.
“Adam,” I gasp out. “Adam!” I know he’s waiting right outside the room. He always does. And this time I need his comfort. This time, I need his company. He’s right. I need to move beyond Ollie, because if I don’t, I’m going to end up drowning in a sea of resentment. How could he leave me alone with all these strangers? How dare he gather them with me every single year? How dare he make me mourn him?
Those familiar arms drape around my shoulders, holding me to his chest.“You’re right,” I hiss. “I can’t keep going like this. Even if he’s alive, I can’t keep tightening my hold. Please. Please, help me.”