Silence fills the air walking Phoebe to her car. I have no energy. Putting one foot in front of the other is a big deal, my gut churning faster and faster. I should tell her all the things I learned about her maybe brother, that he’s dead and she’s out of danger, for now, but I don’t. I’m too wrapped up in my own grief. Speaking could end up with me bursting into tears. It’s best I keep it inside.
Squeezing my hand, she smiles. “I’ll be there soon.”
A tender kiss on her lips jump starts my head momentarily. “I’m already missing you.”
“Me too.”
People gather but they’re nameless faces. I’m focused on the photo of Melody on the casket, her wide smile beaming back at us all.
Voices come and go, a woman gets up, then another, then the celebrant again. My lungs burn and my throat constricts. Sitting next to Slate, Tanner, and Caden, the girls are next to us. Phoebe’s here but I’m overwhelmed in sadness, I didn’t move.
The funeral directors set up the outside area perfectly. Orange lilies adorn the casket and Mom and Dad sit on the opposite side from me. Other flowers are scattered around the lawn and a basket holding more lilies sit at the end. A line of people encroach as they pick up a lily, placing it on the final resting place of Melody’s. A slow stream of feet walk past me.
My legs refuse to move, my heart thumping in my head drowning out the soft cries. Clenching my hands, I hold in the howling pain, instead I assault my skin with my nails, and force my body to stay solid.
“You did this to her,” my mother shrieks, her fists flying into me as she strides up to me. My head pulls back, and the pain etched on my mother’s rivals mine I’m trying to keep contained inside. “You and your delinquent friends. You all killed her.” Assaulting my shoulders, a few slaps hitting me in the face, she moves her rage to my real family.
My father steps in and eases her hands back from me. “Odette. Stop.” Red-rimmed eyes look at me, my dad’s aged ten or more years since I saw him a month ago. “Ocean would never hurt his sister.”
“It’s always been about you. No regard for us or your sister. Consumed by your illegal shenanigans, it has finally caught up with you.”
Spearing my vision into her eyes, an explosion kabooms. Rehashing the same conversation she has been spewing at me for days blows my mind apart. Manic and frustrated, I stand and what I’ve been holding inside for decades spills out in front of everyone.
“You stupid woman. You can’t see past your alcohol fused eyes. Melody came to me for help with everything. She turned to me when you drank yourself into a coma, when she sat beside you for weeks in the hospital when your liver shut down. She always babbled that we needed to save you from yourselves. She never gave up on you, but you gave up on us. I was there when she had her heart broken by the French guy, when she thought she was getting married to the jock when she was eighteen, when she was pregnant, uncertain what to do because of the deadbeat dad only to end up losing the baby anyway. I was the one there for her. Not Dad and not you.”
Shock registers on their faces.
“Melody loved life, lived it to its fullest, and was wild with it. Why do you think there are so many people here to wish her goodbye today?” Bowing my head, I thank them in my own way for coming. “Men came and went, poor money choices and bad situations arose, and I fixed them. That’s what I did, what we both did. We looked out for one another. That’s what happens when you have parents who aren’t around. You didn’t know Melody, Mother. You haven’t known the true Melody since we were children.”
Fuck. I’d blurted out private memories that only we shared.
Heaving in air, water slips down my face. If Mom was anyone else, I would have flattened them into a bloody pulp.
Knocking over the chair, I walk away.
Fuck, I want to punch something, but Melody doesn’t deserve this at her resting place.
Standing alone on the hill, heat scalds my skin. I tear at my jacket, ripping it off. Shaking all over, I sit before I fall. Music wafts and I watch as the casket is lowered into the soil. A delicate hand takes mine and holds it tight.
Ugly sobs torrent through me. “Why take her and not me?” I deserve it, she didn’t.
Arms wrap around my waist and my head falls onto Phoebe’s shoulder where my eyes blur.
“I love you, Melody.”
God knows how many tears I’ve shed.
My mother is all but dead to me and I still cry on occasions wishing she was here. There’s a dull ache that is lodged forever in my heart.
I frequently say I miss her, but in reality, it has been so long, they are just words. I can’t remember the warmth of her hugs, her smell, or what her skin felt against mine. Her voice is no longer echoing through my ears and her smile has long vanished from my memory bank. The fact that she isn’t here to see me traveling through the years is possibly what I miss.
Shaking my head, clearing it, I know Ocean will wholeheartedly miss Melody.
“The orange flowers were lovely. They’re out of season too so they would have been hard to find.”
“Yeah.”
Crushed and fractured, we’ve been sitting graveside for over two hours. When everyone had paid their last respects, Ocean reluctantly walked down with me holding my hand tight. He hasn’t said much, only the odd word. Every now and then he’d pop a Skittle into his mouth, offering me some when he did. His tears stopped flowing twenty minutes ago.
“Where do you think Melody is now?” Tired eyes study the mound of soil and another assortment of flowers covering it.
“In a place that is idyllic and serene, where nothing bad happens.” Thinking about death many times, I needed to believe that if my family did end me, I would be going somewhere better. “I think when we pass, because we endure some evil on earth, we are then blessed to remain in a pure, unspoiled existence. Where our soul can look however we choose, and we find the true person we are destined to be with if we weren’t lucky to find our soul mate on earth.”
“I hope so. Melody deserves happiness and someone who genuinely loves her.”
Watching this large, unstoppable, dominant man break is excruciating. My insides are splintering, piece by piece observing how his body is collapsing into a shell of what it was days ago.
“Your sister I’m guessing was stubborn like you, so I’m sure she will make it happen.”
A flicker of a smile flashes. My heart melts into a mess.
“I’m not stubborn.”
“Oh yeah, well, I’m not a great florist.”
“You know you are. The best around. I wish you could have done Melody’s flowers, she would have liked that.”
“It’s for the best I didn’t. Your mom and dad found a lovely funeral home and every tiny detail was thought about. You can’t ask for more than that.”
“For the most part, it was a worthy send-off to my sister. If only my mother didn’t start her crap again.” Raising his voice, strain mars his handsome face.
“It’s been an emotional few days. People say things they don’t mean when they are hurting.”
“Not Odette. She’s been saying the same lines for years about my brothers. Hoping I’d stay far away from Melody so I wouldn’t negatively influence her.”