Katie
The funeral is three days later. Yesterday, I couldn’t make myself get out of bed.
I couldn’t make myself sit up or bring myself to face anything waiting outside that room.
Every time I opened my eyes, it was already there, and I didn’t have the energy to deal with it.
I stayed where I was and let the day pass around me.
Michael stayed with me. I know he had work.
I know his life didn’t stop because mine did.
None of that changed what he did. He brought me food I didn’t eat, water I barely touched, and he kept coming back to the bed, pulling me into him and keeping contact with me every chance he got.
He didn’t ask me to talk. He didn’t ask anything from me.
I told him to go. I told him he couldn’t stay there all day because of me. Eventually, he listened. He left the room, but he stayed in the house. He went downstairs to his office.
I finally got up around nine. I’d never been in there.
I knocked and peeked my head in, unsure if he was still working.
He was sitting at his desk with papers spread in front of him.
He looked up when he heard me, glasses on his face, and smiled.
I didn’t even know he wore glasses. When I walked over, he pushed his chair back from the desk.
I climbed into his lap, and he pulled me in, holding me close.
He took his glasses off, set them on the desk, and pushed my hair out of my face.
“Hey, how are you feeling?”
“Sad.”
“I know, Doll. You want me to come to bed?”
I nodded against him.
He braced one arm under my thighs and the other on my back.
He stood up, and I wrapped my arms around his neck.
He carried me down the hall and up the steps.
His grip was firm, and I laid my head against his shoulder.
Inside his room, he lightly shut the door with his foot and set me down on the bed.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, and disappeared into the bathroom.
A few minutes later he came back out in nothing but his boxers. He turned off the overhead light, got under the covers, and turned off his beside lamp. He moved in the dark until he found me, pulling me back against him.
“I love you, Katie,” he whispered in my ear.
“I love you too.”
“We’ll get through tomorrow, okay?”
I nodded, even if I didn’t quite believe it.
Now I’m standing in front of the bathroom mirror, trying to decide if I should wear my hair up or down for my mom’s funeral. I keep lifting it, letting it fall, staring at myself without really seeing anything.
Michael steps up behind me.
“Need help with this?” he asks, his fingers finding the zipper I couldn’t reach on my dress.
“Thanks,” I say as he slides it up.
The fabric settles against me, and his hand lingers for a second at my back before he moves my hair over my shoulder. His mouth presses against my neck, and I close my eyes, leaning back into him, letting myself rest there for a moment.
“I don’t want to do this,” I say, turning into him and pressing my face into his chest.
“I know,” he says, wrapping his arms around me and holding me there.
“All of these people are going to be there,” I continue, my voice shaking. “They’re going to want to talk to me, tell me how sorry they are, and I don’t know how to respond to that. I can’t do it.”
“Then you won’t.”
I pull back, searching his face.
“You don’t have to sit up there and act like you’ve got it together,” he says. “You don’t owe anyone that. You can be sad. You can be angry. You can be whatever the fuck you feel. This isn’t about them.”
Tears rise, blurring my vision.
“Thank you.”
Sarah’s already in the front of the SUV when Michael and I get in the back. She reaches her hand back, and I grab it for a second.
“Do you want the partition up?” Luca asks.
I shake my head. He nods and pulls out of the circular drive. None of us talk, but it’s not uncomfortable. It gives me time to catch my breath before I have to face whoever shows up today.
We arrive before everyone else. I haven’t seen her yet. We didn’t even have a showing because I couldn’t do it, but Gerald insisted that we come early. He said it’s better if I see her before everyone else. That it will be easier. I’m not sure how any of this could be considered easy.
The moment I see the casket, everything inside me locks.
The funeral home is too quiet, the air carrying that sterile scent that clings to the back of my throat, and it makes every breath feel wrong.
I stop just inside the doorway, my heel catching against the carpet as my body refuses to take another step.
Michael’s hand presses to the center of my back.
“Doll, just breathe.”
I try. I push air out, feel it leave me in, but when I pull another breath in, it comes too fast, catching halfway. My chest tightens instead of easing. Tears blur my vision, the shape of the casket at the front of the room going hazy, unreal, and somehow worse because of it.
“I can’t,” I whisper, shaking my head, my fingers grabbing at the fabric of his jacket. “I can’t do this.”
“Shh.” His voice lowers, close to my ear. He turns into me, pulling me fully against him. One arm wraps tightly around my back while his other hand comes up to cradle the back of my head, guiding me into his chest. “I got you.”
I press my face into him, breathing him in, but it doesn’t stop the panic from pushing through.
“Michael, I don’t want to do this.” The words break as they come out uneven. My grip tightens, fists bunching his shirt. “That’s not her. That’s not my mom up there.”
My throat closes around the last word, but I force it out anyway.
His hand moves from the crown of my head, fingers sliding through my hair before traveling down my back in long passes, over and over. His other arm tightens around me, pulling me closer until I can feel the thud of his heartbeat under my cheek. It gives me something to focus on. I try to match it.
“You get to decide what you want to do,” he says quietly.
I pull back just enough to look at him, my hands still gripping his shirt. My breathing is uneven and my eyes are burning. His gaze is fixed on mine, his jaw set like he’s holding himself together for me.
“Walk me up there.”
“Of course.”
His arm slides around my shoulders, drawing me into his side, and I wrap mine around his waist, holding on tight.
The room feels too large now, the distance stretching out in front of us. Every step is harder than the last as the casket comes closer into focus. The polished wood catches the dim light. It feels wrong. It’s like it’s trying to be beautiful when it shouldn’t be.
My grip on him tightens. He shifts with me. He matches my pace and lets me set it without saying a word. We stop a few yards from the front. I can’t look at it. I can feel it there, right in front of me, pulling at my attention, but I keep my eyes locked on the floor.
“Do you want me to stay here?” he asks quietly.
My head jerks up, panic flaring at the thought of him letting go.
“No!”
I tighten my hold on him right after.
“Okay, okay.” His hand slides up my arm, his voice calm. “I’m right here.”
He doesn’t move. He doesn’t loosen his hold, and he doesn’t let me go.
I close my eyes as we move forward, shutting out the room, the distance, all of it, and focus on the feel of him beside me instead.
His arm stays around my shoulders. I hold on to his side as he guides us step by step. I count each one.
When he stops, I feel it before I register it. The shift in his body. The way his arm tightens just slightly around me. We’re there, and everything inside me recoils.
I open my eyes, but I don’t look up. I can’t. My gaze stays low as I let go of him with one hand and reach out. My fingers hover for a second, trembling, before they make contact with the edge of the casket. The wood is cool beneath my palm. I press my hand flat against it.
My eyes begin to lift, inch by inch, from the closed end up toward the open half.
My breath catches when I reach the fabric of the dress.
The one I chose. It’s a soft blue she always said made her feel pretty.
I remember standing there two days ago, holding it in shaking hands, trying to pretend I was choosing something for her a party and not for this.
My fingers curl against the edge of the casket. I keep looking.
Her hands come into view, folded over one another. They don’t look like hers. They’re pale, the color wrong, and emptied of everything that made them familiar. Those hands used to reach for me, brush my hair back, hold mine across kitchen tables and car rides and quiet nights on the couch.
Now they just rest there. My breath breaks again as my gaze moves higher, even though I don’t want it to. When I see her face, it hits all at once.
“Oh, Mommy,” I choke out.
My knees give out. The room tilts, the air gone, my body folding in on itself as the weight of it crashes down. Michael catches me before I can hit the floor, his arms locking around me, pulling me tight against him as I fall into his chest.
I don’t try to hold it together. I just break.