3. Chapter Three
Chapter Three
Elowen Briar
A Week Later at Lise’s Funeral
The sky looks wrong today. It should be gray or storming or anything that matches the way my chest feels. Instead, it’s blue, cloudless, and cruelly bright. The sun hits the coffin like it’s trying to make it shine, but all I see is the reflection of everything I’ve lost.
People speak around me, soft words, murmured condolences that fall apart before they reach my ears. I don’t hear them. I only hear the hollow sound of dirt hitting wood. Each thud is another goodbye I’m not ready to give.
My grandmother’s voice still lingers in my head, gentle and sure.
The air surrounding her coffin even reminds me of her, reminiscent of that mint tea she always kept stocked and kitchen hand-soap.
I keep waiting for her to appear beside me, to tuck a short strand of my pixie cut behind my ear and say that everything will be alright.
But the space where she should be feels heavier than the ground beneath my feet.
Imani stands next to me, her arm wrapped tight around my shoulders.
My best friend. My light. She’s now my everything.
She doesn’t say anything, just holds on like she knows words will break me.
I lean into her because I have nothing else to lean on besides my grief.
My fingers clutch the edge of her sleeve until my knuckles ache.
A familiar feeling in my hands as of late.
The pastor’s voice drones on, a blur of scripture and comfort.
It’s what she would have wanted. I know that.
I tried my best to give her exactly everything she could have wanted or expected today.
Or at any time during the end. I stare at the flowers piled high on the casket, yellow lilies and white roses.
They’re beautiful, but they smell too strong, too alive. My throat tightens. She would love it.
I wish I had been there and not back at my apartment after our dinner.
Every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday is like clock work with our routine.
I wish I could have said goodbye. I wish I had known the last time I saw her would be the last. I had told her very vaguely in her unconsciousness how dearly I love her.
We knew it was coming. The cancer was taking over and Grandma was getting more tired.
We just didn’t have a time frame. And I say we, but truly only mean Imani and I.
I raced to the hospital from work when I got the news that she had flatlined a little sooner than they had expected.
I sat with her for hours until the funeral home arrived.
Just staring at her body in its still state.
I contacted the lawyer’s office and unsuspectingly, she had everything handled before I even could.
She always knew just how to outsmart me or take care of me when she knew she couldn’t.
I guess with the cancer diagnosis, she had accepted her fate and wanted to lessen my load. Typical Lise.
My grief feels endless, a tide that keeps pulling me under no matter how hard I fight it.
It’s not just sorrow. It’s guilt, regret, and the kind of emptiness that feels like it will swallow me whole.
Imani squeezes my arm which makes me realize I’m trembling again.
She whispers, “You need to breathe, Elowen.”
I’m trying. The air feels thick, heavy with incense and loss. I stare at the coffin again. This isn’t just her body. It’s every story she told me, every laugh, every piece of wisdom she pressed into me. Gone.
People start to drift away, murmuring their farewells. I can’t bring myself to move. My feet are rooted to the earth, unwilling to let her go. I feel like if I stand here long enough, she might find her way back to me. But I know that’s not going to happen.
Imani doesn’t push me to leave. A trait both my grandmother and Imani carry to keep me grounded. She just waits, patient as ever. The warmth of her hand steadies me a little, a reminder that I’m still here even if I don’t want to be.
I look up at the sky again, that same bright blue I hated at the start of the day. For the first time, it doesn’t feel cruel. It feels like a promise. Like somewhere, somehow, she’s still watching.
My parents orphaned me at a very young age and left me in my grandmother’s care.
I got lucky that the only deadbeats were my Mother and Father.
She never faltered. She never questioned it.
She just stepped up. I owe her everything, but now that she’s no longer by my side, I feel alone.
My only true parent. How often do you hear of someone twenty-six years of age with no active or living relatives? No parental figures left?
I can’t do this. I don’t want to live anymore.
I refuse to live in a world where we don’t coexist. I chose to stay local because I thought I had more time with her.
Not just a few years. I thought she would live to see me get married, decide if kids were in my future, buy my own house.
All she was able to witness was me growing up and continuously making a fool of myself.
My heart pounds as I notice the ache in my hands again.
I can’t do this.
I can’t do this. I can’t do this.
I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I can’t do this.
What am I going to do? I hated living in my apartment alone, minus Genie, of course. Now, I’m even more alone. No more dinners. No more phone calls. No more quick chats about our days. Oh God, and poor Imani. She stays too busy to listen to me all the time. Fuck, what am I going to do?
As my body spirals into a panic attack, I feel a breeze cast across my neck and an odd sensation covers my whole frame.
Something inside me shifts, small but reckoning.
It’s not peace, nor acceptance. It’s something quieter.
The increasingly noticeable numbness leaves my body and the weight pulls off my chest.
What just happened? What made it stop? For the first time in over a week, the tears cease. My body answers to my command and the air isn’t nearly as heavy. It feels like hope. Like maybe, this feeling won’t last forever.
I turn to Imani and give her a small half-curved smile. We stand together, side by side, as I wonder if that was a gift from Grandma herself. She somehow found a way to give me a small sliver of, “it’s going to be alright, baby” one more time.
Just keep going, Elowen Briar. You are meant for something wonderful.