Page 68 of Malaise
She growls at my interruption and lashes her arm out to the closest thing to her—a vase that sits on a lamp table beside the door between the hall and living room. It crashes to the carpet, bounces, and shatters on the tiles in the entryway. Mum bursts into tears and rushes up the hallway to their room, slamming the door behind her.
“All of this,” Dad thunders. “It’s deliberate. Why else would you be hanging around those no-hoper criminals? Why else, if not to get attention from your mother and me?” He steps forward, finger in my face. “Well, guess what, Meg? All you’ve done is seal our resolve to leave you to go it alone.”
“Good! Because those ‘no-hopers’ are the only people who give a fuck about me at the moment. They’re the ones who were there to listen when I needed to talk it out, and Brett,” I say, feeling strange at using his actual name, “is the one who makes me feel like I could actually be something. He does what you two should, and encourages me to do well at school, points out my strengths and makes me feel confident enough to give this shitty thing called life a fucking try.”
“Well good for him,” Dad snaps, “because he’ll be the only one you’re seeing after today.”
“Fine!”
***
Thanks to our argument, and the fact Mum needed to redo her make-up afterward, we arrived twenty-five minutes late for Den’s service. The murmur coasts along the attendees in a wave as we walk the gauntlet up the aisle to our reserved seats at the front.
The pastor quiets the congregation and starts his sermon. I stare at my new shoes while he rushes through the standard prayers and spot a fragment of the cream vase that was still scattered across the entryway when we left.
To look at her now, you wouldn’t know my mother had lost the plot. Her perfectly pulled chignon sits at the nape of her neck, just touching on the crisp grey blouse she wears underneath her best black pantsuit. Her make-up is flawless once more, and the right amount of concealer and eyeliner has been applied to hide the dark bags under her eyes and draw attention to her bright blue irises, yet not so much as to cause a racoon effect when the inevitable tears start.
I turn my head to the right as the pastor starts in on the personal pieces my parents picked out for him, and note the extra lines around Dad’s eyes. What frightens me, though, is the nothingness in his gaze. He stares up at the coffin, no ounce of emotion to be found on his lifeless features. He never was one to openly profess how he felt to us kids—an “I love you” was a rare occasion—but still, this new level of numbness is one I don’t think he’ll ever step back from.
I pick the shard of ceramic out of my shoe, much to Mum’s disgust, and turn it over between my fingers, relishing the little spikes of pain it gives me when the ends pierce my skin. A distraction: something to focus on other than the pristinely polished cedar coffin displayed front and centre before me. We’re seated so damn close that Den’s carriage to the other side is all I can see when I lift my head.
So I stare at the floor—for the blessings, for the eulogies, and for the tear-filled memoirs from my parents. I declined when they asked through gritted teeth if I’d like to speak at the service. What can I say that shouldn’t just be spoken to Den? I had my time with him this morning when I visited the funeral director’s before I headed to Mum and Dad’s. I made my peace when I slipped the letter I penned during my insomnia last night into his breast pocket.
They put him in a suit. Den never wore a fucking suit in his life. Why the hell would he want to rest eternally in one? I press my tongue against the still tender flesh on my cheek from where I bit it hard enough to bleed in an effort to keep my opinions to myself. Den in a suit. Dad glances down at me as I shake my head at my private musings. His brow finally shifts, deepening the creases between his eyes in a silent warning to pay attention.
Some friends of Den’s step up and say a few awkward words before the pastor thanks them and starts the final prayers. The fact we’re doing a religious service is a joke in itself. When was the last time my family actually attended church on a Sunday? Mum and Dad were happy enough to snub God when he wasn’t of any use to them, but now they’re terrified if they don’t sing his praises at Den’s farewell that my brother will be damned to eternal hell.
Fucking joke.
My anger grows when I twist in my seat to look at who has taken the time to come today. People who barely had the time of day for him when he was alive sit in the pews as though they would have been the first person he called in a crisis: people like motherfucking Jasper and Amelia. What the hell?
I hold it together throughout the anecdotes of Den’s life, throughout the memories shared that I remember myself, since I was there too, growing up next to a man who didn’t deserve to be taken this soon. I keep my shit in check when the pastor blesses his coffin, and I don’t even flinch when my mother lets out a body-shaking sob to my left.
But the minute those steel rollers start up, sending him off toward the incinerator, I break. There’s no denying he’s dead when they’re about to fry him into a pile of grey ash. There’s no “Surprise. We got it wrong!” as Den emerges from behind a curtain to raucous cheers from the crowd.
He’s gone. He won’t come into my room to check up on me after I’ve snuck home after curfew. No more bickering over who’s having the last cornflakes, and no more borrowing his sweaters on lazy Sundays.
No more Den.
Ever.
Dad’s hand drops to my leg to try and hold me in the seat, but my mind is made up. I push him off and stride down the aisle to the tune of “Free Bird”by Lynyrd Skynyrd. The haunting guitar wraps around me as I escape into the foyer and fall to my knees in the nearest corner. Morose chords echo the wailing of my heart as I finally let it all out, sobbing into my knees as the song wraps up with the guitar solo Den used to love so much.
People leave and silence reigns supreme. Some of the attendees hesitate when they see me curled in the corner of the wide foyer, yet others walk on by as though nothing is amiss—Jasper and Amelia included. I couldn’t give a fuck what they think, any of them. Maybe some of the people here know this pain? Maybe they don’t? Either way, I need this moment to let go, and no amount of social etiquette is going to persuade me to stand the fuck up and get it together.
If I can’t break down this one time in my life, then when the hell would it be okay to?
I keep my face buried in my knees until the footsteps that vibrate through the floor slow, and the voices that have risen around me dull to occasional snippets of conversation. Somebody asks for our address, most people pass their condolences on to my parents, and a few say nothing as they pass by me to reach the hors d’oeuvres set out by the funeral home.
My tears dry, and my breathing slowly returns as close to normal as I can expect. I twist my head to the side and open my eyes, expecting to find Mum and Dad standing at the exit together, united, but find Mum alone with the same sour expression I’ve come to accept as completely normal this past week.
“You want to grab a water and go for a walk?”
I snap my head in the opposite direction as I sit up straight, surprised to find Jasper positioned on my right side. He looks awkward as hell with his long legs crossed on the floor in front of him, yet his face is nothing but patience.
Where’d the bitch go?
I nod and run the back of my hands under my eyes, hoping that the waterproof mascara Carver convinced me to buy at least stood up to its reputation.