by Sara V. Zook
I glanced at the bowls and plates positioned on the table, steam rising into the air above, way too much food for only four people to eat. My stomach gurgled, but it wasn’t hunger. It was more like a burning sensation. I just didn’t feel right. “I’m going to go wash up first.”
I shut the bathroom door behind me and steadied myself against the sink. It felt as if I couldn’t get enough air. I was hyperventilating, my breaths coming in quick and shallow. I closed my eyes for a few moments and tried to regain control over my body. I turned on some cold water and let my hands slide through it for a few moments, relishing in the chill. Then I leaned over and splashed some on my face. You’re here among loved ones, Darin’s loved ones. You should feel secure here. You’re not alone in your pain.
There was a light rap on the door.
“Livvy, dear?”
Evelyn.
“I’ll be right out!” I yelled. I didn’t know what my problem was. Since when did I not embrace the company of others? I loved chatting and catching up. I dabbed my face with a towel. Since your husband died, that’s when.
“We’ll be waiting for you,” she said.
I didn’t answer. I took a long, deep breath and continued to exhale until all the air was out of my lungs. I felt like a sinking ship here, but I had to go out there and share in their pain like a good daughter-in-law would. This was what people did. They gathered together in times of crisis, and they heard each other’s cries. Then they helped each other get through. If only they didn’t look at me as if I were a ticking time bomb.
I opened the door and went out. Everyone was already seated around the table. I greeted their stares with a quick smile and took a seat next to Henry. We held hands as grace was said, then bowls were passed around. I still didn’t have much of an appetite, but I knew I’d be scrutinized if they didn’t see heaping piles of food on my plate, so I’d entertain them—for now.
“I spent the afternoon jotting down some ideas,” Evelyn began in between chewing bites of food.
I raised my eyebrows in question. Everyone did.
Evelyn put her fork down and her napkin to her lips. “You know, for Darin’s obituary.”
“Oh,” I mumbled, putting my head back down and staring into the pile of potatoes I kept pushing around with my spoon.
“I want it to be really nice and make sure it emphasizes all the good characteristics that he had,” she went on.
Great. More details about Darin’s death. I had spent the morning talking to an undertaker and now when I thought I’d have a moment’s peace…more details had to be worked out. I knew it had to be done, but couldn’t I have just a few hours without thinking about anything at all? Was that too much to ask for?
“What do you have so far?” Henry asked, helping himself to some more iced tea.
I glanced up to see Evelyn’s face light up at Henry’s interest in what she had to say. “Do you want to hear it? I have it right over there.” She stood up and walked over to a wooden shelf nearby. She retrieved a wrinkled piece of paper. Then smoothing it over with her hand, she sat back down and dug her glasses out of the front pocket of her dress. “Well, it doesn’t say much of anything yet to be honest. It’s just a list of family, those that preceded him in death, those that are still living.” Evelyn made eye contact with me. “Of course it has his unborn son on it. I knew you’d want that included of course, Livvy.”
I nodded and put my head back down. The baby kicked me as if right on cue. He was clueless as to what was happening out here on the surface. He was tucked away warm and safe from the obstacles the world had given his parents, not knowing his poor daddy was now gone, that he’d only know him from photographs and stories others told him. My despair amplified.
“Then I just made a list, you know, of how intelligent Darin was, the first in our family to finish college. And he got there on a scholarship. He was always so smart, wasn’t he, Henry?”
Henry made a grunting noise. I supposed that meant he was in agreement.
Evelyn put the paper closer to her nose to read it better. “Hardworking. That boy never stopped working, always providing for this family. He had such a lovely home, always took care of the things he owned.”
I managed to swallow a bite of beef, though it seemed to be sticking to the sides of my throat. I reached for my glass of water to try to get it down the rest of the way.
“Caring, loving family man. I wanted to write about his devotion to Livvy and how she was the center of his world.”
“You need to put in there he was restless. Couldn’t get that boy to sit still at all. Sometimes I thought we’d have to chain him down to the chair just to get him to eat supper with us, remember?” Henry chuckled.
“Oh, Henry, I can’t put that.” Evelyn laughed, too.
“Stubborn as a mule,” Henry added. “Wouldn’t take a single piece of advice. He always had to learn the hard way. You make him sound like a saint.”
“I want him remembered for his good qualities, Henry. Not everyone has a lot of good in them, you know.” Evelyn got up and put the piece of paper away.
“Well, he’s no saint. No one is. Write down a few things, but don’t make a book out of it. People read obituaries to see if they knew the person, to see who their relatives were and if they knew them once. Darin was a good man, I’ll give you that, but I don’t think he’d want pure sugar written down about him to have him remembered by.”
The bite of beef just wasn’t going down like I wanted it to. Now I felt sick to my stomach, and I knew it was because Evelyn and Henry just kept rambling on and on about Darin. Good qualities, bad ones…I loved all of him and now all of those things were gone. It was like being jabbed with a hot poker in the same spot repeatedly. I should’ve stayed home. I could be lying on my bed dwelling on my own issues and not having to listen to Darin’s parents argue over his attributes.
Suddenly I was frozen in place. Oh no, not now. I was going to barf. It was coming and there was nothing I could do about it. I could feel the vomit making its way up my throat as my mouth began to have that sickening watery feeling that happened just before…
I stood up and bolted outside, the screen door slamming shut behind me. I made it off the porch and around the side of the house before spewing all the contents of my stomach up onto the ground. There wasn’t much in there to begin with, but my stomach muscles continued to clench as I heaved again and again.
“Liv?” I heard Shane say from the porch above me. I had my back facing him. I waved him away. I just wanted to be alone for a few minutes and attempt to recuperate.
I stood there stooped over. The screen door opened and closed again. Shane must’ve gotten the point. My abdomen hurt along with my throat. I had that disgusting acid taste in my mouth, but I didn’t feel as nauseous anymore. I’d gotten the worst of it out.
I looked around for somewhere to sit for a moment. I didn’t want to go back in that house. If I heard the word obituary again, it was likely I’d get sick all over again. I couldn’t face my in-laws right now, not when their ticking time bomb had actually gone off. My eyes shifted to the barn in the distance. That looked like the perfect place to hide out.
A musty hay smell entered my nostrils as I pushed a small wooden door open. To my relief, it didn’t make me feel sick. It actually seemed to make me feel better. I saw a small mouse scamper away and into a hole in the far wall. There were cobwebs on the dusty windows that still were able to let some light in. A large metal bucket was overturned in the middle of the floor. I walked over to it and wiped it off with my hand. Then I sat down and tried to ease the tension working its way up into my shoulders and neck. I sighed. Now what? It was only a matter of time before Shane came looking for me.
“Liv?”
Shit. That didn’t take long at all. So much for peace and quiet.
“You in here?”
I inwardly groaned. “Yeah.”
He pulled the wooden door open wider and stepped inside. Some cobwebs hit him
in the forehead and he batted them away from his face. “What on earth made you want to come in here?”
“Where else should I be?” I snapped. “Inside listening to your mother and father discuss Darin’s true traits?”
He nodded as if understanding, but did he really? He pulled over a short bench that sat in the corner and positioned himself directly in front of me.
“I told them you got sick,” he whispered.
I snorted. “I am sick.”
“I shouldn’t have brought you here. I just thought…”
“Everyone is doing the thinking for me,” I snapped again. “I’m sorry, Shane, but I’m pissed off at the world right now. You’re in front of me, so you get the brunt of it.”
The corner of his mouth twitched upward. “That’s okay. I can take it. I deserve it anyway. I’m an idiot. I was doing the thinking for you. I thought you could come up here and just feel better, have people around to talk to. You’ve only been here two minutes and you’re already more miserable than you were before.”
I pinched the spot in between my eyebrows. “It’s just all very overwhelming, Shane. It’s hard for me to comprehend that he’s gone, let alone have others around me comprehending it aloud. It’s just…uncomfortable. I feel like we’re mocking Darin instead of really mourning him. But I don’t even know the correct way to mourn, Shane. I feel like I’m all thumbs and left feet. I can’t do anything right and everyone’s taking notice of it.”
“What are you talking about, Liv? That’s not true at all. None of us know what we’re doing. Even Mom in there. She doesn’t know what to talk about, so her and Dad talking about the obituary is just their way of grieving I guess you could say. There’s no right or wrong about it. No one means to offend anyone else. It’s just all talk to try to get through.”
I could feel the tears welling up. “I don’t know if I can get through the funeral.”
“You’re just having a really rough time right now, Liv, and that’s expected.”
“Is it?”
Shane looked at me as if I were completely off my rocker. “Of course. You just lost your husband for god’s sake. If you weren’t having a hard time, I’d think something was seriously wrong with you.”
I shook my head, my curls bouncing against my cheeks. “I can’t do it, Shane.” The tears fell now. There was no holding them back. “I won’t even be able to stand up at the funeral, let alone face a room full of people smiling and giving me condolences. They’ll all be looking at me with pity, the same pity I see you and your parents look at me with.”
“We just feel bad for you, Liv, but we feel bad for ourselves, too. You’re not the only one who lost someone. We lost Darin, too.”
I closed my eyes. “I know,” I whispered. I did know, but I still felt as if they were going through something completely different, as if I were the only person in the world who really knew Darin Thorne. It was selfish of me but seemed completely justified somehow.
“Hey,” Shane said, his voice quiet. He took my hands in his and rubbed the top of my knuckles. I wouldn’t look at him, though. “Hey,” he repeated, bending his head down so he could look into my downcast eyes. “Listen to me. First look at me.”
I glanced up at him. He grinned.
“Liv…”
I swallowed and forced my head up so that I was eye level with him.
“Good girl.” He continued to caress the tops of my hands with his thumbs. “Now listen. You are not alone.” He paused for a second. “Did you hear me?”
I nodded.
“Seriously. You aren’t alone, Liv. You have it in your head that you are, but you aren’t. I will be right by your side during that funeral. I’ll hold you up if I have to. If your knees give way, I’ll catch you. Nobody wants to face something as horrible as this, but we have to go say goodbye to him, Liv. We have to. We owe it to him. So do it for Darin if you can’t do it for any other reason, and know that I’ll be there with you to share some of the burden. Don’t they say everything happens for a reason?”
“That’s horseshit and you know it,” I sputtered out.
Shane chuckled. “That it is.”
“So don’t feed me your lines about what the world says, Shane. I would need a pretty big fucking reason for why this happened to have it make any sense to me.”
“Let out the bitterness, Liv. Let it all out, because I don’t want it to build up and consume you. I want you to be the wonderful, happy Livvy that I’ve known for so long.”
“I’m afraid she’s gone, Shane,” I told him, choking on my tears.
“You say that now because the wound’s still fresh. Five years from now when that little boy is growing like a weed, I know he’ll bring a smile to your face. I know a little part of that void in your heart will be filled.”
I shrugged. Shane’s will was strong. I loved his optimism, and I wished for nothing more than for a little of it to extend to me. I wanted to have a positive outlook, but right now all I faced was doom and gloom.
“Do you want to go back to the house?” he asked after a little while of just sitting there.
The barn was comforting somehow. I didn’t know why, but it was. “Not yet.”
“Come here.” He pulled me off the bucket and onto the bench next to him. He draped his arm over my shoulder. I leaned my head against his shoulder. “We don’t have to go back in at all if you don’t want, okay? We can spend the night out here with all the old cow manure and rat poop.”
I elbowed him in the ribs.
“Well, maybe you can, but I think I’d rather sleep in a bed.”
I closed my eyes and listened to the crickets beginning to chirp outside.
“Just remember, Liv, I won’t let you go. Lean on me if you have to.”
A dull ache formed in the middle of my chest. Oh, Shane, if you only knew. I already was leaning on him with all my might.
NINE
Shane
It was the day of the funeral when we said our goodbyes and put Darin in the ground.
I was driving all of us back down for the services, my own emotions a mix of fear and apprehension at doing something that everyone did for their loved ones, yet screamed that it was so wrong—so permanent.
My mother was sitting to my right in the passenger seat. Dad and Liv were in the back. I glanced in my rearview mirror. Liv was dressed in all black, her hair swept back away from her forehead. Her blue eyes seemed dull and lifeless as she stared out of the window. The last few days had been awkward to say the least. After the episode with dinner and Liv rushing out to the barn, my parents had given her her space as if understanding even if they were only pretending to do so. She spent most of her time outside in her own desolate world and secluded thoughts. I didn’t press her much, only sat by her sometimes to let her know that I was still around if she needed someone to talk to. There weren’t words that needed to be said, though. Her own grief was internal. She didn’t even seem to be crying anymore. I was sure all of that would change today though when she saw Darin lying in the coffin. Everything she had tried to muster down deep inside would come rushing to the surface. I was certain my own sorrow would do the same, and that scared the hell out of me.
I parked the car and the four of us exited the vehicle in silence. My mother was gripping tightly onto my dad’s arm. Liv hesitated at the first step leading up into the building. I stepped up beside her and slipped my hand into hers. She didn’t look at me, merely squeezed my hand back in a silent thank you. I had promised I’d be there for her today, and I meant to keep my word.
We were the only ones there, arriving early to say our goodbyes first and out of the eyesight of others. Livvy placed her other hand underneath her growing belly. There were large, beautiful flowers everywhere. The stench of floral was overwhelming, and knowing this was all Sean’s doing made a gush of anger pulsate from within me. I didn’t say anything about it, though. This wasn’t the time nor place to make comments about that psycho. Liv’s body stiffened beside me
. She wasn’t looking at the flower arrangements. She was focused on straight ahead—the coffin.
I put another arm under her elbow to give her extra support. This moment would be one of her toughest to overcome. Our feet glided up next to the wooden box where my parents already stood. My mother was already crying, a handkerchief pressed up to her nose as she kept patting Darin’s pale hand. He looked glorious lying there, like an angel. All of the stress that seemed to have been on his face at the hospital was long gone. He seemed content, as if he truly were in a deep slumber. It pissed me off. This wasn’t really how Darin would be. No, he would’ve wanted to be standing here with his hand in Liv’s, preparing for the upcoming days of his newborn son’s arrival. To say life is cruel would be an understatement. Life was fucked up.
“Give me a few moments, Shane,” Liv whispered, her eyes on Darin’s face.
“Yeah. Sure.” I released her hand and arm, walking backward to stand by my parents who had moved away. My mother kept mumbling things about her little boy. My dad rubbed at his own wet eyes with the back of his hand. I glanced up at Liv, her back to me now as she bent down over her husband and said who knows what to him to try to ease this incredibly terrible burden of saying a forever goodbye.
An hour later, people starting coming in, a lot of them from Darin’s work as he had been in a large company for a long time. I introduced myself as his brother and they each said their condolences and moved up to the coffin to see Darin. Liv still stood there, oblivious yet to the fact that others had begun to file into the room. I recognized some familiar faces of neighbors growing up who were friends of my parents who had also made the trip down. My parents immediately became invested in conversation with them. There would be a few hours of this before the formal service began. I stood there in my suit and coat with my hands folded in front of me, ready to rush to Liv’s aid if she needed me. She was in conversation with some co-workers of Darin’s. She seemed okay—for now. Then someone caught my attention as they entered the building through the side entrance. She had on a short purple dress with silver high-heeled shoes. I darted toward her, my heart racing fiercely.
