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I wiped my drenched hair from my eyes, heartbreak now rising inside me, filling the hollow cavity of my chest until it was up to my neck.
I suddenly couldn’t breathe.
The solemn and strong facade I was presenting was beginning to crack.
I wanted to scream and shout! To hit and kick the casket! To fall to my knees and sob and ask him why.
Why did he leave us? Why did he never tell me he was so sick? Why did he suffer so much in silence, then leave me reeling in shock at his hospital bedside.
The sharpness of the thorny roses in my hand bit into my skin. I was squeezing them so tight, a trickle of blood pooled in my palm. My fingers ached. My heart broke. My throat throbbed without air.
I was frozen, unable to move.
Unable to be strong enough for my sister, so young and gentle behind me, waiting for me to do what was expected of me. To be the strong one.
I never was.
I couldn’t toss the roses.
I couldn’t.
Because that would mean that he was really gone. That I would never see my father again.
See his bright blue eyes, warm like sunshine, filled with so much love that it was sometimes overwhelming.
His rich laughter that rolled through me, filling me with a happiness so large, I could take flight.
I could be anything when he told me he was proud of me.
I could conquer the world.
And now, all I was left with was a black casket, a breaking heart, and numb fingers.
The Expiarus cleared his throat, his understanding look boring into me. Are you okay? When I didn’t move, he gestured with a meaningful movement of his head towards the grave. “It’s time to say your goodbyes.”
The rain began to slow, the crowd behind me growing restless, and a gradual flame of mortification crept up the back of my neck and into my cheeks.
My heart fluttered, panic filling the emptiness inside and yet, I couldn’t let him go. I couldn’t choke out the ‘goodbye’ on the tip of my tongue, acrid and bitter in my mouth.
I was paralyzed, unable to move.
And then, a movement at the corner of my eye, a strong and powerful presence appearing by my side. A man I didn’t recognize but somehow, bore a familiarity all the same. He stood next to me, staring down at the grave, his dark voice a quiet rumble. “Let them wait. There is no rush.” He gave me a firm nod. “Don’t move until you are ready.”
The command broke the spell. The dam inside me cracked, silent tears streaming down my face for the first time since he died. I nodded, choking up with emotion, the “goodbye,” finally spilling from my lips. My bloody fingers unfurled, one by one, until soft petals and wicked stems fell from them.
There was an odd silence as we watched the flowers fall, and then a strangled wail broke it. A flash of black and blonde, a dark shadow in my periphery.
Mouth open in horror, I watched as Callie leapt into the air like a raven in flight. Except her sweet, little, innocent black wings weren’t strong enough. As if in slow motion, she descended into the belly of hell, chasing after a father she would never see again.
Never hear his voice on the phone or receive a large box in the mail.
Barrel out of the airport concord, a huge grin on her face that turned into a squeal of delight as she launched herself into his arms after so many weeks apart.
She’d been too young when my mother died, only eight years old, and remembered only scraps of her.
Her relationship with our father had been tightly cemented in late night bedtime stories and cooking chocolate chip cookies in a bright sunlit kitchen.
She’d adored him because he’d been both a father and a mother to her, the moon and the stars.
