Mind Games

The aunts and uncles and cousins brought more tears with them.

Because Waylon and Caleb had driven down in the U-Haul and they only had her grandmother’s truck, Stretch rented cars for driving down to the funeral home, to the graves, and back home again.

She sat in the back of one beside her grandmother, Rem on the other side in his best and only suit.

Waylon drove, with Caleb in the seat beside him and Cocoa between.

The funeral home sat on the far end of town, a big redbrick building with white trim and windows that shined in the sun. It stood on a slope of a manicured lawn, and to Thea’s eye, did look like a house.

A man with gray hair opened the door to them. He wore a black suit and shiny black shoes, and spoke in the quiet voice you’re supposed to use in church.

Thea decided not to listen, because her heart started to beat so fast.

Everything smelled like flowers; everything felt too hot.

She wanted to run back outside and keep running, but gripped her grandmother’s hand, as Rem did on the other side. With Cocoa on the leash, they all followed the man into a big room where the sun beamed through the windows, and folding chairs sat in line after line after line.

A table held the pictures they’d picked out and more flowers. Two big white vases held the pink and white hydrangeas beside an easel with the picture Stretch had enlarged.

Her mother in her wedding dress, and her dad in his wedding suit. She knew it was from their first dance because it had hung on the gallery wall.

They looked at each other. She’d heard her grandmother once say you could see the stars in their eyes.

She made herself look at the caskets as they walked toward them down the aisle between the lines of chairs.

Boxes, polished up, more hydrangeas flowing over them.

With her parents inside.

She remembered how they’d looked the day they’d left for home.

It seemed like a minute ago. It seemed like a year ago.

Even with the window closed as tight as she could, she knew Rem started to cry. She knew tears ran down her grandmother’s face. Her uncles’ grief layered over her own.

Lucy looked at her, pressed her lips to Thea’s cheek, and some of the terrible weight lifted.

They let the rest of the family come in next. Though Rem went with Caleb, Lucy kept Thea’s hand firm in her own.

Even when they sat in the front row of all those chairs, Lucy held Thea’s hand.

More and more people came. Even when all the chairs filled, others stood in the back. The man in the black suit walked to the front. He spoke about knowing Cora since she’d been a little girl, about meeting John. How everyone here felt their loss, the tragic loss to their families, to their young children, to the community.

Waylon got up, strapped on his guitar. He’d shaved his face smooth, tamed his hair.

“This is Cora and John’s song, the one they danced to first as husband and wife.”

He played it slow, and when he sang the lyrics, Lucy’s hand trembled in Thea’s.

This time Thea gripped tighter.

Waylon didn’t cry until he sat back down again.

Then Caleb went up. He was very pale, and somehow more handsome with it.

“There are people in the world who make it better just by being in it. People who bring joy, bring love, simply because they have joy and love in them.

“Cora and John made the world better. They brought joy and they brought love. They were taken from the world, from their children, from all of us by a senseless and brutal act.