“It still smells like him,”
She breathes in deeply, her hands cupping the dark shirt to her face,
careful eyes watching her mother, waiting for the grey and sunken woman to shudder again,
waiting for the frail thirty-seven year old to melt into a puddle of salt water in her brothers bedroom.
Or, shall we say—to be more accurate,
her brothers’ old bedroom.

Is something still yours once you die?

Karen looks up and smiles as warm a smile as she can manage, taking the shirt from her youngest child.
Well, now her only child.
“Should we wash these before bringing them to Church?”
Ella’s eyes flare up, betrayal and anger snatch her breath and she falls over her words,
“wh-how-what?! Why would you wash away the rest of him?
It’s all that there is of him left on thi-why would you even say that?”
Karen furrows her brows, exhausted.
She breathes in deep and smooths over the folded clothing in her lap.

“Ell, I…” all she wants to do is push everyone away; her daughter, her husband, her parents, her siblings.
She wants to go back to bed and never come out.
She lost her child, her baby boy.
He’s gone forever and it’s all her fault.

Karen slips her sons clothes it into an empty tote bag, covered in Happy Holidays.
She locks eyes with Ella and holds her daughters arms firmly, warmly.
“I’m sorry…I-” loud swallow “I’m so sorry Jimmy’s gone, I’m sorry we don’t need to wash these, I don’t know what I was thinking. I-” what was meant to be a word, or a sentence, comes out as a flat whine. Karen seems to slowly collapse into her self as she wails loudly, sulking over her broken heart.
Ella tries not to roll her eyes.
“Do…you want Dad?” Ella had watched her mother transform from a fun-loving, bright, bubbly and colourful lady into some sort of weeping old hag within a couple of days. The first few weeks she was there for her mother, she understood, she felt the loss of her big brother.

But it had been eight months.

Maybe Ella is a freak.
A detached, emotionless sociopath.
No, she can’t be.
She hurt, she still hurt.
Ella just, had to keep on moving with her life. Like Dad did, like Gran and Pa did. Even Jim’s long-term girlfriend, Jaclyn, did.
Everyone hurt, everyone still hurt.
The whole Town lost its star athlete; the whole town lost its Youth Band Leader, a good soul.
Jim was good. He was nice to everyone.
Ella always hears from Jaclyn that Jim’s the reason there weren’t “cliques” or “hierarchy’s” in school. Jim was cool and everyone looked up to him, and he looked down on people that hurt others.

She snaps from her thoughts, looking down on the mess that is her mother.
Ella’s arms are out, half clutching onto her mother’s shoulder and knee.
It’s the first time in a long time that she had seen her mother out of bed.
Well, out of her bed.
Ella kneels down to level herself with the wailing woman sprawled out on her brothers’ old, bare mattress.

“…Mum…” Ella looks at her mother inquisitively, slowly moving her hand toward her mothers’ hair. At first touch, Ella jerks her hand back, and then tries again. She runs her fingers through her mothers’ light brown hair, hair so much like her brothers’.
She runs them through again, testing the gesture that her mother had done to her many times when she herself was a crying mess.
Yet it’s hardly the same, as Ella would have been crying over a bad grade or a stupid girl that didn’t like her back.
Mothers are supposed to comfort their daughters.
Ella frowns as she tries to stroke her mothers’ hair again, the motion seeming so foreign to her, even though it came easy with Tess when they were up late watching TTWD and Tess was falling asleep in Ella’s lap.
Karen’s hair is oily and Ella doesn’t want to touch it again. She hears her Fathers study door open.

“Mum…” she wanted to call out to her Father; she wanted him to deal with this. She hears his steps come closer, slowly.

Karen is a burden to everyone around her, these days.
Tom used to love working at home. He loved having breakfast with his family, and seeing his kids off in the morning. Karen would roll out of bed in just his shirt and her underwear, she’d sit in his lap and review his writing while playing with his hair, she’d dance around the house to loud 90’s pop music, occasionally even go through Jim’s old CD’s and play some—even though a lot it was R&B or Hip Hop.
She doesn’t do that anymore.
She doesn’t do anything anymore.
It hurts Tom even more because he can’t do anything for her. He couldn’t even bare to remind her that Jim was his son, from his first marriage. His passing shouldn’t hurt her more than him.
Tom frowns inwardly; no, Jim is her child. She raised him, her best friends son. Tom stops before entering the doorway, to recollect himself; first Jessica dies while bringing that boy into this world, and now that boy—“Fuck.”
Tom wipes his face down with the palm of his hand, continuing to rub his hand against the back of his neck.
He peers into the room, catching eyes with Ella. Guilt drenches him as he sees his young, wide-eyed, confused daughter.
“Honey, can you finish packing my office?” The family had been helping him find a smaller place, since they no longer needed three bedrooms and Tom had been promoted and had asked for an office of his own at work. He doesn’t like to work at home anymore.

He crawls onto the mattress and spoons his wife. Stroking her hair out of her face- wet with oil and salt water.
“I failed her. And you. And him.” Her words muffled with pain.
“Ssshhh, no love. You failed no one.” He props himself up on his elbow and leans over her, gently moving her chin so she faces him too.
“You are so strong, dearest Karen. You took in that boy as your own while our precious Jessica watched over from a far. You pushed aside the pain of losing your other half while I wallowed and wasted away because I thought it was unfair I only got to know her for three short years. Oh, my dear did you know I hated you for so long, because you got her for your whole life and I only caught a glimpse of her?”
Tom kisses the tears welling at the corner of her eyes.
“No, you knew. You knew, yet you took care of us both, didn’t you, my darling?” Karen’s brows pulled in together to guard her from his comfort.
“I only was doing what was right. I—”
“Hush, hush. You loved that child. You loved me because she loved me. You came every day to check on James and I. Every day for how long, my dear?” Karen sniffles a laugh.
“I’m so stupid, for four years. What the hell was I doing with my life?” They laugh and the warmth that radiates between the couple outshines the midday summer sun streaming through the windows.
“You were giving me life, that’s what.”
Tom kisses her forehead and keeps kissing down her face to her lips. Karen frowns and pulls away, pain crumpling her face.

“I killed him Tom…I killed our baby.” More tears well up, they stream down her face and Tom can’t wipe them away. He shakes his head, quickly trying to reassure her.
“No, honey, we’ve talked about this.”
“I did. We both know it’s my fault. Everyone knows that. My own daughter can’t stand me.”
“Karen. No one thinks it’s your fault, a-and Ella? She has no fucking clue that either of you were high. It was no ones fault, you know that. Neither of you were thinking-”
“Exactly, Tom! I’m a fucking adult—his fucking mother!” She sits up, her brow furrowed and her head shaking quickly. “Who the fuck lets their child smoke weed with them?” “That wasn’t a bad decision; you let his first time be with a responsible adult, it’s not your fault he fe—” “he didn’t fall.” She says weakly, to the wall.

“What? Honey, he fell from the balcony. That’s how h-” He wants her to look at him, to stop confusing him, to be okay.
“No, I know that’s how he died, he came off the balcony. But he didn’t fall.” She closes her eyes tightly, but tears still manage to come out.

“I was…I was playing around, it’s all my fault. We were dancing- we were stars. I didn’t mean it to be hard. We were playing around.”
“What are you- I don’t understand?” She looks at him with fear trembling her eyes.

 

 

“I pushed him.”

 

 

 

 

—T.j.