Mitch had always had a quick fuse, one that Brando sometimes couldn’t cool. But Mick had always listened to him, except for this one time. He felt responsible for the outcome—for Mick’s death and the part of Mitch that died with his brother.
I had seen it in Mitch’s eyes. As Mick left us, so did a vital part of Mitch. In the midst of it all was the woman who loved them both. She would walk this earth with half of a heart.
Looking at Sybil Lewis, I could feel that she had lost her entire heart, though one of her sons still lived. Blame lit her sullen eyes with a fire akin to hatred. I wondered how she even had the energy to feel hate. It radiated from her as she watched friends and family leave a rose on top of Mick’s coffin. Only when her close friends would stop to talk to her would her armor slip and the tears fall.
No matter how she felt, though, blame was not a game to be played when a parent had lost a child. My heart ached for her, too, knowing how hard my brother’s death had hit my mother and how it had changed her. She was somehow stronger, but at the same time weaker.
I understood it all too well myself. It was a contradiction that could only be described as a hardening of the shell and mind to stone, but a softening of the heart and soul to the point of almost frailness. The body and the mind did what they had to do to shield its weaker parts.The eyes go blind, but the ears hear even better.
“Va bene?” Brando whispered.All right?
I lifted a shoulder and then let if fall. I used the handkerchief to dab at my face, at the sensation of tears that refused to fall. My nose ran, though, and I had to keep blotting it.
A sudden urge to sit down on the stiff grass underfoot seized me, to somehow escape the pain, to retreat to a state of numbness where all I had to do was listen for the beating of my heart against its cave of bone.
Brando studied my face and squeezed my hand. My wedding rings pressed into my flesh, the pressure leaving a mark, an imprint. “Sembri così pallido,” he leaned down and whispered in my ear. “Di 'qualcosa.”
He had been worrying about my color all day, remarking that I looked too pale. He wanted confirmation that I could still speak and wasn’t going to collapse. I could talk (and I murmured something to him in reply), but I wasn’t sure about the latter. I felt exceptionally weak, but I was determined to say goodbye to Mick one—
Last time.
Those two words hit me square in the chest, like a fist reaching inside and crushing my heart. I twisted toward Brando, burying my face in the thickness of his winter coat, taking a breath of him in before turning to face the end of the proceedings.
Most of the guests left. A few people hovered around Sybil Lewis, and then there was our group, staying for the final goodbye. I noticed that Mitch and Mick’s father, Sam, stood in the background too, shaking his head and wiping his face.
When a few mourners were left, Brando and I made our way closer. I kissed my rose, closing my eyes, feeling the slip of two warm tears down my cheeks before placing it down to rest. The biting air was already taking its toll on the fragile petals.
Brando put a hand to my back, ushering me closer to Violet, who clasped my hand like a lifeline as two people I had never seen before came to offer their condolences. Peter and Paul stood on each side of her, but Mary had been taken to Violet’s mother and father’s house, along with the twins, who hadn’t been with her all day.
Then we were left with even fewer people. Violet clutched me so hard that I almost cried out in pain. Mitch moved in closer, and his mother’s eyes narrowed into fueled slits, glowing as hot as coals.
Between Violet and me, our emotions ran like currents through each other’s blood, and I was surprised our trembling bodies didn’t clack against one another. Brando stood still, prepared to act if something were to happen. There was a delicate line drawn here—what to do and say, what to prevent.
Grief left no rules or etiquette to follow.
Mitch didn’t spare a glance at his brother, not yet, but instead when straight to his mother. From out of his pocket, he handed her a knife. Brando had to keep Violet upright, her legs going slack from under her, too weak to even cry out.
The knife glinted in the sun, cold steel reflecting the rustling leaves above, and distorting the two figures sharing the reflection of the metal. Sybil shoved it back at him, her lip trembling, but eyes set in defiance.
“I am a Christian woman,” she said, after a little time. “I will not seek revenge for what you have done to my boy.” Then she took a step closer, resting her hand on Mick’s coffin. Her friends watched with anxious expressions that probably mirrored our own.
Leaving one hand to touch the cold wood, she came face to face with her other son. “But I will say this, Mitch Lewis. People tell me that the Good Lord does not make mistakes. But he has! He took thewrongson!”
The sound of her fists beating against his chest rang out, sending birds from the trees, long squawks to one another in alarm, the breath of their wings fluttering in hurried flight. Their peaceful place of rest had been disturbed.
Violet went to take a step forward, keeping a firm grip on my hand, but before she could get too far, Sam Lewis pushed past us, stopping Sybil before she actually did take her revenge. She had drawn blood. A long claw mark marred Mitch’s face.
Mitch stood tall, eyes open, staring at his brother’s coffin; he was as still as the man inside, even as she pummeled him with angry fists and claws.
“Stop, woman!” Sam Lewis hissed out, restraining her in a bear hug. “He’s your boy too! Can’t you see that? The gun could’ve turned on either one!”
“I havenoson! He’s gone! My baby’s gone! Oh, Mick,my baby.”
Sam picked her up, carrying her toward the waiting car. Halfway there, she snapped, hitting and clawing at him, trying to fight her way back to the gravesite.
My fingers ached with the imagined pain of clawing at the impenetrable ground to get to a lost child—it was so cold out. What if Mick became cold? Or it rained? Or…
Even though I hadn’t moved, I could feel the hardness of the frozen dirt tearing at nails, slipping underneath with a pressure so great that it would pop them clean off. I could see it—stains of black and green all over my hands. Blood and bruises and the sheer physical pain of a loss so great that it made the heart bleed out through tears.
