Page 5 of Hale
“Rylie,” Hudson warns, irritation in his tone.
He stands near Mom’s casket and adjusts her hair so her bangs aren’t hanging over her closed eyes. She doesn’t look like herself either. The way they styled her hair is reminiscent of some bad eighties music video. If she wasn’t dead already, she’d die of a coronary.
I giggle again.
“Rylie,” my brother hisses, shooting me a sharp glare.
I swallow down the laughter because people are arriving to view the bodies. What kind of sick society do we live in where this is a thing? Mom and Dad don’t even look like the people we knew and loved. And yet here we are staring at their unmoving corpses and whispering things they cannot hear.
It’s stupid.
Where are you, Daddy? Where did you go when you left this body?
My questions go unanswered. They always do.
“How you holding up?” a sweet voice asks.
Without looking up, I know the voice belongs to Amy Kent. My brother’s longtime girlfriend. Her perfume fills my nostrils and I try not to shudder.
“Fine,” I answer and finally glance at her.
Her shimmering blond hair has been twisted into a modest bun. The simple black dress she wears is demure but can’t hide the fact Amy is curvy. Blatantly, I stare at her breasts, no doubt double Ds, and wish I were blessed in that department. Mom used to say the Hale women didn’t need big boobs. We had big smiles instead.
I’m not smiling now.
I’m wishing for bigger boobs.
At my parents’ funeral.
Amy hugs me from the side, squishing me with her big boobs. I wonder if Hudson is obsessed with them. She’s somehow kept my brother on a leash this entire time and it’s not because of her winning personality.
A grin tugs at my lips.
“There’s my girl,” she coos. “Your parents would be happy to see you smiling.”
I look past her and meet my brother’s annoyed green-eyed stare. My smile falls. The disapproval in his eyes is overwhelming sometimes. I get it. He’s the golden boy and I’m the fuck-up. The end. Hudson is the Hale kid who’ll go off and do great things while I’m left here pondering the meaning of life. Sometimes I think God made a mistake. Accidentally stuck me on this earth when I was better suited for some dark hole of existence.
Amy beams up at me.
It’s too damn bright here.
Turning away from her supportive smile and my brother’s bothered glare, I reach forward with my thumb and attempt to wipe away the blush on Dad’s cheek. His skin is cold and gross feeling. As soon as I touch him, I kind of wish I didn’t. But now that I realize the red is coming off, I’m invested in seeing it through to the end.
“Cheer up, Ry-Bear.”
Those were the last words Dad spoke to me. I didn’t understand why they had to have an anniversary dinner without me. I was their kid. If they had just taken me with them, I’d be lying in a third casket finally knowing the meaning of life. I’d be dancing somewhere in the dark. Alone. Happy. At peace. Hudson would have to fret over the fact they’d want to pluck my thick, dark eyebrows because I’ve told him before bushy brows are the style now and he’d want to honor that. He’d tell them to take me out of the boring dress they’d no doubt put me in and let me wear my favorite red flannel shirt I stole from him before he went off to college.
Someone sobs loudly and I laugh at them.
I laugh until I realize it’s me sobbing.
I’m a mess.
“Cheer up, Ry-Bear.”
Amy tries to hug me, but I push her away from me. Dad looks like a girl right now and I need to fix it. His lips are tugged into a permanent frown.
“Cheer up, Daddy,” I whisper, my tears splashing on his face as I see to it he doesn’t get buried looking more like a woman than Mom.
