Entry

It should have been raining. It always rains in the movies. Odd thought to have. I blink and try to concentrate on what the minister is saying, but my eyes keep going back to my niece. Her gaze is on the wooden box we’ve all gathered round this sunny September day, tiny arms clutching her baby doll. She is crying. Not the racking, inconsolable sobs of her mother who’s thrown herself atop casket, but quietly.

“It’s alright.” I put my arm around her, the words ringing hollow. Everything is not alright. Becky’s father is dead. Hit on the front lawn by drunken teenagers. He’d been getting the mail. ‘Tragic accident’ the paper had called it, a picture of the mangled, bloody mailbox next to the mug shots of all three teens involved. Becky had been standing inside the screen door when it’d happened.

I can feel her shaking. Glancing up I see my sister, Sara clutching her husband’s coffin and shrieking, crushing the roses enough that the smell is beginning to permeate the air.

“Mommy wants to leave too. She doesn’t love me anymore,” Becky says. She sounds afraid. With shock, I look at the situation through her eyes. Daddy is dead, Mommy is hysterical and the other adults are too worried about Mommy to notice me. Anger welling, I scoop my niece up, cross to my sister and yank her off the coffin, “Bill is dead Sara, not you. Becky needs you. Be the damn grown up!”
Sara stares at me, mouth agape, “How dare you! If Bill were here..” she trails off, hiccupping sobs overwhelming her. Selfish cow. I walk away from the service, taking my niece with me as they begin to lower Bill. It’s a shame that Sara had to bury her daughter’s innocence with him.

Word count: 300