Chloe.

         'Your brother is dead, your brother is dead, your brother Henry is dead.' The phrase wouldn't stop in her head, it kept repeating itself as if taunting her. Henry would of said, 'the words are like a broken record', but Chloe was too young to know that sound. Her brother was a product of the seventies, before the compact disk age had arrived, before digital technology had swooped in and taken over the world. Henry listened to records. Chloe came thirteen years later, popping out when Boy George just released his hit song 'I'll Tumble 4 Ya' in 1983. Her dead brother Henry Carter was twenty- three, would have been twenty-four, had he made it another week. Chloe was ten years old and now an only child.
         She stared at the coffin in front of her, not sure what to make of it. She had never seen one before except on the television. It was a great rectangular box, with stained glossy wood, intricate trimming and large brass handles along the sides. It sat atop a smaller table that had been draped in a red cloth that hung to the floor. Half of the coffin sat open, the other half that covered his legs, was closed. Henry lay inside of it, dressed in a suit and tie. Chloe wondered why they hadn't put him in a pair of jeans and his favorite Led Zepplin tour t-shirt. Why had they decided to put him something he would of been uncomfortable in? It didn't make any sense to her. Henry wasn't a guy who wore suits, he was a twenty-three year old famous musician.
         It was the second funeral she had attended, the first happened when her grandmother passed away. Chloe was just a baby then, nothing more than an hungry infant in a mobile car seat observing the world through the lens of innocence. She hadn't understood death then, the finality of it, but she understood it now, and prayed this would be her last funeral.
         She understood Henry would not be back tonight to tell her a story or read her a book. He would not be back to tickle her or pinch her until she fussed enough to draw her mothers attention. He would not be back to sing to her or play the piano or guitar for her, as he often did. He was a musician after all and a very good one at that. It was hard for her to understand it, one minute here, the next gone. How could it be so easy? so simple? She suddenly realized , this is what hurt and made everyone cry. It was not what Henry had suffered that night. The tears and sobs came, because Henry was gone for good.
         She sat in the front row, squeezed between her parents, holding hands with each of them, Her palms were wet with a cool sweat that left her fidgety. She guessed it was because everyone was so nervous that caused the moisture to build, but it was unpleasant. She went to let go of her mothers hand, but she refused and squeezed tightly. She shot Chloe a quick glance, her eyes telling her not to let go, not now, not ever. When she tried with her father, he gave no resistance. His hand simply gave up and went limp at his side.
         Her mother wept and dabbed her eyes with a cloth. It came in waves, most of the time worsening when a friend or relative came to them, then quieting down to a low sob. Her father sat, silent and exhausted, strong enough to rise only occasionally. His eyes were so red, it was if the whites of them had been colored in with a magic marker. Between them both, it would be her father that would suffer more at Henry's loss. The whole family was close, very close in fact, but Henry and Chloe's Dad had something more than the rest of them. Maybe it was those walks they went on all the time, or the hand written letters they mailed each other. They had shared a relationship beyond father son or best friends, they were kindred souls.
         Chloe sat unsure of what to do or feel or say. She was sad and scared to death. She had never seen her parents this way, never seen her cousins, Jack and Eva this way either. Usually when they came, it was off to the woods to play hide and seek or dodge ball or whatever game Jack would insist on playing. She stared at all the faces, looking for some indication of what to do, but all the faces she encountered all seem to say the same thing. 'I'm scared and I'm scared for you and I can't believe Henry is dead.'
         Her aunts and uncles strolled by one at a time, toting their children behind them in a procession or grief and confusion. When her Uncle John walked up and saw Chloe's father, the two men hugged and began to cry. Another new thing for her, she thought. She had seen little boys cry, even the bully at her school she has seen once in tears. She remembered Henry crying from time to time too, but watching her father cry, disturbed her. He was strong and he always knew what to do. They released each other and her father sank back onto the wooden bench, depleted of strength.
         The room was dark, the lights above scared to come out. The were vast arrangements of flowers, pressed up against every wall in the low ceiling room. Many stood on wire stands, next to each other, all competing for the blue ribbon. There were so many different colored flowers, it would have a taken a botanist to know all the names of them. Even at ten, Chloe knew Henry would of laughed at them, preferring sheet music or a Bonzai tree full of guitar picks to flowers. But its what adults did, she guessed, it was tradition. Where would she get a Bonzai tree full of guitar picks anyway?
         The funeral director stood at the small podium and spoke. His words were a mixture of prayers and quotes, most of which Chloe did not understand, but in the jumble of sympathetic lines and between sobs, she heard him say 'Your final words' and 'You may rise' and with that people from behind them in the back rows, began to come forward. Some kneeled and spoke or prayed, others just nodded and kept moving, making the sign of the cross or kissing their rosaries.. When it was her families turn, the director cleared the room and allowed just the three of them to stay. This she knew would be the last time she would see Henry and she suddenly felt overwhelmed with sadness, she didn't want to say goodbye.
         She fell in behind her father who was behind her mother. Her mother knelt and sobbed. She brushed Henry's face with her hand then parted his hair. It had been a habit of hers since Henry was a toddler, likely a habit of every mother. Henry's hair and his mother were in constant battle. He wanted his hair to cover his face and eyes, to lend to his rock and roll look, to appear cool in front of his friends, especially girlfriends, but his mother had different plans. She was constantly on the offensive, slicking his hair back without his permission. 'Henry you have such a beautiful face, why do you what to cover it all the time?" He would shrug, walk away and his hair would flop instinctively back over his face. But now Henry's hair wasn't covering anything except his scalp. His rock and roll look had been replaced with a paleness and prettiness, his dark hair was smoothly parted on the left, his eyes shut like a dolls face, his lips bluish.
         He was still handsome, he had always been a cutie, the number of girlfriends he had, proved it. Henry had the kind of face fit for magazines; Chiseled cheeks, small nose and light eyes that one often did not see with straight black hair. In fact he had been offered several print work jobs as a teendager. When Chloe had seen him in a catalog for the first time dressed like a preppy boy, she laughed at him. He took it well, she remembered, responding with a smile and a simple shrug of his shoulders. Later as Henry's band became famous, he was all over magazines, looking far different than his LL Bean look. He looked like a star.
         She knelt and in her head she spoke.
'Hi Henry, it's me Chloe. I'm sorry about what happened to you. I don't believe what they say, you know about taking drugs, about how you died. Dad doesn't believe it either. Are you coming back?'
She suddenly began to feel an emptiness and void in her chest, as if someone had ripped out her insides. It was her heart, she realized. It was a broken heart, this is what it fees like to have a broken heart. She wept as she stared at him. He was so lifeless. Then she felt angry and spoke out loud.
"No. Your not coming back are you? How could you leave me Henry. Why?" she reached toward him and shook his shoulder, it was stiff and unnatural.
"Henry please come back. Please."
         She fell to the floor crying and a moment later her mother grabbed her and lifted her from the kneeling post. She fell weakly into her arms and was number two to be dragged off. She took one last look back and sobbed. Her breath got short and she tried to breath, but nothing went in She felt like she was suffocating. She reached for her mother and tired to hold on to her, but she felt weak and suddenly her legs gave out. She collapsed and for the briefest of moments noticed that the ceiling hd benn stenciled in some kind of floral arrangement, then a moment later everything went black.