II - part two

“Wait.”

I felt my heart speed up as I pulled myself loose from Cal’s grip, leaving the two of them to stand behind me as I made my way up the stone steps. My feet faltered right in front of the casket.

“Just…”, I hushed at them to keep moving, gesturing wildly while at the same time trying to look like I was still a big heap of heartbreak and sadness. “I’ll be right there. Just give me a sec.”

Cal rose her eyebrows, and Dan chewed on the inside of his cheek, but both nodded my way in encouragement, wanting me to have this moment even if they weren’t particularly fond of Annetta themselves these days.

My hands shook at my side as I turned back around and looked down.

I hadn’t dressed my grandmother, so I hadn’t known what she would look like, but I hadn’t expected her to look any less impeccable, her aura somehow as composed as it’d been when she was alive. Her skin sagging didn’t stop her from looking ten years younger than she really was. Hair the color of ash – dyed, but in a way that it matched her once natural tone – framed a face that was all curves and angles, and her signature black eyeliner had been done to a T.

Eyes a shade of Sepia just a few shades darker than my own were hidden behind gold-painted eyelids. In many ways, it was like looking at an older version of myself.

A thinner, better-dressed, more majestic, dead version, not to mention.

“Hi, grams...”

I grimaced at the sound of my own voice, the cringe somehow all the more real for me being the only person who could hear me at the moment. Even in death she could make me feel small.

“I uhm- I suppose this is goodbye? You’ll forgive me for not getting into the whole ‘I’m sorry’-part. I’m simply not in the right frame of mind right now.”

I nodded to myself as I lowered my hands into the casket, brushing away a few stray locks of hair that covered her large earrings. You have these ugly things, her voice rang in my memories, the exact scowl on her lips still fresh in mind. They look better on you, anyway. On me they just make my neck look fat.

The sound of my chuckle rose over the noise of my heart beating in my throat.

“Actually, I am not sorry at all, and I’m not really here to say goodbye. You’re gone already, so you’d agree with me that talking to your corpse is useless. This next part is going to be a bit awkward, though. Bear with me for a moment please…”

I continued speaking to myself as I bend forward again, carefully wiggling my fingers between her skin and the pillow that supported her head. My frame blocked what was happening to the church full of people at my back, but I didn’t dare glimpse at the pastor on my side, hoping that this looked like a loving last embrace.

“I am not sure how long someone needs to be dead before it’s considered grave robbing, so if this disturbs your eternal rest, I truly do apologize, but I-” Damn, she was cold. Where the hell was that clasp? “I just need you to work with me a little here-”

The small hook slipped my nails twice, but then it came undone, a forced sigh escaping my chest with it. For a short moment, I just stood there as I stared at the necklace wrapped around my fingers, the black gemstone reflecting the light that came through the stained glass windows.

And then the reality of what I’d just done hit me.

“Well, at least you’ll be comforted to know I’ll join you in hell when the time comes.” I contemplated pecking my grandmother on her cheek, but I straightened myself instead, rushing down the stone steps with what I feared was a head the color of a beet. The thin golden chain disappeared into my dress pocket.

“Ready”, I tried to smile at Dan and Cal as I hurried their way, ignoring the pastor’s gaze that burned into my back like God himself was watching with him. “Now can we please get the hell out of here?”