Cristiano

Maeve’s Mother’s Funeral

Today might go down in history as the most horrible afternoon that I have ever experienced in my life.

A modest collection of souls have gathered here today to pay their respects to one of the kindest women I ever had the privilege to meet in my life. At only eighteen, it’s not like I’ve had a lot of chances to get out and experience the world or all that it has to offer. I’m supposed to be leaving for my gap year in Italy in only two days. At least I was. How can I leave now? I know that the trip is like a pilgrimage for those in my family, but it doesn’t feel right to leave.

Most people who knew about the death would simply think that our family was just doing our duty by helping bury one of our housekeepers, but she was so much more than that. She’d been with us for Maeve’s entire life. She was one of us, in her own way. Maeve is family. She always will be. No matter how things go after today. If she chooses to go off into the world on her own, if she takes up mother’s offer to have her live with us until she graduates, whatever choice she makes, we will support it. Mother had long ago agreed to become Maeve’s legal guardian should anything happen to her.

I hope that she stays.

It’s selfish, I know… but I do not know what I would do without her.

Slowly, the polished black coffin starts to lower into the ground. I can’t watch it. My eyes are trained on the woman across from me. Maeve cried and screamed herself hoarse last night. Ada was a zombie this morning at breakfast. She couldn’t eat because of how traumatized Maeve was. I don’t suspect that she will be better any time soon. She and her mother were impossibly close. Both her and my sister’s eyes are still reddened and puffy, but Maeve looks like a shell of the girl that I’ve been obsessed with for as long as I can remember.

Her red hair is tied up in a messy bun at the back of her head, little whisps of color floating around her face and sticking to the lip gloss that my mother had put on her to attempt to heal some of the cracks in her lips.

I’ve never seen Maeve in black before.

It doesn’t suit her.

I don’t ever want her to be forced to wear black out of sadness again. Right now, I would do anything, pay anything, give anything up if it meant she’d stop feeling this pain. If I could take it from her, I would.

There’s a small thunk when the coffin hits the bottom of the grave. The wheels on the pulley system creak and squeal. Maeve doesn’t so much as flinch. It’s a wonder that she’s even still standing.

“Does anybody wish to say a kind word?”

The people gathered around us look slowly from one to another. Maeve won’t feel the need to share her private memories of her mother with everybody here, she won’t want to talk at all. I hope for a moment that Ada might say something, anything to calm her friend. Maeve made it perfectly clear that she didn’t want to hear from me.

The way I see it, if she needs somebody to take the rage of her mother’s untimely death out on somebody, I’m happy to be that person to her. If she needs a target, I’m her man.

Better anger than the alternative. I can’t let her wallow in despair. I cannot imagine the devastation she is experiencing at this moment. At sixteen, the one and only real family she has ever known, abruptly taken from her.

My fingers ball into a fist at my side.

Maeve’s bloodshot eyes lift to mine.

Nothing changes in her expression, and she doesn’t say a single word but I know the intention. I understand. There’s nothing to say. There’s not a single word anyone could say to make this easier. Any story told about her mother would just be an empty collection of words, nothing could be as vibrant as the woman herself.

All I can do is be here for her, however she needs me.

I walk to the edge of the grave and bend to pick up a handful of dirt. I sprinkle it softly over the coffin, sending her all of my well wishes and hopeful intentions into the afterlife. As I step back into the place I had just left, another of the staff steps forward to repeat the gesture. One at a time, until everyone has paid their silent respects but Maeve herself.

It almost looks like she’s debating whether or not she should just throw herself in the hole with her mother’s body. I can almost see the idea cross her mind as Ada steps to her side and pushes her fingers through Maeve’s.

I hope she knows that she has a family still. Whether she wants us or not. She deserves a family, and she still has people who love her very much. In every capacity that she will let us.

The knot of pain in my chest loosens as she allows Ada to pull her away from the gravesite and starts to turn back toward the long procession of cars. The two best friends tuck closely into one another as I trail silently behind them. At least she knows I will always have their backs.

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