Rachel Goddard 01 - The Heat of the Moon

She hadn’t yet spoken to me or to Theo. 
    Her new black suit made her skin look bleached in contrast. I owned nothing black and wore instead a plain navy linen dress Rosario had found in my closet at home. I’d had trouble squeezing my cast through the short sleeve. 
    My arm ached deep in the ravaged muscle. I’d exhausted my three-day supply of codeine two days before and now I was at the mercy of the pain, but I welcomed it, I fastened on it and let it drive everything else from my mind. I didn’t know what I would do when the pain subsided.
    The minister, an elderly, stooped man supplied by the funeral home, read from the Bible in a wavering voice. “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away.”
    We bowed our heads in prayer when the minister asked us to. The sun’s rays pressed on the back of my neck like a red-hot iron. Only once did I let my gaze wander to Mother’s coffin, poised on a mechanized lift, and the deep hole beneath it. When the lift whirred into motion I began to shake, and Theo hugged my shoulders, steadying me.
    The casket descended. Michelle stepped to the edge of the grave and dropped in the rose. A cardinal as red as the flower perched on a nearby headstone and warbled his rich song.
    Together, flanked by Theo and Kevin, my sister and I received the murmured sympathy of the departing mourners. So sorry…so sorry…so sorry. Their eyes shifted, sliding past our faces and carefully avoiding any unseemly examination of my injured arm.
    I leaned to kiss Rosario’s cheek, because she looked as if she needed consolation as much as we did.
    At last only Michelle and Kevin, Theo and I were left. Michelle started to walk away without speaking, but Kevin, his fresh young face knotted with emotion, came to me and wrapped me in a gentle bear hug. He stepped back and scrubbed a hand over his chin. “Oh, man, Rachel, I don’t know what to say. You tell me what I can do to help, and I’ll do it, you just ask.”
    I spoke quietly so Michelle wouldn’t hear. “Help my sister. That’s what you can do. Don’t let her be alone too much.”
    He nodded. “You can count on it. I kinda love the girl, you know?”
    “She’s lucky to have you.”
    Michelle strode back to us with brisk steps. Theo murmured to Kevin, and the two men moved away to give us privacy.
    “I want to sell the house,” Michelle said without preamble. “As soon as possible. Our names are on the title, it doesn’t have to go through probate. We can put it on the market anytime.” She paused. “You don’t want it, do you?”
    I shook my head.
    “Well. Okay then. I’m moving to an apartment as soon as I can find one. There’s no point keeping Rosario fulltime after I move out, but she can come in and clean a couple times a week until we find a buyer.” Michelle looked around as if taking in the scenery. The hot air stirred and lifted her pale hair from her shoulders. She faced me again. “You’ll have to do something about those cages of yours.”
    I nodded. “I’ll take them down.”
    “Good.” She turned away. 
    “Mish.”
    She looked back at me, her expression guarded.
    “We need to talk. I could go over to the house with you now. I have to pick up some things anyway.”
    “I’m not going home. I’m going to lunch with Kevin, then I’ve got a class.”
    “We have to talk about all this sometime.”
    “No.”
    “Don’t you even want to know who you are?”
    She stepped so close her face was inches from mine. “I do know who I am. And nothing you can say is going to change it.”
    With her chin high she walked away from me, across the bright green cemetery grass.
    Theo tried to talk me out of going to the house, and when he saw that was futile, insisted that I let him come with me. But in the end he took one cab and I took another and we went our separate ways.
    ***
    I entered through the front door. The house was utterly silent. I stopped to look into the sun-splashed living room, at the gleaming tables and all the small exquisite things Mother had accumulated. The jade figurines, the decorative plates, the antique marble clock on the mantel. The clock hands had stopped at 8:15. Mother had been the only one who knew how to wind the delicate mechanism properly.
    She would never walk through these rooms again. I would never see her or hear her voice