Page 31

Ithought I’d gotten used to death.

The initial pain. That horrible ache in the center of your chest that just didn’t seem to ease no matter how much time passed.

But as I watched them lower my grandmother’s casket into the ground… it hurt.

I stayed at the cemetery long after everyone had left, sitting on the ground with my knees pulled up to my chest and my arms wrapped around my legs.

I’d been close with my grandmother. She raised me when my mother hadn’t been fit to do the job.

Blanchette had shown me how to ride a bike, and even helped me buy my first tampons when I got my period and explained it all to me when I started crying because I didn’t know what was happening.

She sat down and talked with me about boys, showed me how to drive, and helped me with my homework every single night.And when I graduated from high school, she was the only family I had there, but she’s the only one I’d wanted.

For all intents and purposes, she was my mother.

And now, at twenty-two, I was utterly and truly alone.

I wiped an errant tear that slipped down my cheek and felt my heart continuously break, the shearing pain of it ripping into a million unique pieces.

They always said with time it got easier, but right now I couldn’t even imagine it ever being better. I literally had no one else. I hadn’t seen my mother since she dropped me off at my grandmother’s when I was just a child.

My father hadn’t been in the picture and had been an only child. Hell, I wouldn’t even call my “friends” more than acquaintances, only seeing them at work.

I stood and brushed the grass and dirt off my bottom, glancing down at my legs to see a run in my dark stockings.

I guess it was par for the course on how things were going for me.

My secondhand black Mary Jane shoes had scuff marks, and my dress, one I bought at the thrift store yesterday, had a stain on the side and the hem was fraying at the bottom.

“Well,” I said to myself, since I was alone, staring at the mound of dirt before me, “I’m going to keep thinking about all the things you said. And remember that boys can suck at any age, and that just because the sun sets and everything gets dark, it'll still rise the next day and brighten everything up again.”

Brushing another tear away, I smiled.

“And I’m always gonna remember how you taught me how to make your famous chocolate chip cookies, even though I burn them every single time.”

I smoothed my hands down my dress and took in a deep breath, then exhaled slowly.

“But let’s be real. I’ll never get it right. Not like how you always did.” I laughed softly as I pictured my grandmother standing in front of me, scolding me for bringing myself down. Her face would get even more wrinkled as she told me never to be negative toward myself, that there’s always room for improvement and that's how we grow… by trying repeatedly.

I turned and left without another backward glance, because I knew if I did, I wouldn’t stop myself from really breaking down.

A new chapter of my life started now, and I’d try to make the most of it. But truthfully?

It really fucking sucked.

2

Marcella

“Aren’t you scared to do that by yourself?”

One of my coworkers looked over my shoulder at my phone.

I pulled up a map of the area in Ketchikan, Alaska, where I’d be staying.

When I’d found out my grandma had left me a small, but comfortable, inheritance, I knew taking a trip was what she’d want me to do. It wasn’t much, but it included her two-bedroom house, the small piece of land the home sat on, and a few thousand dollars.

I’d cried when the lawyer told me, not because it was too much or too little, but because even after she’d passed away, she was still wanting to take care of me.