Part I

FLINCHING TOWARDS THE DARKNESS 

“None of us really changes over time. We only become more fully what we are.”
– Anne Rice, The Vampire Lestat

The morticians weren’t miracle workers, sure, but had no one the time to adjust his tie, or even make up his face to be a little less dull, less tight, less dead?  Wasn’t the point of the funeral to comfort the living in the wake of the dead’s passing? 

Adam let out a heavy sigh, before reaching into the coffin and gripping the knot of his father’s tie, adjusting it to the center of his chest. He brushed a firm hand down the collar of his blazer, re-crease the folds of his suit. He pulled away. It was better. Dad looked better. 

A hand ran the length up his back, squeezing his shoulder. He looked to see his Mom—eyes puffy and glazed with tears, her lips quivering, and the faintest leak of snot running from her right nostril. He had never seen his mother so disheveled, so taken apart. For his entire life, she had pillared him like stone, like marble, great, intricate, and chiseled by God. But, these days since he’d come home, he had watched her fall apart, crumble to edges, fray at her seams. 

She called him two months ago, and he knew Dad was dying; he knew it well and he had seen him begin to strip away, the cancer pulling at him like a child to loose strings. The doctors told them to prepare; the pastor however told them they had nothing to fear. Adam was at his apartment, laying on the sofa, reading a book. It was the end of March, the sun was peeking through gray clouds and the weather had cleared finally. It was late morning when Mom called. He reached for it, unexpecting. 

“Hi, momma.” He said into the phone, flipping to the next page.

He knew instantly when there was the briefest silence and then a sniffle, then the grating sound of her broken voice on the other side.

“Daddy died.” The air froze in his apartment, all sound died away, and at first, he thought she was joking. Isn’t that sick? Why would his own mother play a trick on him like that? Reality hit him hard in that moment when he went quiet for too long. Exactly six minutes, but it felt like only a few seconds. They both stayed on the line for that grueling pass of time.

Then, Momma said, “Gramma wants the funeral in June, ‘fore’t gets too hot. Can you make that?” Her words were procedural, detailed and accurate. 

He didn't know what to say and even when he finally found the words, he didn’t know how to say them. “Yeah. Yeah, ‘course I can do that. Just… just let me know when, yeah?” 

A sniffle, “thanks, baby, I’ll call you tonight. I gotta call your…sister.”

“O can call her,” he offered. There was another silence.

“Sure, if you can, I…”

“Don’t worry ‘bout it. I’ll call Lills. No big.” Again, a pause. 

“Let me know if you need anything,” he added. “Love ya, momma.” 

“Love you, too, baby.” 

And then she hung up. And now he had to call his sister. But he would wait a while, an hour or two. He had to get himself together, understand what he was going to say to her. He needed to let himself sit in the news. And that was what he did, then he called her. And they were both silent. No crying, no tears, only donning silence. 

“He was proud of you.” Mom said, her hand shaking off his shoulder to his waist. She hugged him, held him close—her hip on his. 

Adam scoffed out of habit. “He did, Adam. He was bad at showing it, but he was proud of the man you became.”

“With a few exceptions.” A bitterness leaked from his lips.

MOm pulled off of him. Her fingers pinched his chin and pulled his gaze to her, “We loved you. I love you, you know that right?”

He looked back at her, into her dark brown eyes that pooled like melted gemstones in the sockets of her skull. MOm was mesmerizing in all the ways someone could be. Her tone always cut clean from all the bad things that could overcome a person. Dad used to say she was his angel, that the Lord had blessed him with someone perfected in an image only she could have been molded from. 

He had said, standing atop the dais of the church, adorned in his dark robes, large hands attached to solid wrists probing through the sleeves, “A wife is more than a woman—she is molded from man, she is made to allow him to be whole—one flesh.” Adam had memorized that sermon. He was ten and he had said something that morning that Dad didn't like. 

Adam leaned onto Mom’s shoulder, “I know you do, Momma.” 

“We do.” She whispered. 

Another set of arms wrapped around them, these smaller, more tender, more assured in their reach. Lilly pressed her cheek to Adam’s shoulder blade. “Gramma is asking where you are.” She said to their Mom. 

Mom sighed, “I can't be with her today. I really cannot.” They swayed together, rocking back and forth as the sounds of voices rose in the church. Everyone had their turn to see Pastor Finch. Usually,. The family went first, but Gramma and Momma wanted the kids to have their time to see their Dad. It made more sense. It felt cruel to have them stand up there as everyone waited; sure, no one might not have said anything if they took long, but the stares, the air would be different. It would need to shift as patience lingered over them like a sword on a string. 

“Gramma awaits regardless,” Lilly said, irritated. “At some point, she’s gonna want to see you.” She was talking to him this time.

Adam shook his head, “I can’t do it either.”

“When will she give us peace?” Mom said, letting them go, slipping from Lilly’s hug. She looked at the two of them. “Both of you need anything?” Her hand came to Lilly's cheek, rubbing her thumb right below her eye. Lilly pressed into it. Her eyes shifted to Adam, “even if it’s space, you can tell me.” 

“We’re fine, Momma.” Lilly said, “go before Gramma–”

“Jeannie!” A creaking voice shouted through the church. 

“Jesus,” Momma cursed. “Let me know though.” She pointed at the two of them. They nodded and she left.

Lilly and Adam stayed there, standing over their father. “He looks peaceful.”

“As the devil in sin,” Adam whispered. Lilly huffed a chuckle.

She slipped around him, leaving her arm on his waist. He mimicked her, his arm wrapping across the small of her back. There was a momentary pause as they stared down at the man who raised them. The man who gave Lilly her dark eyes, the small crook in her nose, the attitude; who gave Adam his large hands, his wideset stance, broad shoulders. 

Lilly broke their silence, “Guess we can have our Big Fish moment, huh?”

Adam shoved her off, “Not the time!” He exclaimed softly, but couldn’t help the smile that came across his face.

Lilly shrugged her shoulders in defense, “I was lightening the mood.”

“Now is not the time.” He tried to feign some serious demeanor, but the way she looked at him, shrugging but smiling, a warmth fluttered in him. 

“Oh, come on,” she started, “it was funny!”

He rolled his eyes, “his body isn’t even in the ground and you’re already making jokes.”

“And?”

“Have some class.”

“Oh, sure, okay, as if you’re…” Her voice trailed off. Her eyes moved to something behind him. Adam turned around to find Pastor Carter behind him, looming like a great big shadow. His throat thickened. His skin ran hot. The warmth in his chest spread like wildfire through him as he stepped over to Lilly.

“Pastor Carter,” Lilly started, “how are you?” There was a small tremble in her voice. Adam hoped the pastor hadn’t heard it, it was faint, almost inaudible. 

THe pastor stepped forward, “I should be asking you two that.” His hands, large and wide, came down onto their shoulders. He squeezed them tight. 

“We are doing…” Adam tried to find the best word for how he was feeling.

IN truth, he wasn’t sure if he had felt the grief of their father dying yet, or if he was even there. He wasn’t crying. Not a single tear had been shed, but still, there was a heavy panfg in his chest. “We are doing as best we can.” He finalized. 

The pastor nodded slowly, staring at them. The sharp blue of his eyes never leaving them, flitting between Lilly and him until he looked behind them, at their Dad.

“Minister Finch was a great man.” He said, “and a great father.” He looked back at them.

They nodded. Neither of them said anything for too many moments. 

“He loved this church.” Adam said quickly.

Pastor Carter looked to Adam now. “And I’m sure he would love to see you here more often, Adam.” Adam swallowed around the lump grown in his throat. He kept the pastor’s gaze but something unsettled him. He wasn't sure what at that moment, but looking back, he realized it was a memory, the echoing of a small scream, the sound of turning doorknob, and the cold, unsettling wind that blew through the church. 

The blood in Adam’s veins stuttered, a shiver running through him. “I’m sure he would, Father.” He managed to say, despite the swilling nausea rising in his gut. 

A hand grabbed his wrists. Lily. “MOm’s calling us,” Adam’s eyes follow her finger. Mom was actually waving them over. Their grandmother standing next to her, shoulders tight and chin pointed. “Nice seeing you, Father,” Lily said and dragged her brother away. 

“Thank you,” Adam said. Bile still burned in him. Whether Mom was intentionally waving them over or it was simply a coincidence, he didn’t care. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Father Carter; it was that he was afraid of the man. Father George Carter was a large, looming man. Dad had worked alongside him since Adam and Lilly were little; littler than little. At first, seemingly, he was one of the kindest men Adam had ever met. He was never loud, never stern, always respectful, and treated Adam not as a kid but as an equal. He treated every kid as his own, save for his actual son.

Grandma reached for Adam first, pressing a kiss to his cheek. 

“How are you, dear?” He gazed into her eyes. Grandma June was their Dad’s Mom. Adam had her eyes, Dad’s eyes. But Grandma’s were darker, more expansive like deep waters. 

Adam smiled, softly. “I’m good, gramma. I’m holding on.” She clapped his shoulders, squeezing the flesh. He reached for her wrists, holding them gently, feeling her soft, wrinkled skin slide against her bones. 

She didn’t say anything, only looked at him with those big, dark eyes. He had her eyes, he knew that. And in turn he had Dad’s eyes. But Grandma’s gaze was different. She had this look about her, this wya os seeing someone, maybe even through them. She could always tell you, despite her own reproach, when something was wrong in yourself. Grandma returned Adam’s smile.

“And my Lillian!” She reached for his sister, pulling her into a hug. Lilly was small in Grandma’s arms. She had always been dainty, petite, a little too skinny, but Grandma practically swallowed her up in their embrace. Lilly, for a moment, was hesitant. Adam was tense. Mom was tense. Like it was, Grandma could see through you and she had always seen through Lilly the most. Before Lilly was Lilly, Grandma knew, she understood. She warned Mom and Dad. BUt Lilly knew none of this. Lilly had always been under the impression that Grandma was harder to please, harder to understand, harder to love than Dad. But she was wrong. 

After a long, drowning moment, Grandma pulled away. Her old hands ran through Lilly’s hair, thick and dark. Her smile turned weary, compassionate. It was almost as if she was going to cry.

“You’ve become…so beautiful,” her words were low, light like the air, and fluttered against Lilly’s cheeks that heat rose in his sister’s face, blooming across her cheeks. Adam’s eyes darted to Mom, who looked back at him. There was a moment of surprise and then, as if at once, Mom’s shoulders fell, and the stress over her face eased away like water down the rocks. 

“If only he weren’t a fool,” Grandma said. “Dead as he may be, that mine owes us all a proper word.” Lilly let out a laugh, bursting through her mouth, it came out with a great pop and shifted, shaped itself into a roar of sound. Her chest heaved up and down and the entire church echoed with Lilly’s laughter. Adam chuckled, and then he too was spilling into the same infectious sounds. Mom and Grandma looked between them, faint smiles on their faces yet furrowed brows also stained. Then the pain came. Not a solid, swift, sharpness. No, it was not physical. No, this pain was subtle. Their laughter changed, it shifted, and it grew dark until the sounds broke the walls of the family’s defenses. Somehow, this moment undid the steel. And, once more, at once, laughter was sobbing. Adam fell into Lilly and her into him. They wrapped their arms around one another in a heap. Adam pressed his face into Lilly’s shoulder. Lilly’s nose dripped snot into his shirt, but he didn’t care. Their small revelation--the affirmed commitment of Grandma had somehow torn something, ripped through the membrane of their hearts, and left them bleeding. 

Adam sat in the back of the church in the last pew. Ahead of him, near the dais, Grandma, Mom, and Lilly were talking to Father Carter. Every so often, he would say something and Grandma would laugh. Lilly and Mom would exchange a look, and Lilly would peer back, and if she caught him at the right moment, she’d press a finger to her head.