I lunged from my spot on the couch, and darted past Melissa and Casey standing near the speakers, giggling over some memory of my sister they must have shared along with this song, and headed straight for the hall. Melissa said something to me, but I ignored her. I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to smile and be happy. This wasn’t a happy day for me. This day was hell.
How could Emma have envisioned a Wake that was this happy? This full of life?
My feet continued past my room in a blur. When I blinked, I found myself standing beside her bed. I hadn’t expected to come in here. It seemed like an eerie invasion of privacy. I thought the room had been sealed shut since Emma was removed by the coroner, but as I stared down at her bed, I realized someone had been in here because the sheets and blankets were missing. The dingy mattress was bare and vulnerable, which was exactly what I felt. Tears pooled in my eyes, and when my legs could no longer hold me up, I moved to sit at the edge of the bed. I smoothed the tip of my index finger along the ugly flower print across the fabric of the mattress. My mind drifted far from here as the melody to In the Arms of the Angel floated through the walls. Curling into a ball, I lost it. Every tear I had ever tried to keep in poured from my eyes, wrapped around fractured bits of my soul.
After a while, the door opened to the room, letting the noise of everyone sting me with its cruelty. It closed quickly. I remained where I was with my eyes squeezed shut tight.
“You okay?” Dawson’s voice filled the room, shattering the silence I’d wanted to remain in.
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. It would only intensify the pain I felt radiating through my body from the loss of my sister.
The mattress depressed as he sat beside me, his weight causing me to slip toward him. It wasn’t long before Dawson had his arms wrapped around me, pressing his body to mine.
“I know you miss her,” he whispered the words. “I do too.”
I untangled my arms, and gripped onto his hand wrapped around my middle. A sob clawed its way up my throat, and I broke all over again.
“You should read her letter,” he muttered against my hair after my tears finally ran dry.
Nothing in her letter could cure this horrific pain barreling through me from her absence on this Earth. Didn’t he understand that? They were just words, and words didn’t hold the power to help me.
Dawson placed a kiss to the top of my head, and then slipped out of the room. I wished I had the strength to follow him, to free myself from this room and its darkness that would always haunt me, but I couldn’t bring myself to. I couldn’t face those people. I couldn’t see the things Emma had loved so much all in one place. I shifted on the bed, trying to curl back up into the hardened ball Dawson had found me in, but something crinkled beneath me. The second my fingers brushed it, I knew what it was—Emma’s letter.
Irritation burned through me from Dawson’s persistence. The desire to crumble the damn thing up and throw it in his face singed my insides. I froze the moment I saw my name written in Emma’s handwriting. With trembling fingers, I surprised myself by tearing open the envelope.
Char,
I’m sorry. Not for what I’ve done, but for the pain my actions will cause you. If I could take it away for you, I would. I need you to know hurting you was not my intention. Please try to understand my pain. The accident didn’t just break and mangle my body, Charlotte, it did the same to my soul, and any future I dreamed for myself.
I gave Dawson instructions for my Wake, because I didn’t want you to have to be burdened by it all. I’m sure you twisted my reason for this in your head into something it wasn’t. Don’t think I didn’t trust you with this because I feared you wouldn’t host one that fit my standards. I knew you would. I had faith in you. I just felt it was unfair to have you do this twice in your lifetime. Mom’s will be coming over the next year, maybe even less. That one is all yours.
Smile, Char. For me. You know you want to. Don’t let this stop you from living. Grieve me, because I know you will, but don’t let my loss suck the life out of you. Live, Char. You’re so flighty and free. Mom’s wild child. Never change. Don’t let what I did change that about you. Please.
There was nothing you could have done differently. Things would have ended the same no matter what. This life wasn’t the one I was supposed to live. It couldn’t be, because it wasn’t the one I had planned for myself.
I’m not as strong as you thought. The daily pain and constant reminder of what I could no longer do, who I no longer was, became too much. I realized quickly I could handle the weight from others pain and issues without much dispute, but not when they were my own.
I love you. Know that with every part of your being.
When the time is right, please let me go. Don’t hold onto me forever. Spread my ashes in the ocean waters so I can be free in every sense of the word.
Loving you always,
Emma
Clutching the letter to my chest, I let my sister’s written words drift through my mind. Dawson and Sadie had been right, reading her letter had helped to ease some of my pain. In a strange way, it made me feel closer to her. These were words meant only for me. No one else. They were her final goodbye. Her final I love you, and I would treasure them forever.
THE PEACE THAT CAME over me after reading Emma’s letter didn’t last as long as I had hoped. In fact, in only lasted a few hours. By the time those who attended the Wake cleared out, my peaceful high from her words had dimmed to nothing.
As I put the last Tupperware container in the fridge, I stood in the kitchen with my arms wrapped around my middle, wondering what I was supposed to do now. Music still played from in the living room. It was the same song I’d heard ten times tonight. I listened to the words, letting them float through me. It was a sweet song, not as upbeat as the others. The lyrics lured more of my emotions to the surface, causing me to wonder if these strings of seconds interlocked together would be what I remembered most about this night. Was this memory what I would keep out of the blur that was my sister’s Wake?
“Do you need any help in here?” Dawson stepped into the kitchen. His hands were crammed into the front pockets of his jeans as though he wasn’t sure what to do next either.
“No. Everything is put up.” I didn’t look at him, I couldn’t. The sight of his grief would shatter me.
“Are you going to be okay?” He took a few steps closer. “Should I stay for a little while longer, or do you want me to leave?” There was hesitation in his voice. The situation was awkward for him as well. Neither of us knew what was supposed to happen now.
“I’ll be fine. Sadie’s here.” I brought my eyes to his then, and flashed a tiny smile I hoped seemed convincing. “Thanks though.”
He couldn’t stay. Dawson comforting me right now didn’t seem right. He had to go.
“All right.” He smoothed a hand through his hair. “If you need me, or anything, call. You’ve got my number still¸ right?”
Of course I did. I didn’t think I would ever have the heart to erase it. “Yeah.”
“Okay.” He remained where he was standing, his eyes glued to me for a few more heartbeats before finally deciding it was okay to leave. The second he did, I opened the fridge, and reached for one of the bottles of wine leftover from the Wake. One of Emma’s friends had brought it with her. It was a sweet red, which had been Emma’s favorite. Half of it was already gone, but I didn’t need much. A glass would do. I crossed the kitchen, and picked up one of the purple plastic wineglasses that came with the wine, before heading out the back door. Sadie would find me whenever she finished taking the decorations down in the living room.