Page 66 of A Grave Not Made For Mourning
I recoil at first, before settling into his embrace. His feelings are tricky, like a spider web that gets stuck on your fingers, and you have to pull and pull to get it off, but you never seem to be able to rid yourself of it entirely.
That’s how he blames me.
That’s how he loves me.
Yet he kept my room intact, as if he wanted to keep me intact, in some way, too.
We walk down to the dining room in silence. Dad doesn’t want to scare me away. He thinks that’s what he did the last time I came. I want to tell him that I was never running from him, but the words die in my throat.
I sit at the table, and he brings plate after plate of Eunoian dishes. Rowan berries, breads, forsagga cheeses. Pitchers of wines and teas. Nothing seems less appetizing.
The last time I ate a meal like this, Ma was alive.
There is no escaping her death here. It’s everywhere. In Visnatus, sometimes I get to remember her as she was.
Her skin not grayed.
Her eyes not glossed over.
Her legs attached to her hips.
Here, she’s just dead.
I understand Terran, his hatred for me. If our roles were reversed, I’m not sure I’d act differently. It makes me feel guilty for being here. Intruding on the little peace my family is managing to find.
But they kept my room.
Pa looks at me, and I smile—for him.
“It’s okay to feel,” he says.
I look away as my smile fades.
Don’t do that, I want to say.Don’t read my feelings the way I am forced to read yours.
I understand why others feel violated by me. Itisa violation.
Pa sits beside me, reaching for my hand. His fingers never touch mine. He pulls his hand back, thinkingbetterof it. I wish touching me felt easier, that it wasn’t so tangled in hesitation. Wasn’t something to think better of.
“Pardon me.” He clears his throat as he stands.
I try to distract him—and myself—from the overwhelming feeling sucking the air from the room. “Where are Cassius and Jasper?” I ask.
We never eat without the six of us.
Five…fiveof us.
Four.
There’s only four of them now.
“Cassius is with his partner, and Jasper’s working,” Pa answers, the steady rhythm of his knife chopping through vegetables echoing against the wood.
Life never stops moving.
I froze on the day Ma died, my life stunted, but they continued to move forward. If grief is a race, I lost by a landslide.
I choose not to dwell on it. I think of Jasper, my youngest brother. He trained his whole life to be a healer. I can’t believe he graduated before me.
