“I’m in shock. I really can’t believe she’s gone. My sister is dead, and now I’m all alone.” She crumples, breaking down again.
I won’t take it to heart what she said because I know she doesn’t mean it, so I let her have her moments. Her grief.
“Tell me what I can do?”
“The funeral home keeps ringing me. I need to make decisions, but I don’t want to because then she’ll really be gone, and it will be real. It’s going to be final. I don’t have enough money for a proper burial, so I think I will cremate her, but I really don’t want to cremate her. I want her to have a final resting spot near Dad.” Her words are jumbled, thick with tears, but I hear all that I need to.
“Hand me your phone.”
She doesn’t even put up a fight.
“Now, start from the beginning. Tell me where your dad’s buried.”
“Rookwood Cemetery.” She sounds like a foghorn from how blocked her nose is from crying.
“Now tell me what Tori would have wanted or what you want for her?”
“I want a white coffin and pink roses. She loved pink roses. We could never afford a bunch of flowers, but whenever we’d pass a florist, she’d say those were going to make up her bridal bouquet one day.” Her sniffles become cries. I swipe the tissue box from the side table and hand her one. “It’s the reason why my hair is this colour. It’s the exact shade she loved.”
“What else, Tink?” I continue typing on my phone.
“We didn’t have much, so the only thing I can think of is her Kindle that I bought her for her birthday this year and the few photos we ever took together.”
“That sounds perfect. What about clothes?”
“Can you get Sydney to arrange that? I don’t want to go shopping for my dead sister’s last outfit. I can’t bear what the sales assistants will say. Something young and fun. Maybe colourful and trendy? She’s a size 8. We never got to be normal teenagers. We never got to shop in real stores or have the luxury of ripping off tags. I just want her to love it so much because it’s the only thing she’ll be wearing forever, and I want it to be nice as well so when she sees our dad again, he’ll say she’s beautiful.”
I screw my eyes shut in torment at her strangled words. With one hand in hers, I sloppily type in the notes everything she’s telling me.
“A wig?” I murmur, not wanting to have said those words.
“She had pretty mousy blonde hair, lighter than mine. It killed her when her hair started falling out, so yes, a wig please, with long wavy hair.”
“And what about songs or the eulogy?”
“I’ll Be Missing You” by Faith Evans and “Wind Beneath My Wings” by Bette Midler.
“Eulogy?” I prompt.
“I want to celebrate her life, but I don’t think I’ll be strong enough. Maybe I’ll write something for the priest? Humanist?”
“You tell me.”
“I want a priest. I’m not sure I believe in God, but my heart is telling me this is the right thing.”
“One holy father coming up. Do you want everyone to just come back to mine?”
“There won’t be that many people. I want to keep it small. Maybe we should just go to a bar and get rip-roaring drunk instead?”
“Deal. Leave the cars to me and all the other little finicky things, okay? I just want you to focus on you.”
“You’re not leaving me, right?” she says in a meek and vulnerable voice that guts me.
“Never again,” I assure, planting a kiss on her lips for the first time in days. It’s quick and chaste but conveys every ounce of my love and devotion. “Who are you inviting?”
She falls back on the couch in contemplation.
“I don’t know? You. Your family. Trish. Some of the girls from the salon and from work. Jake. Her nurses and maybe some of her neighbours? We have no family.”