“As Chairman of the Greeting and Farewell Committee of Silverlake Home for the Elderly, it’s my duty to give the girls and guys here a proper sendoff. None of this funeral procession, boring priest nonsense. Viola was a good woman, with a lot of love for life. She’d never want a dull send-off, but her kids are forcing that on her. Even after she’s dead!”
“The horror!” I gasp in sync with her.
“Exactly,” Gran points at me. Her eyes are my reddish brown, Dad’s reddish brown. “Horror. Horrible. The things people do these days to disrespect the dead are just awful. So we’re going to respect my dead friend properly.”
“By stuffing the chimney full of fireworks.”
“By stuffing the chimney full of fireworks!” She agrees. “When the nurse comes by in the morning and lights the fire, she’ll light this whole damn place up! Viola would’ve gotten a good laugh out of that.”
I smile and help Gran down the fire escape. She’s tall and in-shape for a seventy-year old, but she’s still thin, her wrists and fingers tiny. When we’re back on solid ground and walking across the lawn to her building, Gran throws an arm around my neck.
“What about your funeral, eh?” She asks.
“You mean the one that is never going to happen ever because I am going to gather the seven Dragonballs and wish for eternal life?”
She laughs. “Yeah, that one. What’d you want for it?”
I muse it over for all of six and a half seconds. “Makeouts. Naked dancing. Maybe a cake.”
Gran smirks at me as we walk up the white-washed stairs.
“What? What is it? Why are you giving me That One Look?”
“Oh, nothing. You’ve grown so much, is all. You said ‘makeout’ without turning five shades of purple.”
“Yes, well, now I am an extremely mature, responsible adult, and I can do things like discuss my trials and tribulations calmly.”
“Uh-huh,” Gran says expectantly.
“Such as making out. I did actually make out with someone.”
Gran waits.
“I mean, I punched him before I made out with him. But it was a mature punch.”
Gran laughs, full and loud. I point at her as she opens the door to her room and sits on her bed.
“Don’t you dare start naming stuff you want at your funeral. Because I know for a fact when old people say stuff it usually comes true and if you die I will be exceptionally bummed out.”
“It comes true because we’re wise, dear.”
“It comes true because you guys have freaky awesome brain powers that seem to do everything but grant you immortality. And teeth.”
Gran laughs, easing out of her slippers and lying back on the bed. “Come here.”
I muddle over to the bed and sit on it. She takes my hand and pets it, slowly, looking me right in the eyes.
“A lot of people in your life are going to tell you how they think you should live. Some might not say it outright at all. Some of them might just convince you without saying anything that you need to live a certain way.”
She looks out the dark window dotted with stars, smiles, and then looks back to me.
“Listen to me carefully, sweet girl. Don’t live any other way than the way that makes you happy. If you aren’t happy, leave your lover. If you aren’t happy, quit the job. If you aren’t happy, do more to make yourself happy. Because you are the only one who can make yourself happy.”
I open my mouth to argue, and she hushes me.
“I know. I know other things and other people will make you feel happy. But they won’t make you happy. That comes from you. That comes from your own heart. Letting happiness grow in you – that comes all from inside. Some people never learn that. Some people never let happiness in, or they let it in too late. Some people never let it in because they’re afraid. But that’s the worst thing you can do to yourself. That’s punishing yourself. Lots of folks don’t even know they do it. So. I want you to know. I want you to try to be happy, for yourself.”
I feel my eyes watering, but I try to hold them back. If I cry now, I might never stop.
“There was a girl,” I say. “A-A friend. Sort of. She never – she never let it in.”
“And where is she now?” Gran asks patiently.
“She…” I tighten my grip on Gran’s hand. “She killed herself. And I was the last one – I w-was the last one to talk to her, Gran, and I –”
Gran’s strong, thin arms engulf me, the smell of cinnamon and musty linens wafting up from her.
“I could’ve – I should’ve seen it, I should’ve –”
“There was nothing you could’ve done.” Gran’s voice is iron.
“But I – I was with her, and I knew her, and I knew how sad she was –”
“She must have been very unhappy.”
“We all knew that! B-But…but we thought –”
“And what about now? Do you think she’s still unhappy?”
“She’s…dead.”
“Wherever she is now, she’s happier than when she was here.”
I pull away. “She’s not! She’s just dead. She can’t feel anything. If she…if she kept living, she could have the chance to be happy again, here, with everyone –”
Gran’s eyes are somber, but they glint.
“That sounds an awful lot like someone else telling a girl how to live her life.”
My mouth gapes with a retort, but I close it. Gran moves her arms and hugs me closer, drawing my head to her chest and I let her. It’s like coming home.
“Cry for her, sweet girl, not for what you did or didn’t do. And then get up. Find what makes you happy,” She murmurs. “And be happy. Life is too long to be so sad. I’m sure she’d want you to be happy.”
All of Sophia’s twisted, angry faces compound in my mind.
“I don’t think so,” I say.
“But you said she was your friend.”
“Yeah, but – I hurt her. I did things to hurt her.”
“On purpose?”
My breath catches before I can say yes. I mull over my kiss with Jack. Our war. The laughter and the righteous anger and the tender, soft moments. The memories sting, like lemon juice in a papercut.
“N-No. I was trying…to help?”
Gran raises a thin eyebrow. I shake my head.
“That’s how it was at first. I was trying to help Kayla. But then…but then I started to really like him. I was hurting Sophia by liking him. Every second I liked him was more hurt to her. S-So. I take it back. I wasn’t trying to help. I was being selfish.”
“It sounds like you were trying to be happy with this boy.”
I scoff. “But that hurt her. Us, we hurt her a lot. I got between them. I – she probably felt like she had nothing left, with him moving on. So she…she...”
The white dress on the green lawn flashes in my mind. Sophia’s blue eyes, empty, her hair like a banner of cornsilk and moonlight, caked with blood where her head met the ground. The tiny silver bracelet that said Tallie glinting back at me.
She’d lost everything. And I took the last person in her life from her. I did it without even thinking, without even considering how it might hurt her. I just barreled ahead and did what I wanted to because I was selfish. Because I wanted to be happy.
Because I wanted love when I knew I didn’t deserve it.
And now, I’ll never deserve it.