The Beautiful Between - Alyssa B. Sheinmel [56]
I wonder what it’s like to be strong like Jeremy. As I sit in the pew, my body curls up around itself, like it’s trying to keep me warm. My shoulders are hunched and I’m slouching as low as I can, my arms crossed in front of me, my hands clutching opposite elbows, like I think I will fall apart if I let go.
But my mother is sitting up straight next to me. She is staring straight ahead, focused intently on the back of the head of the man sitting in front of her. I look up at Jeremy, and I see that he is doing the same thing: staring straight in front of him at the back of the room. Neither he nor my mother flinches, whatever words he says. They just hold their gaze in front of them as tightly as I’m holding my arms. Maybe they aren’t so different.
Kate is in a plain, closed wooden casket at the front of the room. The only thing that gives anything away about the person inside it is its size. It’s short, so you can guess that it’s a young person. Before the service began, people were walking up to the casket and touching it like they were saying goodbye.
I didn’t go near the casket. I don’t see how touching a piece of wood will make it any easier to say goodbye to Kate. But it feels a little better now, listening to Jeremy talking about his sister.
“I don’t know how to tell you about Kate. I don’t know what words are the right ones to use so that you know that she was more than funny, or smart, or beautiful, or kind. But I can tell you this: Kate would know the right words. A friend of ours once told me that Kate always knew the right things to say.”
Startled, I drop my soaked tissue into my lap and sit up a little straighter. Because that was me: I was the friend who said that. I look around—no one can tell, of course, that he was talking about me. And even though I’m still crying, it’s somehow comforting to think that this is something that only Jeremy, Kate, and I know.
When I look down at my lap, I see that a fresh tissue has replaced the one I dropped. My mother is stuffing the dirty one into her purse.
“Thank you,” I whisper, and she nods at me, almost smiling.
When the service is over, the family files out in a different direction from everyone else, to what I guess is a room beside the chapel where they can get ready for the trip to the cemetery. A crowd gathers outside on the sidewalk, everyone waiting to say goodbye to the Coles. It’s remarkably cold today. There are a bunch of students here; some teachers too. I wonder if the students are getting excused absences and I wonder who’s covering the teachers’ classes. I wonder if they made an announcement. I bet they’ll hold a special assembly to help everyone deal with the loss—an hour I know Jeremy will spend hiding out somewhere else.
I button my coat up to my chin; dig my hat out of my bag and put it on. My mother pulls on thin leather gloves that I can’t imagine will keep her hands very warm. Someone grabs me from behind. It’s Jeremy, and he drags me around the corner.
“I want to have a cigarette before we leave, but I can’t do it in front of everyone,” he says, talking fast. I nod; everyone is out here, and they’d be mobbing him.
I look back for my mother—I don’t know if she saw Jeremy grab me. She might be looking for me. Jeremy takes me to the driveway behind the funeral home. There is a hearse parked next to where we stand. While Jeremy smokes, Kate’s casket is brought out and loaded into it. People who work here do it, like professional pallbearers. Jeremy acts like he doesn’t see, so I do too.
My eyes sting in the cold air from crying so much earlier, and smoke clouds Jeremy’s face.
“You