Arcadia's Gift - By Jesi Lea Ryan Page 0,16

I probably would’ve let her have it if she hadn’t been so demanding about it. Instead, I held onto it out of spite. The clip now was fastened around a badly composed poem to my sister that I’d written in third grade. A few of the words were misspelled and the overly melodramatic lines didn’t really rhyme, but Lony had kept it pinned to her bulletin board in her bedroom ever since. I planned to slip it and the hair clip into the casket before it was closed.

Aunt Tina gave the eulogy for the family. Grandma had asked me to do it, but I begged off. I didn’t like public speaking on a good day, and there was no way I’d be able to hold it together on this one. My aunt’s words washed over me without sinking in. My mind whirled with all of the things I wanted to say to Lony before they closed the casket on her forever. The last time I’d seen her, she and Cane had been bickering. I snuck a glance down the row at him. The muscles of his jaw twitched beneath the surface of his freshly shaven skin, and his blood-shot eyes appeared tired and dry. It was sad that her final moments had been spent fighting. When the eulogy was over, our family remained seated while ushers dismissed everyone else with instructions that the burial would be a private, family ceremony.

Once the bulk of the crowd cleared out of the chapel, our family members drifted up one at a time to kneel on the velvet cushion before the coffin to pay their last respects. I waited as long as possible. I didn’t want an audience.

When my turn came, I settled on my knees beside her and folded my hands on the waxy wooden rail. Carefully, I allowed my gaze to drift over my sister from waist to head.

I had expected to see Lony there, but I realized with some surprise that body lying there was not her. My sister was long gone. The mortician had made her up to appear younger and more conservative than she’d been in life. Her hair was brushed and positioned so that it framed her face. She wore the plum colored dress that we had taken our family pictures in the year before, a dress that I remembered her complaining made her neck itch. The smoky eye make-up that I’d been so accustomed to seeing on her over the past year was gone, leaving a fresh face with only a hint of mascara and lip gloss. It looked more like my body in the coffin than hers. I shuddered.

I’d been so absorbed with drinking in her appearance, I didn’t notice the long moments that passed. When Dad touched my shoulder and indicated that my turn was up, my heart jumped into my throat. No! I screamed inside. I’m not ready for her to be gone!

Pastor Tom gathered the remaining family members and Cane in front of the coffin to say some last words. The tenor of his voice sounded far away, and I concentrated on saying my own silent good-byes, which I’d neglected to do before.

One by one, people began heading for their cars to get ready for the procession to the cemetery.

As I left the chapel, I turned back to see Cane, all alone now, watching the two somber men from the funeral home close the lid and set an arrangement of roses on top. He’d been the last person to see her in life. It seemed fitting that he be the last to see her in death.

It wasn’t until we were in the car on the way home that I felt the butterfly hair clip still in my pocket.

Chapter 8

The next week and a half faded past me in blur. The pain in our house was almost unbearable. When Lony died, she left behind a hole that stifled us with its emptiness. My mother, Aaron and I spent most of our time in our bedrooms, Mom in a Valium-induced haze. She crumbled after the funeral and hadn’t gotten out of her pajamas since. Aaron drowned his thoughts in death metal in the basement until Dad stopped by and told him to keep it down so as not to disturb Mom. Me? I spent long afternoons sitting on the cushy window seat in my bedroom watching a flock of cardinals nest in our backyard pine tree.

Just over two weeks after the accident, I awoke early