“No, peanut. I don’t want to see the sun kiss the parking lot of this place.” Her eyes moved around the room. It was covered in flowers, in color, but nothing could disguise what it really was. “No, I want to be in the fresh air, with not a sterile wall in sight,” she joked warmly.
I put the book down. “Okay, I’ll see what I can do,” I replied slowly, knowing how unlikely it would be to be able to take Mom out of the hospital. She might not even survive the short car trip. An excruciating pain stabbed through my crumpled heart at that thought.
“Peanut, I mean after I’m gone,” she murmured softly, holding out her hand.
I leaned forward and grasped it gently. It was cold. I was worried if I gripped it too hard the bones would shatter.
Her eyes searched mine. “I want the day you say goodbye to me to be when you can watch the sun set, and know that I’ll be going somewhere beautiful, following the rays to somewhere you can’t see, but you can always feel,” she said, her voice croaky.
I nodded, through the tears in my eyes, unable to speak. My throat swelled up with pain and grief.
“I want it to be on the top of that hill at that cemetery we used to go to, amongst all of those beautiful old tombstones,” she continued.
We visited graveyards together. Weird, most people would say, but I’d never known different. My mom was beauty from the inside out, and she found beauty in the most unusual of places. A lot of her best works were inspired by graveyards. She was fascinated by them. I liked them because they were quiet. I could be alone with my thoughts while Mom sketched furiously on her notepad.
“I want you to wear a yellow dress,” she announced, her eyes dreamy. “Rebecca too,” she added with a grin. “You look so pretty in yellow, and I don’t want you wearing some depressing color like black. I want yellow,” she decided.
“I can do that, Mom,” I said, outwardly trying to disguise my utter despair over discussing my wardrobe choices for the funeral of my mother. My best friend. My hero. My everything. “Though Bex will curse you for making her wear such a cheerful color,” I added, maintaining my charade.
Mom grinned. “She’ll curse me, but she’ll wear biker boots and excess eyeliner and look like the beautiful girl she is,” she said, her eyes warm. She squeezed my hand. “Sunset and yellow, peanut,” she repeated.
“Sunset and yellow, Mom,” I promised.
So, here we were. In a cemetery, at dusk, wearing bright yellow dresses. Mom was right, Bex wore her signature combat boots and heavy kohl eyeliner, her black hair messed in choppy layers, the dipped purple ends brushing her shoulders. She looked completely and utterly her.
Me, not so much. I didn’t even know how to be me, let alone create a look that represented who I was. My yellow dress used to be snug on me, tight at the waist and ballooning out into a fifties style skirt, kissing my knees. Now, it was loose, my long hair lay flat around my shoulders. The tan I normally had to complement it was long gone, considering I spent my days in a hospital room, and my nights in a bar. But I wore it, even though the color I identified most with was black. I got why people wore it. So their outsides matched their insides. To cloak the despair.
People had started arriving, and I had to commence my duties as the daughter, greeting old friends, acquaintances and fans of my mom’s work. We didn’t have family. She had a lot of friends, though. My mom was likable, a ball of light. People radiated toward her. People that by chance did not find black appropriate for a funeral either. Most of them were hippies like Mom, so a lot of flowing skirts and bright colors decorated the graveyard. It was kind of poetic and beautiful. Well, it would have been if I hadn’t been drowning under the weight of my grief.
The clearing of the priest’s throat had me stop my conversation with my mom’s artist friends and turn my attention to him. My gaze flickered to the coffin, one that I’d avoided looking at. Covered in flowers, letters and drawings it looked like something my mom would’ve loved. I wanted to feel warm about that, about the fact my mom would have loved every part of this. I couldn’t. My mom would have loved this—past tense—she can’t love it. Because she was dead, right in that beautifully disguised coffin. I averted my gaze, feeling the pins and needles stronger now. Bex squeezed my hand. Aiden took my other. I focused on the priest.
“Now, I understand Faith’s daughter, Lily is going to say a few words,” he declared, after his monolog.