Six Feet Under The Stars

“What the hell are they?” I asked stupidly following my giddy aunt into the kitchen where she proceeded to lay the flowers down on the worktop and fish around in a cupboard for a vase.

“Well there are some carnations in there, and some lilies, oh and some of those very pretty pink chrysanthemums that your mother adored,” she rattled off her voice a little muffled as she had her head inside a cupboard. I rolled my eyes at her back and mimicked her silently using a few hand gestures that would be sending me to hell for sure.

With her vase now rested on the worktop beside the flowers Michelle ripped them open and pulled out a pair of scissors from a nearby drawer.

“Is there a card?” I asked quietly and she handed me it silently with a cheeky smile plastered on her face. I cringed openly before pulling the white card from the equally as white envelope.

I’m sorry for your loss, Alex xx & Jack

I smiled lightly and showed an intrigued Michelle the card watching her face light up in amusement as she too took notice of Jack’s added scribble at the end of the smart cursive Alex’s note had been printed in. It was a sweet thing for them to do and when I crawled back onto the couch beside my brother who wore a very amused smirk on his face I made sure to erase any other thought from his mind.

“They were to say sorry for our loss, I guess Michelle must have told them.”

Colby nodded slowly and turned to face the television, “Yeah Alex and Jack stopped by yesterday looking for you, said something about wanting your opinion of presents for their mothers.”

I scoffed and muttered something about only men being useless when it came to buying presents and settled down to watch the television with my brother. It felt weird to think about how apart from Michelle, who really neither of us knew from Adam, he was the only family that I had left now. I went from having a mum and a dad to having neither in less than two months.

Sometimes it occurred to me just how much life sucked.

I quickly became engrossed in the re-run of Will & Grace. Michelle joined us after about twenty minutes the bunch of flowers neatly arranged in her stylish chrome vase which she placed on the coffee table my feet were resting upon.

At home I would have been scolded for doing such a thing but Michelle simply flopped back into her own seat and kicked her own legs up onto the piece of furniture. It was one of the many things I liked about my aunt, she was so relaxed and carefree and with my situation it was exactly what I needed.

“My god you guys don’t actually watch this crap do you?” she asked with a bored tone to her voice.

Colby and I nodded and answered in sync with a resounding, “yes.”

Michelle groaned loudly as a hint but we ignored her. Apart from Friends it was my favourite show; Karen being my favourite character because she was such a bitch and I loved that.

“Jack C-3PO is not gay, he’s British.”

Colby and I laughed together for a few minutes before letting it subside into another comfortable silence. I could tell that Michelle was finding it hard to see anything funny about the two gay guys and straight girl that graced her television screen but there was little she could do about it.

“I’m going to my room to read, this crap is giving me a headache,” she moaned before jumping up from the couch and disappearing up the stairs as loudly as she could.

I rolled my eyes at her childish behaviour and smiled, I think it was obvious to both Colby and I that she was just trying to keep our minds off of the depressing six weeks we had suffered. I mean we had suffered two devastating losses and even though I was going to miss them a whole lot I was actually sort of glad that my parents were together again.

I wasn’t at all religious and I didn’t believe in heaven or hell but my mother had and it comforted me to think that she was no longer alone in a new place.

A commercial break spurred my brother into talking about our father’s funeral. He spoke of us going back home to be there and drew up a verbal list of pro’s and con’s on the matter. He listed things quickly and I soon found myself trying to calm him down.

He had become hysterical, and I knew that if told him I had no plans to go back home he would probably start yelling at me for being so inconsiderate, but I had to it before I caved in and went home anyway.

I took a quick intake of air before letting the words roll off of my tongue, “Colby I’m not going home.”

He stared at me for a long time and his breathing returned to normal quite quickly. I looked down at my hands almost ashamed as he started to shake his head at me, a look of complete disgust and disappointment on his face. I wanted to cry and give him all of my reasons for being against going to my own father’s funeral but I knew it was futile. Colby would only give me one chance and one reason to explain myself so I had to make it worthwhile.

“Cole, he stopped being my father the day mum died.”