Pretty Girl

The air is heavy and laced with sorrow. My older sister clutches onto my hand whispering in my ear. "It'll be okay." She tells me, but from her red eyes and blotched cheeks I think she was only trying to comfort herself.

I look at her and she suddenly seems ages older than just eight as she's dressed in a new black dress my grandpa bought. I am wearing a similar dress, only mine has frills around the neck.

"What's wrong Sam?" I ask in a timid voice.

"We have to go say bye to Daddy today," Sam answers, using her free hand to push back my white blonde bangs behind my ears.

"Where's he going?"

"To visit the Angels."

"When's he coming back?"

"He's not, Claire. Dad isn't coming back."

*

This is the first time I've seen my mom in three whole days. She had locked herself in her room and wouldn't answer my knocks. I take a seat beside her in a row of chairs in attempts to get her attention but her eyes don't waver from the shiny wooden box at the front of the room.

My Aunt Louise sat on her other side with baby Emma sleeping in her arms. I look around for my cousins and the rest of my family but the room is full with unfamiliar people. Most of them are dressed in black, with tissues pressed to the corners of their eyes to catch the escaping tears. The rest of the unknown people are in uniforms with shiny buttons and polished shoes. Their faces are like stone, just like my moms.

Sam takes the seat beside me and my grandpa takes the chair beside her, filling the row of people. Sam takes my hand again and squeezes tight. Normally I would pull her hair or bite her skin when she hurt me but this time I stayed extremely still, allowing her to grasp as tight as she likes, knowing that she needs me.

An old man takes his place in front of the shiny wooden box and begins to speak. "We are gathered here today because of a tragic accident of a beloved veteran..."

*

We've left the room with all of the chairs and now Sam is sitting in between Emma's car seat and my booster chair. I pick at the stickers I've placed on the windows, concentrating on each sticker to try and drown out the sniffles coming from my mom in the passenger seat.

Three shots go off and I pull my hand away from Sam's grasp to cup my ears. The flag that was unfolded on the shiny wooden box was now being folded by a man in the uniform with the shiny buttons. Soon the box in lowered into the hole in the ground and the unfamiliar people begin to back away.

Emma is crying from the gun shots and my grandpa takes her to the car. The man who folded the flag hands it to my mom and says something I can't hear before leaving with the rest. All to soon it was just me, Sam and my mom standing there looking at the box ready to be covered in earth.

"Say bye to Daddy girls," Mom chokes out holding the flag tightly to her chest.

"Love you dad," Sam says in a ghostly whisper.

"Ducky loves you too, yup yup yup!" I shout, making sure my dad hears me.

Sam gives me a warm smile before wrapping me into a hug. We never hug but something tells me to wrap my arms around her and hold her tight. I feared that she would go where my dad went; I feared that Sam would go talk to the angels too.

*

I find my mom outside of my Grandma's house. Her cheeks are stained with black marks.

"Mama?" I ask curling up beside her. She wraps her arm around me and pulls me in tight.

"Hi Princess."

"How did Daddy die?" I look up at her searching for information in her eyes.

She takes a heavy breath and takes a long blink before turning her attention to me. "Claire you know those car crashes that you see sometimes on the news?" I nod my head. "Well he was in one of those. He drank a little too much and got into one of those crashes."

*

I wake with a startle, my clothes drenched in sweat. I place my hand over my heart and feel its heavy beat. This memory constantly haunted my dreams and chased me throughout the night.

I lay their allowing my heartbeat to become steady. The clock reads just two and it's eerily quiet. This was uncommon for an early Sunday morning. Normally there was the constant sound of broken glass and curdled screams. That was normal, quiet was not.

And on cue I hear the alarm as two bodies stumble through the front yard. The alarm goes off as someone punches in the four digit code and I listen to them stagger into the kitchen. I hear the protest of the condiments in the door as the fridge opens aggressively. The rattle of glass bottles tells me that the drinking isn't over that the screaming would begin soon.

I close my eyes and beg the demons to take me away, far away from here. Away from this shit hole I cannot escape from.