Elizabeth's Family July 4 2009

Elizabeth's Family

July 4, 2009

Marcie and Dan sat together on the living room couch. Outside were the sounds of fireworks, and celebration. Inside the walls of this house, it was nothing but mourning.

As Elizabeth's parents, they should have seen this coming, shouldn't they? Marcie wiped another tear from her eye as Dan squeezed her hand reassuringly. They both burned to read the journal Elizabeth wrote. Even more than that though, they wanted to read her letter. Perhaps, in that one piece of paper, they could truly find comfort from their only child.

The doorbell rang. Both Marcie and Dan stared blankly forward, as if waiting for the other to answer it. Finally, Dan stood and made his way to the door.

“Hi Lilly,” he said, moving out of the way to make room for his sister in law to walk into the house. Her eyes were bloodshot from crying, it was easy to see. They hugged each other tightly, reaching out for comfort. Lilly shook with a new set of sobs and rushed into the living room to Marcie, who's well of tears had run dry.

“James is so torn up over all of this. I guess its hitting him really hard. Mitch doesn't know how to handle it.”

“Mitch is a good dad,” Dan said, overhearing as he walked into the room. “He'll handle James just fine.”

“This is all just so terrible. She just turned seventeen, getting ready to start her senior year of high school. What happened?”

“I wish we knew,” Marcie said, taking a deep breath. The phone rang and Marcie looked to Dan. “Can't we just ignore it?”

“No. Its impolite.” Dan stood again, and left the room to answer the phone. Lilly and Marcie sat in silence until Dan returned. “It was my parents. They're dropping by something for us to have for dinner.”

Marcie, who was too drained to do any cooking, let out a sigh of relief. For Elizabeth's whole life she worried about outliving her only daughter. She always feared something else though. Disease, accidents...not Elizabeth herself.

The tears that she had believed to have run dry suddenly started to fall from Marcie's eyes yet again. She excused herself, rushing to the bathroom to try and hide her grief. She collapsed on the toilet seat and gave way to the new set of sobs. She could hear Lilly's anxious voice carrying through the hall. Marcie took deep breaths, trying to calm herself.

Dan tapped on the door a minute later, and let himself into the bathroom. Marcie tried to hide her face, but that was hard to do in the close quarters while Dan took her hands in his.

“It'll be okay,” He soothed, kissing her on the forehead.

“Dan, our daughter is dead, and you're telling me that everything will be fine? It wont be fine. It hasn't been fine. Where did we go wrong?”

“I don't know. It's driving me crazy though. You know it is. I never saw this coming. You didn't see this coming. No one did,” he said, locking eyes with his wife. In the distant part of the house, the doorbell rang.

“Your mom and dad are here,” Marcie said, wiping a tear from her cheek. “We should go...”

Dan nodded and gripped Marcie's hand in his own and together they walked out to face the world.

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