Chapter 2

Sunlight flooded the otherwise dismal scene.  Everyone was dressed from head to toe in black garments, except for one man whose sock was clearly navy blue, that was Leah’s Great Uncle Thaddeus.  He wasn’t all there; it came with old age Leah supposed.  But aside from those small details, everything else carried a somber mood.   
    The priest drawled on about – something.  It wasn’t that Leah didn’t care; she loved her grandmother more than anything.  It was just such a shock.  Just last Tuesday she had been with her grandmother baking cookies, and everything seemed fine.  Then suddenly, the next day, she just dropped dead.  The weird part was that Leah didn’t feel upset about it, which disturbed her very much.  Shouldn’t she feel remorse for someone she loved so much?  It’s as if she never felt the impact of her death.  At all. 
    The priest finally brought his sermon to an end, and everyone began to part, hand kerchiefs in hand. 
    The reality of the funeral seemed to hit her like a brick as she stepped into her mother’s beat up old Chevy.  Her back stuck to the interior due to the heat, or the unknown sticky residue that spontaneously engulfed the material two years ago.  She buckled herself in, but it seemed to constrict her.  But, that could have been partially due to the knot that had just begun to ford inside her chest. 
    Leah and her grandmother were very close.  Hardly a day ever passed that she didn’t think about her, much less talk to her.  Leah’s and her grandmother got along quite well, and they shared a lot of times together.  Leah always went to her grandma’s house to escape the monthly wrath from her mother that only seemed to be getting more and more frequent.  It was more like a bi-weekly occurrence now.  Her mother should get that checked out, Leah often thought to herself.
    The old Chevy bounced along the road, creaking and cracking.  It was alive with noise.  The road was bumpy, or maybe it was just the crappy suspension.  The sound of gravel could be heard crunching beneath the tires. 
    Leah leaned her head against the shaking window.  It made her head bounce repetitively against the glass, but the recurring motions were soothing in a strange way.  Or maybe it was that the increasing pain in her forehead distracted her from the reality of the current circumstances. 
The constant jerking of the car made the tears on her cheeks stray from the path they would have normally taken down her face. 
    It was just so odd thinking that her Grandmother was really gone. 
    The car began to slow as they reached their driveway.  Their house was pretty small, a single story ranch on the outskirts of town, hidden from the main road behind a small grove of pine trees.  It was a cozy place to be, and Leah couldn’t wait to just go home and lay down.  The thought of her pillow comforted her, but she knew that it would be soaked in tears by the time the hour ended.
    She didn’t want to cry in front of her mother.
    As soon as Leah stepped through the threshold of her house she made a start for her bedroom, but her mother had stopped her by calling her name.
    “Leah…I know you may not want to talk, but we have to,” her mother said solemnly.
    “I don’t want to talk.  I just want to lie down and think.  I’ll come out when I’m ready,” said Leah as the tears began to well up behind her eyes.
    “Well, you best be ready in an hour, because we need to stop by your grandmother’s”
    “But I don’t want to”
    “You don’t have a choice, I’m bringing you with me and that’s it.  I’m not going in alone,” replied her mother.
    “It’s not like Grandma is there to fight with!  She’s dead!” Leah raised her voice, the talk of her grandmother made the tears roll down her cheeks.
    “You’re coming and that’s that!” her mother yelled before slamming her bedroom door behind her.
    Leah couldn’t understand why her mother couldn’t act civil just for the day, her mother had just died and you’d think that she’d actually be a little bit remorseful.  Apparently not.  Then again, her mother and grandmother never really got along at all. 
    Diving onto her bed, she let her tears flow freely.  The loss of her grandmother wasn’t the only thing that bothered her, the fact that her mother didn’t seem to care made it all worse.  She felt as though she had to grieve for two.  Even though it sounded ridiculous, even to her, Leah believed that she had to.  Her grandmother deserved to be grieved, she was always there for her mother and herself, even though the family never really got along, they were still a family.  They still loved each other.  Which was why Leah couldn’t understand why her mom was acting so strangely.
    After awhile of pondering this with no results, Leah reached a conclusion.  This just must be how her mother handled her grief.  She held it in, and when she was yelling, or acting out, it was really that she was just releasing the grief she couldn’t otherwise express.
    That had to be it.
    Leah turned to her side and curled up in a small ball.  She let her tears and the warmth of her blankets slowly pull her into a weak, but much needed sleep. 

xXx

    Leah was woken up by her mother’s yelling.
    Slowly moving and coming back into consciousness Leah wiped the moist remnants of tears from her face, straightened out her hair with her fingers, and with one last sob made her way into the hall. 
    “We’re going to your grandmother’s now,” said Leah’s mother, looking as if she too just woken up “get your stuff on.  Let’s go.”
    Leah grabbed her coat from the closet and quickly put on her shoes.  Why did they even have to go there in the first place?  Couldn’t it wait until tomorrow?  Leah wondered, but went along with her mother’s request anyway.  If she didn’t, it would probably end up in a real fight, and Leah really didn’t need the pressure of that on top of her grandmother’s death. 
    They walked to the car in silence; the only noises that could be heard were the sound of the ground beneath their feet and the echoes of birds fluttering about the pines.  The sun was still high in the sky, and it hadn’t begun to set just yet.  Good thing for the long days of summer, Leah’s Grandma always liked it when the sun was out.  If nothing else went right that night, nothing could stop the sun from retreating late, and at least that would make her grandmother happy.  You know - if she was still amongst the living.
    The car ride to her grandmother’s house was unusually silent.  The creaking of the car seemed unusually loud before Leah’s mother spoke up.
    “So…” she began, wincing “We’re moving.”
    “What?” Leah replied, jaw dropping.
    “Not far, just to your Grandmother’s house.  There are some things that we need to take care of, and I’d figured it’d be easier that way.”
    “Just like that?” Leah said, her voice rising “I don’t want to move!  I like where we are now.  Plus,” she added, her voice cracking “I can’t live in Grandma’s house!”
    “Listen, it will all get better in time…”
    “Mom.  Mother.  She just died, and I don’t think it’s going to help the grieving process if everything I look at is going to remind of her.  It’s just…too…” she gave up looking for words and only began to sob.
    “It’s not as bad as you think,” her mother said, rubbing Leah’s leg to comfort her “Trust me.”
    Leah didn’t really want to trust her mother.  There really wasn’t any other choice though, because despite their differences, her mother was right a lot of the time, and Leah didn’t have the strength at the moment to argue.

xXx

    They gravel crunched and shifted as the rusty old car pulled up to Leah’s grandmother’s house.
    It was a large Victorian, painted in gold and red, it looked beautiful with the sun shining on it.  It almost glowed.   
    The lawn was prim and in great shape, her grandmother was a fantastic gardener.  She had a real green thumb.  Every plant seemed perfectly healthy and no leaf withered and no flower faded.  Well, thought Leah, if they had to move into her grandmother’s house, she could at least tend to the garden.  Keep her grandmother’s plants alive.  Her grandma loved them like they were her own children. 
    Leah and her mother walked around the back of the house, to the back doors.
    As Leah opened the patio doors and stepped into the kitchen – she screamed. 
    There, sitting at the kitchen table, was her grandmother.     
 

Reviews

[Vaughn]

i agree with Phalen

The displaying of the main character's thoughts really portrays her personality well.

Spelling and grammar errors, yes, but whatever.

I especially like the cliffhanger at the end.

Hmmm...perhaps a physical description of Leah and her mother would do the story well?