Solo Finished Only The Good Die Young

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EmmaLee, Alura, and Grace walked hand in hand down the stormy street within their circle of parents, protected from the still-pounding rain by their black umbrellas. The church was only a few blocks away, but EmmaLee felt like they both had miles and only inches to walk to get there. The group passed in heavy silence as they arrived far too quickly to the empty, hollow church.

The women entered first, followed by the girls, as the men turned out the door, shook the water out from their umbrellas, and placed them in a large, waiting stand in the vestibule. EmmaLee looked around at the ornate building. It was a wizard church, hidden behind the facade of a crumbling warehouse, and even though EmmaLee had been there many times before, the contrast of the outside and the inside still floored her for the first few moments after she stepped inside the main foyer and followed the adults into the sanctuary.

The sound of a door opening echoed out into the empty building like deep church bells and an elderly man in a priest's robes appeared from a doorway near the pulpit. He was one of the oldest-looking people EmmaLee had ever seen, but he moved as if he was no older than her stepfather. This was Father Rosario, the priest of Our Lady of Good Counsel, and as far as EmmaLee understood, he had been running this church since Mr. Kennedy's grandfather was alive, so y'know, he probably was the oldest person EmmaLee had ever seen. He walked over to the Kennedys and gave them huge, long hugs before the three of them began talking about the proceedings and supposedly making final decisions.

Before she could really think about what was going on, EmmaLee and her friends were also swept up in the preparations. EmmaLee and Grace's mothers both believed that grief was handled with food and work, so they had made more food and had found more things to do over the last week than EmmaLee could ever have imagined and this situation was no different. The three girls were shuffled, always together, through decorating the sanctuary and the reception room, through adding finishing touches to and setting up food for people to enjoy in said reception room after the Mass, anything they could do to help lighten the Kennedys' workload on this awful day.

In the midst of preparation, EmmaLee was left with little time to think or talk, which was completely fine with her. She was completely numb, still going through the motions and just doing what she was told mechanically, like a dark little robot. She didn't know what to think or say around the giant hole that Kiernan had left in their lives. Everyone was walking on eggshells, unsure if they should mention him or not, unsure if they should remember him and share memories around the table, or let his absence take his memory away, as well. Something would happen and someone would start to bring him up, start to bring him into the conversation, and everyone would either stare, horrified at the thought of forgetting he was gone, or start to join in and realize that he couldn't and feel sad again, cutting the memory off at the knees before it could really stand. It was that shallow line between mourning a loss and celebrating a life, especially one cut so short that cut those around his so deep.

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Soon, other people began to trickle into the church foyer.

At some point while EmmaLee had been busy, Kiernan's parents had stationed themselves there to greet guests and as people trickled in, EmmaLee, Grace, Alura, and their parents joined them. EmmaLee hugged people she vaguely knew and let them wipe her dry face and smooth her hair without really hearing any of their apologies or words of hopeful comfort. She was not comforted, and as the foyer slowly filled with family and people who knew Kiernan in life, she began to feel claustrophobic. Panic slowly filled her from her toes, through her ankles and calves, to her knees, hips, torso, arms, shoulders, neck, fingers, but just as she was getting ready to follow her instincts and run directly out the front door, Grace and Alura wrapped their arms around her simultaneously, and she could feel their hot tears soaking the shoulders of her black dress.

EmmaLee's own face suddenly felt wet and hot as she was brought back down from hysteria by her dear friends and the three turned to the opening door, another crack of thunder, as their fathers and Mr. Kennedy exited through them. Outside EmmaLee could see the end of a black hearse and the four men opened the door to pull out a gleaming, white coffin and bear it inside on their shoulders.

EmmaLee watched, tears that she had thought were long dried up dripping from her chin and onto her shiny, black Mary Jane shoes, as the men placed the coffin on a table just inside the vestibule, dried it off, and covered it with a white sheet. The priest said something, a prayer?, EmmaLee wasn't really listening, over the coffin and then led a procession of people in white robes through the parted crowd and into the sanctuary. The fathers carrying the coffin followed the procession, followed by the mothers, all holding Mrs. Kennedy as if they were the only reason she could walk, the girls, holding each other in the same manner, and then everyone else who had gathered in the foyer.

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Beautiful music filled the church as people filed in behind the coffin and took their seats like a macabre, choreographed parade. There was no murmuring, no whispers of "excuse me" or "this taken?" or "I'm sorry", not even a shuffling of hundreds of feet on the plush, navy carpet. Was it new in the ancient church? There was not a sound in the church except for the lonely hymn about coming home ringing through the rafters. It was as if God himself had sucked the air out of the room with a straw, leaving only his angels to breathe enough to sing.

As everyone was taking their silent seats, the fathers tended to the coffin, pulling the sheet back and folding it over one side so they could open the door to the tan boy inside. As his friends settled the lid, Mr. Kennedy leaned over the edge with both hands splayed out over the sides, fingers gripping the edge and arms locked in straight, perpendicular lines propping him up for dear life, and for half a moment it looked to EmmaLee like he was going to climb inside in the coffin himself before she could see his shoulders shake with supposed sobs instead and he collapsed onto his elbows over his son's body. EmmaLee could feel her friends squeezing her hands and her brain told her digits to squeeze back, but she wasn't sure if they were listening.

As Mr. Kennedy was guided away by his wife and friends to his seat in front of his son, EmmaLee could see the sleeping boy in full view. She could almost laugh. Kiernan was never that peaceful in life, but he looked as if his eyes could pop open at any moment. She didn't know what a corpse that fell off a cliff was supposed to look like, but someone had worked some kind of magic to not leave a trace or a scar of his injury on his resting face. Dully, as if thinking through mud, EmmaLee traced the features of his face. It occurred to her that he was forever trapped between a boy and a man now. He would have been 14 in almost exactly a month. His jaw had become more angular in the time they hadn't seen each other, but his cheeks still had baby fat in them. Similarly, his nose and chin had gained definition, but his ears still didn't quite fit his face, like a basset hound whose ears drag on the floor when it's a puppy. EmmaLee almost laughed again before her eyes moved to Kiernan's eyelids, forever shuttering pools of chocolate she would never see again.

For a blink, EmmaLee thought of Stephen. Her heart wrenched at the thought of him ever being in the same place as Kiernan, even when he was as old as Father Rosario. He was probably just getting to his science um thing now. She couldn't really remember what he was doing at the moment, her mind was like a miasma and it was a little hard to even remember her own name. Later, in the middle of a sleepless night, EmmaLee would roll the difference in the ache in her mind. Kiernan was a brother, a soul sibling, a piece of who she was like the seeds in an apple that you cut out when you make a pie. Stephen was an addition, an ingredient for who she could be like the sugar that, under fire, seeps in and makes the apples tender and sweet, but that is an analysis for another brain.
Mourning brain has already moved on with the ceremony.

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EmmaLee stared at Kiernan's ever-sleeping face with the intensity of someone studying for a test that could change their life and moved through the funeral proceedings through a cloud: standing when everyone stood, kneeling when everyone knelt, speaking in a wordless tonation when everyone else spoke. Each of the fathers stood up to read unintelligible passages from the Bible, Alice Kennedy and then EmmaLee's mother led the choir in songs that passed through EmmaLee's ears like lazy bees, the Priest spoke between various rituals, stand, sit, stand, kneel, stand, sit, a macabre dance to go along with the macabre parade. A dance everyone around but EmmaLee seemed to know, though she did a good job of following the footsteps left behind by her family and friends, like a fresh trail in the snow.

When the funeral service was over, Aidan and Alice Kennedy led the girls over by the hands to stand beside the head of the coffin. EmmaLee refused to think of it as Kiernan's coffin. It had been explained to EmmaLee, Alura, and Grace that they would be treated as Kiernan's sisters, as they were in every sense except blood. So the girls stood as his official family along with his parents and received more hugs and pets and words of comfort that were not comforting, as the people in the church continued their silent, macabre parade past the coffin and out the back door to the graveyard that was behind the church.

Alice held onto EmmaLee's hand as if for dear life as she hugged her family and friends with the other arm. Every once in a while, Alice's pale, pink manicured hand would come up to EmmaLee's cheek and wipe the still flowing tears uselessly away and she would smile a mournful, rueful smile down at her son's friend that resonated to EmmaLee's core somehow. She had a sensation that Alice was not the strong one here. That somehow, like her mother had done earlier, EmmaLee's pale, tiny hand inside that perfectly polished palm was the only thing keeping the grieving woman standing as she received a thousand condolences for her son's death at the head of her son's lifeless body.

Aidan Kennedy was in a similar state, though he didn't need to hold Alura or Grace's hand to keep himself upright. EmmaLee could see the dull, cloudy look in his eyes that really must have matched her own, as it matched his wife's. It struck EmmaLee that Kiernan had his father's eyes: deep pools of chocolate brown that peaked up at the edges and had far too many black lashes for a man. They probably crinkled into crow's feet when he laughed as Kiernan's did, though EmmaLee had clearly never paid enough attention to Kiernan's father to notice. EmmaLee turned to find Kiernan in his mother and found his face shape in her jaw and nose and his determination in the set of her shoulders, even as she clung to a young girl's hand for strength. It was enough to make EmmaLee cry again if she hadn't already been crying.

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As the crowd dwindled and the last mourner headed out the back door, the four men stepped forward to close the coffin and Alice took a step away to allow them the space to do so, pulling EmmaLee gently along with her.

"WAIT!" A harmony of voices called, one of which coming from EmmaLee's own mouth, as EmmaLee, Alura, and Grace rushed forward in unison back towards the coffin. The girls looked at each other, shocked at the simultaneous idea, before smiling sadly at each other and quietly taking turns to say their final, final goodbyes.

EmmaLee watched, twisting the hem of her dress despairingly, as Alura, then Grace leaned over the coffin before she stepped up herself. Alura wordlessly settled onto her hands and knees next to the alabaster box so that EmmaLee, the shortest of the friend group, could use her as a footstool and properly reach the coffin. Although there was some shuffled movement from the adults and a small chuckle from definitely Alura's mother and EmmaLee's stepfather, no one actually moved or spoke to stop them as EmmaLee carefully stepped onto her friend's back.

Resisting the weird urge that suddenly rose up within her to fully climb into the coffin with her friend, EmmaLee leaned over and stroked his curly black hair and face instead. "Jusqu'à ce que nous nous revoyions."Until we meet again. She whispered hoarsely as tears dripped from her chin onto his black, silk tie. Did the river ever truly run out? She did lean over the edge of the coffin, place her forehead to his, and let out a deep, heavy sob before straightening up, stepping lightly back onto the navy carpet, and helping Alura up off the floor with both hands.

Once Alura stood, Grace rushed over to the pair still holding hands and the three girls crushed each other into a hug as they all began to sob, the sounds of their unrestrained misery ringing through the once again empty hall, save a found family. Alice and Aidan covered the girls in their own arms and sobs, followed by the remaining parents, who did not cry but sheltered their own like a castle during a siege until the rivers of sorrow abated once more.

Aidan and Alice stepped away from the group to do the honors of closing the casket on their son, Alice dipping down and placing a lipstick print on her son's cheek, before pulling back and wiping her cheek with a hollow laugh. "Let's see him wipe that one off." She whispered, gaining a similar, hollow "heh" and quirk of the lips from her husband before Kiernan's face disappeared from sight forever.

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The coffin closed and the sheet replaced, the men bore the white burden upon their shoulders once more and walked it out of the hall after the awaiting mourners who had gathered around a small, white mausoleum. It was a pretty standard structure with roses planted completely around it. The roses were every color of the rainbow, including red, pink, orange, yellow, purple, and white, and climbed up the sides like a beautiful blanket of greenery to warm those sleeping inside. Above the open door the name KENNEDY was carved in large, bold letters above an intricate, similarly carved coat of arms featuring three helmets. The mourners had congregated on either side of the doorway, awaiting Kiernan's arrival to his final resting place with, presumably, generations of his family members.

The small group followed the coffin to the doorway, where it was placed on another table, the priest said more words that EmmaLee was not really listening to, read more from the Bible, and finally sprinkled water on the coffin before the fathers once more bore the coffin on their shoulders and the men all disappeared inside the dark building, Alice following inside, finally walking alone.

EmmaLee moved to follow them all inside as well but stopped as her mother gently put her hand on her shoulders in a way that told her to stay. She didn't want to stay out here. She wanted to follow them inside and sit in front of the place where Kiernan rested for the next month, year, lifetime. How could she possibly stay out here when her friend was to be forever locked in there?

Before she could really think through her cloudy mind to protest against her mother's restraint, the priest stepped out of the white, marble building and led the fellow mourners back into the church where they could fill whatever minuscule hole Kiernan had left in their hearts with food. After another few moments, Aidan and Alice stepped out of the building as well and led their friends into the reception hall, where EmmaLee could have eaten every moment for a thousand lifetimes and not filled the hole Kiernan had left in her heart, so she chose not to eat at all and, thankfully, no one pushed her to.

Blissfully, the well-wishers finally left the girls alone to stare three identical holes into the tablecloth, though they continued to comfort Kiernan's parents, and, after another while, the girls were allowed to return to the LeDames apartment, where they collapsed into a uniform heap back onto EmmaLee's bed and cried themselves to sleep, each girl wishing, in her own way, that they could be falling into the same hole Kiernan would be resting in for the rest of their lives instead of the plush, comfortable bed.

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