I Do It For Them

Chapter Fifteen

EIGHT YEARS LATER

“But he was so young.” I couldn’t help but feel pain as I stood before my dad’s grave. Ethan, Serena, Avory, and I all held red roses and studied the grave a while before giving the roses to him. I felt like roses represented him because they grew to be strong but wilted so easily. I’m not saying dad wilted, I’m saying he broke, and the heart attack finished it all for him. All in all, I thought it was best for him to go because he was in a happier place. Mom thought so too, even though they had gotten a divorce years ago. Serena even noted that, “Grandpa will be so much happier” even though she was only eight, going on nine, and dad couldn’t even remember her due to his condition.

Serena held onto my hand tightly, but she didn’t cry. Avory gazed at the decorated tombstone with bleak eyes. Maybe they didn’t have the best relationship, but no one could replace grandpa in Avory’s life. “It’s best this way, Sophia, and you know it.” I nodded at Ethan’s statement, staring at my upright flower just below dad’s name. We must have looked awful; my eyes were puffy, Ethan had a bit of scruff, Avory was moody, and Serena did absolutely nothing. Rather than awful, now that I think about it, we probably looked odd.

“It’s okay,” Serena attempted at reassuring me also. “I heard that there are angels who will sing to him every night when he goes to sleep and his bed is made of clouds!” Her hair turned out to be darker than I had thought, the opposite for Avory. I guess hers got darker as she got older and Avory’s got lighter. She had pigtails and the wind slightly blew strands of hair to catch the sunlight just right. Serena looked like an angel to me, which is ironic since she seems to know some much about them.

Avory rolled his eyes, throwing his hands behind his head to stretch, just like Ethan did. I could see Ethan smirk as he caught Avory mimicking him; Ethan couldn’t be more proud. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You haven’t even met an angel.”

“Have too,” Serena shot back. “Mabel is an angel and she tells me everything she knows about angels!” She gave Avory a sly look, one that both Ethan and I saw as we urged the kids back to the car during their fight. “She told me that you absolutely loved Jade!” I bit my lip to keep from laughing while Ethan didn’t even try to stop himself at all. Avory turned about fifty shades of red before he mumbled something about “lying little brat” and got in the car. He always was a terrible liar.

Ethan and I decided to stay quiet about Jade because 1) we weren’t mean enough to embarrass him about it. 2) he would become a stuttering mess and we wouldn’t get anywhere anyway. Instead, we got onto the topic of vacationing since summer was coming soon and we wanted to do something out of the ordinary. The kids always wanted to go to Disney World, we had yet to bring them, and Serena was daring to ask to go to Hawaii also. I didn’t do planes, unfortunately, especially the ones that flew over water.

Over the course of a twenty minute car ride, several ideas were thrown out and quite a few of those ideas were rejected by me. Ethan didn’t reject any of them, he gave them the answer, “We’ll think about it.” while I had to be the cruel one and lay on the bad news. I wasn’t doing it to be mean but going to a different continent was just… no. I was thinking of places on our continent. Even better if it was in our country. “Look,” Ethan had to stop the bickering in between Serena and Avory about which place would be better to vacation to. “Disney World sounds like the best option but Hawaii sounds fun also. What if we think on both and then decide?”

Serena, being an enthusiast, gave a wholehearted ‘yeah!’ while Avory only nodded. I noticed, for a while now, that Avory wasn’t his usual self. He usually stared off into space while a frown of concentration. Avory never concentrated on anything besides basketball. Of course, that was because school came easy for him. “What’ wrong Avory,” I asked out of pure concern.